How is a yoga pose like a Russian matryoshka doll?
What does yoga have to do with matryoshka dolls? A lot, as it turns out. From the outside, yoga poses can look as though they don’t have much in common. Take this handful: extended side angle, triangle pose, tree pose, reclining big toe pose and extended hand-to-big-toe pose. On the simplest level, orientation to gravity, […]
Five-minute yoga challenge: strap up and rotate your thighs in triangle pose
For the last few weeks I’ve been strap-happy – deeply in love with the simplest and most economical of yoga props. In every practice I do at least one pose, and often more, with a strap wrapped around one upper thigh. On strap extravaganza days, I wrap both thighs. Why? Getting a good strong rotation […]
Five-Minute Yoga Challenge: Kitchen Counter, part two
Last week’s Five-Minute Yoga Challenge could actually be accomplished in 90 seconds. This week’s challenge adds the remaining three minutes, in the shape of Utthita Trikonasana, (triangle pose). Triangle pose at the counter is a wonderful variation in several ways: • It entirely removes the possibility of touching the floor by your front leg with […]
Drop a Block To Tune Your Triangle Pose
It’s a happy coincidence that just as the triangle is the first figure of plane geometry, Utthita Trikonasana (extended triangle pose) is often the first place where many of us feel the inner geometry of yoga – the understanding that as we align ourselves physically, we also somehow bring our minds and emotions into alignment […]