Day Four

Day Four

Focus: Warrior I, Virabhadrasana I

Reading: Chapter Four of One Simple Thing

Mouth: The Yoga Bible (pages 60 & 61)

Anatomy: The Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book, Pose by Pose (pages 32 & 33)

Instructions:

It's day four and life gets real now. Maybe your motivation is flagging some. But, really after today, there's only ten days left. Just cut corners if you are running out of time. One asana to practice counts as a class. Just color in a few of the labeled parts. Let's gain strength from Warrior I.

  1. Read Chapter Four of One Simple Thing.

  2. Then, color page 32-33 of The Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book Pose by Pose. Practice the pose after coloring. Think about you hips and tryig to keep them headlight straight-forward.

  3. Finally, read aloud the cueing for this pose from pages 60 & 61 of The Yoga Bible. Practice this pose with your eyes open and your eyes closed. You will then see that Warrior I is surprisingly a balancing pose.


Bonus: Drishti. Think about your drishti as you practice today. Where do you focus? What effect does your vision's focus have on your mind?

Extra credit: If you take a yoga class today and they transition you from forward fold to standing postures like Warrior I, how did they cue it?

My Journal Entry from Day Four:

From One Simple Thing:

  • In studying neuroscience I had previously learned about how the eyes are part of the connective tissue to the brain and as such are the only direct link. I’ve read about people using studies of tissue health in the eyes to determine tissue health of the overall brain in a noninvasive way. (Here’s an example from the journal Nature.)

  • But besides using drishti to balance in yoga postures before, I’ve never really thought much about it. The ideas expressed in this chapter (page 70) about how the drishti instructions in yoga could steady and calm the mind are profound for me.

From today's yoga class:

  • Key Words: Outdoors!

  • Today my class was an outdoor class. Outdoor classes in NYC really became a major venue during the pandemic. The park near my house hold one class a day and it really became a lifeline for me. Today's class was with Lucia from the Harlem Yoga Studio and she is always such a centering presence. We had a surprise visit from a red-tailed hawk who perched nearby just as the sun was setting. The theme of the class was Earth and sky and Lucia reminded us a lot of grounding and lifting.