Thanksgiving Special: The Idle Hands Practice
The big day is over and you still have a long weekend ahead of you. You’ve got time on your hands and an abundance of energy. Time to put it to good use. This practice has a little bit of everything in it: inversions, standing poses, core work, back bends and twists. Feel free to cut it back according to your capabilities and the time available to you. You might try doing about half of the poses in the practice today, half of the poses tomorrow and then have a go at the whole thing from beginning to end on Sunday.
Thanksgiving Special: The Moment’s Peace Practice
This is practice is for when you need a time-out. Perhaps after the meal is underway, after cleaning up, or after company has finally gone. It is a quiet practice designed to restore and rejuvenate.
If you have an eye pillow or a face cloth, place it over your eyes in the supine poses.
Thanksgiving Special: The Digestive Bliss Practice
This quiet practice is designed for later in the day, after the big meal, or perhaps the next morning. It is a quiet, supported practice, designed to open the abdomen and to create space for digestion to happen.
Later on, perhaps even the next day once you’ve had a chance to digest, repeat The Fire in Your Belly Practice.
Thanksgiving Special: The Fire in Your Belly Practice
In just two days’ time you might be finding yourself sitting in front of a table spread with all sorts of delicious holiday foods. If you’re like me, even if you put just a small helping of everything on your plate, you’re still going to end up with a huge plate of food. This practice is designed to open your abdomen, tone your organs and increase blood flow to your digestive tract, stoking your digestive fires in preparation for the occasion.
Modify the practice according to your capabilities and the time you have available, but try and keep at least one of each of the different kinds of poses: standing, abdominals, twists and inversions. (more…)
Thanksgiving Special: The Family Friendly Practice
All this week, in celebration of the Thanksgiving Day holiday that we’re having here in the U.S., I thought I would do a special series to help you cope with the trials and tribulations of guests, entertaining and too much time off.
The aim of this practice today is to find you some peace of mind in the face of stressful interpersonal relationships. You could practice this in anticipation of the arrival of company, after company has left, or even in the midst of the holiday if you can get away.
The thought behind the sequence is to give you a gentle warm-up, followed by some relatively quick pose progressions that you don’t have to think about too much, culminating with Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose), a balancing pose that will require a certain amount of presence of mind to do well. All of this will get the blood moving and hopefully facilitate unblocking any emotional holding. The inversions will then help to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing the effects of stress and bringing you to a more serene state, which can then be consolidated by the restorative poses at the end of the practice. Keep this in mind if you find you need to edit the practice to fit within your capabilities and the time available to you. (more…)
© 2010 Witold Fitz-Simon.
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