What to expect at a Seasonal Yoga class
The beauty of Seasonal Yoga is that our practice is influenced by what's happening in nature so the classes change throughout the year. Each season sees a change in the pace, feeling, intention and ambience in class. For example, Summer sees a fast paced, high intensity class with lots of heart opening stretches. The organs of Winter are the kidneys and bladder and the matching element is water. We want our winter practice to reflect the stillness of the season and invite introspection and reflection with slower, more mindful flows interspersed with periods of rest. As the Taoists say "rather than learning about nature, let's learn from nature".
Spring
As the days become warmer and brighter, nature rises from the resting phase of Winter, shifting energy upwards for the new growth of Spring. The stored energy is now ready to burst forth into life with new growth. This is life force at it's most potent. Our Spring yoga practice includes side bending, twists, squats and deep lunges. Focus is on strong foundations and roots, stability and strength to support rising energy in our practice. Slow pace cultivating smooth transitions, longer holds in postures, working with drishti (gaze), standing balances and hip opening.
Early Summer
Early Summer sees the transition from Spring to Summer, a time of inner and outer abundance. It's a short four week season that see our practice warming up. Our yoga practice sees us working on the fascia and connective tissue with stretching, spine strengthening and inversions to calm the mind and nourish the brain. The connective tissue that runs throughout our body is seamless and our flows this season also want to be seamless, flowing smoothly from asana to asana. We use binds and bandhas to work on the health of our thoracic spine.
Summer
Summer, the time of maximum potential, our energy is at it's fullest. So it's time to pick up the pace on our mat and get our heart pumping with a faster paced yoga! The element of summer is fire which needs regular tending and regulating. So our yoga practice needs to be regular and can be quite strong. We are working at being open hearted in life and on our mat. So yoga flows with lots of heart opening movements and asanas help us to open in this vital area – remember that our practice on the mat reflects our life off the mat. If we can learn to be more open hearted during our practice, we can learn to be more open hearted in life.
Late Summer
The element of late summer is earth so the focus of our practice at this time of year is our connection to Earth or our root foundation. We use mula bandha for stability and work to create firm foundations in our postures with a rising or lifting sensation to reflect the rising energy of the spleen. Both the spleen and stomach meridians run up the front of the body so our postures look to focus on these areas. We aim to return to center after each posture to reflect the coming back to earth and closing energy of the season. Our yoga practice focuses on leg strengthening, core stability and balance challenges with lots of stretching and opening of the front body to open the stomach and spleen meridians.
Autumn
The element of Autumn is metal and the organs of the season are the lungs and large intestine. The metal element is about gathering energy inward. The focus is on breathing, using opening and closing postures in the upper torso to stimulate and increase lung ventilation. We use the breath to cleanse, regulate and stimulate the respiratory tract and encouraging the whole system to detoxify and ‘let go’. We work the the rib cage to expand the lung capacity and use expansive arms stretches to stimulate the lung and large intestine meridians. Autumn is the season of letting go of habits, thought patterns, toxic relationships, in other words anything that doesn’t serve our higher good. We use our time on the mat to practice letting go of tensions in body which teaches us to let go of things not serving us off the mat...it's magic!
Winter
The winter solstice marks the start of this season, the shortest day and the longest night. It is the coldest time of year when the sun is at its lowest, the trees are bare and nature is quiet and still. Winter is a time of introspection and reflection and we want to preserve the energy we have, so this isn't the time for high intensity exercise that depletes these precious energy reserves. The element of winter is water and we want to replicate the fluidity of water in our practice bringing flexibility and awareness to our spine, forward folding, back bending, cat and cow. Flexibility and joint is health is key with toe rolling and wrist yoga. We want to find a stillness in our practice so Yin Yoga is great at this time of year with periods of rest and meditation.