Yoga with Miin

The packing up after a LED! 🤯

Snippets from the new year retreat at Dec 2023 💚

🙏🏽🏊🏻‍♀️🪑🦘⛰️🥾🧘🏻‍♀️🕉️🐶☀️🌧️🌾🥖

Restorative set up

A quote from Light on Life on learning wisdom through adversity - it's common to hear yogis say that their practice remained available or accessible through injuries or other life changing events. This comes from informed or intelligent actions in the practice.

I find that self-observation is of great importance, so we can be conscious of every action we apply in the practice. By 'learning the subtlety of the craft'.

Adho (downward) Mukha (facing) Svanasana (dog)

❔How many variations have you practiced❔

🐾 Many but there are more! Heel support, hands into wall, feet on height, through the ropes, therapeutic etc.

❔What do you learn from each variation❔

🐾 Different set ups gives and teaches different sensations. Experiment to feel what the pose teaches.

❔Where do you feel challenged❔

🐾 Everywhere... to generate actions and drive through the full body while maintaining breath flow in the pose is a challenge. So always practice at your own pace.

❔Is it an active or restorative pose❔

🐾 It really can be both depending on the set up and how long we stay in the pose.

"Perfection in an asana is achieved when the effort to perform it becomes effortless and the infinite being within is reached." B.K.S. Iyengar

The theme from this morning's LED practice was about "effortless effort". Can we practice by balancing between doing and not doing? What gets in the way?

In practice we spend more time in the unfinished pose, we work at the wall or use props to teach and inform. This provides room and stability for exploration, so we can first learn and experience the "effortful". Over time, this is then balanced with the feeling of "effortless". The journey can be a long one between the both. Where am I at? Where are you at?

Intelligent action: less movement, more action.

When yoga tights and yoga pose become part of life 😁

Throw back to folk fest in Canberra.

"When most people stretch, they simply stretch to the point that they are trying to reach, but they forget to extend and expand from where they are."

The 4 from forward bends asana family.

▫️ (standing forward bend)
▫️ (downward facing dog)
▫️ (intense side extension)
▫️ (warrior 3 variation)

Practice repetitions to lengthen and warm up the hamstrings, allowing deeper explorative forward bends. Balance activity and passivity in forward bends to experience both exertion and relaxation (taken from Light on Life by BKS Iyengar).

.yoga.australia

Throw back to my first attempt at without the wall, where I lost balance and fell. Since then, I've had so many more failed attempts. 'Failed' here meaning losing balance and falling.

Now realising both the physical and internal work that goes in to each attempt, I no longer see failure, but work in progress. My work in progress.

Being in the state is what makes the practice sustainable, inquisitive and personal. . It teaches us to find the between failing and accomplishing. We can always find work no matter the experience or levels, there's always more.

Last weekend I passed the level 1 Iyengar assessment. Such an emotional process 😳 After settling down and the excitement subsided, I thought to myself: what now? And the answer: work in progress.

Thank you to my teacher, Vivienne O'Brien for being ever so encouraging, my assessment partner who inspired through her dedication and sharing many early morning practices, and to yogis at for your patience and support! xoxo

🙏🏽💚

Forward bend / forward extension practice.
Accessing forward bend actions by working the legs. When the legs are active, they power the base of the spine so the spine is directed to extend away from the hips.

Today's practice grid - chest opening.

The process is the most important thing. We can’t force our destination to arrive before we’ve completed the process.

So we must remain aware, and accept that the path is what we are experiencing right now, both physically and mentally.

Which asks us to discern the beauty and value of being present in the moment.

Why alignment?

“It is through alignment of the body that I discovered the alignment of my mind, self, and intelligence.” - BKS Iyengar

Join me in yoga 🧘🏻‍♀️

Swipe post for class times and book via MindBody app .

“The Yogi conquers the body by the practice of asanas, making the body a fit vehicle for the spirit. The Yogi knows that it is a necessary vehicle for the spirit, for a soul without a body is like a bird deprived of its power to fly.”
— B.K.S. Iyengar

“One thing at a time / concentrate on one thing and avoid distractions” is what my parents use to tell me. However, as I grow up and mature, the expectation seems to have changed: can you multitask? Can you take on more? How fast can you complete this?
💭💭💭

The ongoing self-study/self-observation in practice. My practice might look the same but most days it feels different. Sometimes energy levels are slightly lower than usual. Sometimes the mind is so charged and busy it makes it challenging to stay in an asana. Being observant to the state of self at the here and now allows me to keep my practice.
As I experience changes in life, my mind fluctuates and I find myself overthinking, worrying, lots of what ifs and what’s next. I find this is when long holds in supported asanas help. In supported holding, the body takes it time to settle, the breath becomes steady, actions are felt. In feeling the actions through asana, the thoughts and worries lose their power.
By self-studying we become honest with ourselves. The practice feeds what is needed at that moment. 🙏🏼

A cold day calls for a warming practice - standing and inversions.

Practice grid for today. Long holds and self-study.

A cool down after a 8km hike. 🦵🏽🌞

A dip and