A playful Lila Flow yoga class features core and back strengthening to prepare the body for deep backbends with side plank variations. Twists, lunges, side body lengthening, and quad stretches prepare the body for heart-opening.
This class is themed for surrender. Heart opening practices ask that we open the front line, typically associated with reception, vulnerability, and expansion. How much can you release to open and express?
** Learn how to do a yoga drop back from standing backbend into a wheel pose with this short tutorial.
Style: Lila Flow
Duration: 30-min
Level: Open
Props: 2 Blocks
Focus: twists, back bending with standing backbend as peak pose.
Location: Vancouver, BC.
Spotify Playlist: I Beg You to Have Patience
Opening Meditation
Come to a seat of your choice and close your eyes. Drop into your breath and feel your body. Inhale to lengthen and exhale to soften.
The theme for class is surrender. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of India’s oldest and most sacred texts, a conversation is presented around how to live our lives. Arjuna, the warrior, is in a conversation with Krishna — who represents the Divine, ultimate consciousness, and the inner teacher — expresses how to move through and do things that make us uncomfortable or that we find very challenging. Krishna tells Arjuna that we must surrender and let go of the outcome and all attachment to the outcome. We must do what we do with all of our hearts and souls without attachment to the product of our actions. We must act for action’s sake and not to bear the fruit for one’s actions.
Control creates constraints. The goal of yoga is freedom; we must soften the grip—soften our attachment to outcome and control—to attain space, liberation, and release.
A few questions to sit with before or after class:
10-15 breaths to move as you like, options:
Come to stand at the top of your mat.
2x Sun Salutations – flow on your own or follow the cues
Tadasana (mountain pose)
Urdvha Hastasana (hands to sky)
Uttanasana (forward fold)
Ardha Uttanasana (half lift)
Anjaneyasana (lunge)
Adho mukha svanasana (down dog)
Phalakasana (plank pose)
Chaturanga
Bhujangasana (cobra pose)
Adho mukha svanasana (down dog) variation
Adho mukha svanasana (down dog)
Uttanasana (forward fold)
Ardha Uttanasana (half lift)
Uttanasana (forward fold)
Urdvha Hastasana (hands to sky)
Uttanasana (forward fold)
Repeat the same sequence on the other leg.
Wave 1
Tadasana (mountain pose)
Urdvha Hastasana (hands to sky)
Uttanasana (forward fold)
Ardha Uttanasana (half lift)
Anjaneyasana (lunge)
Anjaneyasana (lunge)
Adho mukha svanasana (down dog)
Phalakasana (plank pose)
Chaturanga (x8)
Adho mukha svanasana (down dog)
Eka pada adho mukha svanasana (3-legged downward dog)
Anjaneyasana (lunge)
Ardha Hanumanasana (half splits pose)
Tadasana Janu Hastasana (standing hand to knee pose)
Tada Kapotasana Chair (standing pigeon chair pose)
Utkatasana (chair pose)
Parivrtta Utkatasana (revolved chair pose)
Parivrtta Anjaneyasana (revolved lunge pose)
Eka pada adho mukha svanasana (3-legged downward dog)
Vasisthasana (side plank pose)
Adho mukha svanasana (down dog)
Phalakasana (plank pose)
Chaturanga
Bhujangasana (cobra pose)
Adho mukha svanasana (down dog) variation
Uttanasana (forward fold)
Ardha Uttanasana (half lift)
Uttanasana (forward fold)
Urdvha Hastasana (hands to sky)
Uttanasana (forward fold)
Repeat the same sequence on the other leg.
Cooling Flow
Balasana (child’s pose) OR seated meditation to close.