Day Eleven

Day Eleven

Focus: Head-to-Knee Posture, Janu Sirsasana

Reading: Chapter Eleven of One Simple Thing

Mouth: The Yoga Bible (pages 150 & 151)

Anatomy: The Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book, Pose by Pose (pages 72 & 73)

Instructions:

Welcome to Day Eleven! You may have noticed that we've taken the postures to the ground this week.

  1. Read Chapter Eleven of One Simple Thing. Final full chapter of Stern's book. After this, we practice different techniques for meditation/breathing as he outlines at the end of the book. This chapter is much longer than previous chapters. you might consider breaking it up and reading a section on each of the remaining days as the following days are short practices to engage in to apply what we've learned.

  2. Then, color page 72-73 of The Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book Pose by Pose. Practice the pose after coloring. Get your strap ready.

  3. Finally, read aloud the cueing for this pose from pages 150 & 151 of The Yoga Bible. I didn't turn my foot with the toes down, but instead practiced this as is shown in the Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book.


Bonus: Approach an aspect of discomfort in your physical practice today with curiousity: does the discomfort grow, shrink, expand, pulse? (Not pain, but discomfort!) Try to enter the feeling of discomfort with your mind and feel out the boundaries and walls of it.

Extra credit: Download a heart rate app or a heart rate variability (HRV) app and see what you learn about your own HRV as is discussed this today's chapter in One Simple Thing.

My Journal Entry from Day Two:

From One Simple Thing:

  • "But by building up endurance throughout purposefully engaging in small amounts of hardship--such as calmly staying in a challenging pose for some time, or sitting for periods of meditation without moving--we build up the strength of mind to be able to endure discomfort, and this helps to make the mind steady" (p. 223)

  • I spent seven years as an endurance athlete--long distrance running, biking, triathlons. Much of that world was about staying the course without panic. There were many moments of simply keeping the mind steady through repetition. I didn't listen to music. Sometimes people asked, what do you think about? And my surprising answer was often that I didn't remember really thinking about anything. I feel similarly in the repetition of yoga class. Maybe as I enter a pose, I'm thinking about alignment, but at the end of class, I woudl say I didn't think about anything, but instead just stayed steady in the way that repetitive movements allow even in discomfort.

From today's yoga class:

  • Key Word: Mindful

  • Tonight's outdoor yoga practice was with Lucia from Harlem Yoga Studio. We practice on the platform in the center of Marcus Garvey Park. This historic tower used to be where the city watched for fires in lower Manhattan since it is a high point in the city. Now, when the trees lose their leaves, you can see all the way down fifth avenue to Grand Central. You also get a great view of the Empire State Building. The yoga practice was gentle and slow with a lot of three legged dog transitioning to knee to nose. I noticed that I am able to round my back more in that posture and shift my weight more onto my toes.