Come to sit on your mat for pranayamas; you can use your bolster, blocks, or any other props you prefer. The other option is to recline with your legs up the wall or on the bolster down the length of your mat.

Style: Pranayama Meditation

Duration: 25-minutes

Level: open

Props: 2 Blocks, 1 Bolster.

Focus: a meditation featuring several pranayamas

Location: Vancouver, BC

Simple pranayama: 

1. Take your palms and wrap your fingertips around your lower ribs. Bring your awareness into your palms. Breathe into your hands so that you feel your outer ribs expanding as you inhale and contract as you exhale. Spend 1-minute breathing in this pose.
2. Take one hand to your breastbone—the sternum—and place the other palm on top. Bring your awareness and breath into the front of your chest. Spend 1-minute breathing in this pose.
3. Take your hands to your mid-back OR press your back against the earth or the wall and send your breath into your back body. Spend 1-minute breathing into this pose.

Nadi Shodhana Variation:

Breath through each nostril by plugging one side and inhaling and exhaling exclusively on the other side.

• Inhale for the count of 8
• Exhale for the count of 12

Nadhi Shodhana benefits:

This style of pranayama carries more oxygen to the blood than regular breathing; it also soothes the nervous system, helps create calm in the body and mind, and balances the subtle body. Nadi Shodhana lowers the heart rate and reduces stress and anxiety as it purifies the subtle energy channels so the Prana (breath, life-force) can flow with ease.

Sushumna is the body’s central channel and largest energy line. It is the home to the seven chakras. Two energy lines traverse Sushumna called Ida and Pingala. Ida and Pingala represent the other two main energy lines that move from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. These two energy lines refer to the right and left sides of the brain; through these energy lines, or Nadis, we create balance in the body and connect the two hemispheres through the breath.

Pingala represents solar energy, masculine, extroverted, bright, left hemisphere.

Ida represents lunar energy, feminine, introverted, dark, right hemisphere.

We need both energies to be whole. We need both energies to feel balanced in body and mind. When we connect such dualistic expressions, we create our reality. Without the opposition of the other, there is no creation story.

Ida and Pingala may also be seen as forms of Shiva and Shakti.

The final portion of the class will be chanting the sound of Om.

Bring your awareness to the central channel, Sushumna.

We’ll express all three parts of the Om: Ah – O – Um.

Seated meditation to close.