Our practice shines a light on imbalance, inequality in the way we move through life both on and off the mat. Often this imbalance is unconscious - you only have to cross your legs counter to your usual way to feel how you may have acted repeatedly yet unknowingly to reinforce the imbalance of your system as a whole. Yoga forces us to face these truths so we can begin the work of dismantling the habits and restoring balance.

Sometimes the imbalance has deliberately been put there, by shifting our relationship to gravity or working asymmetrically. In this instance we still have to be aware enough to feel, to realise that part of us needs more support, more strength given back to it as it is having to work harder to maintain homeostasis. We must realise where strength or support has been undermined and give back more strongly to that place, we must not continue to steal from it in order to feed extension in the places that have an inherently easier reach. 

Only then will there be real equality, only then will we find grace in movement as we allow ourselves to function as a whole, each part in support of the other.

Practice:

Tadasana: Take a belt behind you, hold one end in each hand at either side of your hips

• Let the belt be on the top of your sacrum - use the belt to lift top of the sacrum in and up.
• Slide the belt down a little - now let it guide the mid buttock flesh down - can you keep the top of the sacrum lifting in and up AND allow the mid buttock flesh to extend toward the heels. Do not tuck the pelvis.
• Take the belt to the lower ribs - lift up, directly up - can you find length in the back body without puffing he front body forwards - notice how easy it is to find length in the front body, yet harder in the back body - can you find balance, equal length.
• Repeat this enquiry with the belt on the shoulder blades - maintain the balance front to back in order to reveal equal lift and length. lift up without swaying or puffing the front body.

Sit cross legged:

• raise the arms Urdvha Hastasana - can you find the length you had with the belt - roll the upper arms in to help you
• change the cross on the legs, feel the difference, repeat.

Adho Mukha Svanasana: (downward facing dog)

• Can you find the same balance in length in both the front and back body? Press down through the hands in order to find the length in the side trunk and height in the hips, take care not to cave into the shoulders or neglect the lift in the hips.

Trikonasana:

• See if you can find the same front/back body extension you had with the belts (repeat the belt work if you need a reminder)
• Do you notice how as the weight shifts when the body goes horizontal it is easier to keep extending towards the head than it is to keep the strength in the back leg and ground the outer edge of the back leg foot?
• Bend the front leg and come all the way down into Parsvakonasana from your Trikonasana
• Ground the little toe edge of the back foot and lift the inner back leg to come back to Trikonasana - has this strengthened the back leg? From the grounding of this leg can you now extend more evenly along the whole length of the spine? is there a more even distribution of energy in the pose?
• Repeat on the other side

Sit cross legged:

• extend your arms forward to the floor or bricks.
• Start to walk your hands and your body to the right - do you notice that one hand or the other has easier reach, does this change as you continue to move? go slowly, notice.
• Repeat on the other side
• Change the cross on the legs and repeat - what changes does this bring?

What other poses could you play with over the next week or so to continue the same enquiry, how can you find balance in a-symmetry? Keep coming back to the practice with the belts and trying to replicate the sensation in other poses.

Equality

You declare you see me dimly 
through a glass which will not shine, 
though I stand before you boldly, 
trim in rank and marking time. 
You do own to hear me faintly 
as a whisper out of range, 
while my drums beat out the message 
and the rhythms never change. 

Equality, and I will be free. 
Equality, and I will be free. 

You announce my ways are wanton, 
that I fly from man to man, 
but if I'm just a shadow to you, 
could you ever understand ? 

We have lived a painful history, 
we know the shameful past, 
but I keep on marching forward, 
and you keep on coming last. 

Equality, and I will be free. 
Equality, and I will be free. 

Take the blinders from your vision, 
take the padding from your ears, 
and confess you've heard me crying, 
and admit you've seen my tears. 

Hear the tempo so compelling, 
hear the blood throb in my veins. 
Yes, my drums are beating nightly, 
and the rhythms never change. 

Equality, and I will be free. 
Equality, and I will be free.
by Maya Angelou

With so much happening in the world it can feel hard to practice, hard to settling during our time on the mat - but trust that this is when we need our practice the most, that we can let these feelings inform us, let them be our reason rather than our excuse.



Practice is a time to simply show up, not as an expert but someone who is willing to listen. To sit with our bodies and say I am sorry it took me so long, but I am here now.

Yoga is about moving beyond duality, but as Nikki Myers, the founder of Y12SR says “In order to move beyond duality first we have to acknowledge it exists.” I want you to let Nikki’s words be your guide in this week’s practice.

This week play with these poses:

Tadasana
Urdvha Hastasana (raising the arms upward) 
Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog)

In Adho Mukha Svanasana explore the rotation of the arms that we always go through in class:

• Ground the thumb and index finger (be sensitive to how you do this, can you find a compassionate connection to the earth beneath your hand, rather than a forceful one?)
• Notice how this creates an inner rotation to the forearm - play with it - can you bring the inner elbows to face each other, can you use the opposite hand to help you roll the skin of each forearm in? Use a foam pad, use a belt. What does it feel like to lose that rotation?
• Now can you maintain that action on the forearm and do the opposite with the upper arm, can you roll it out without losing the inward rotation you have created below? Again play, use the opposite hand to move the skin, what does it feel like with and without that rotation.

Feel how you are realising a duality within the movement of the arm, acknowledging it - then feel how the realisation of that duality actually brings you in towards the midline - or in other words allows you to move beyond the duality. Muscle moves towards the bone, and your arm, by acknowledging its parts, becomes whole.

Now can you maintain that and lift into Adho Mukha Svanasana? Can you find and maintain the unity in your strength?

Then go back to Urdvha Hastasana - find it again, play.

Adho Mukha Svanasana again - how does the dual rotation in the arms mirror what has to happen in the legs? Can you recognise it?
How is it both the same and different.

Now find it again in Urdvha Hastasana - arms and legs.
How does that affect the pose?

Not just unity in strength, but also strength in unity.

Human Family - Maya Angelou

I note the obvious differences
In the human family.
Some of us are serious,
Some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived
As true profundity,
And others claim they really live
The real reality.
The variety of our skin tones
Can confuse, bemuse, delight,
Brown and pink and beige and purple,
Tan and blue and white.
I've sailed upon the seven seas
And stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world
Not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
Called Jane and Mary Jane,
But I've not seen any two
Who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
Although their features jibe,
And lovers think quite different thoughts
While lying side by side.
We love and lose in China,
We weep on England's moors,
And laugh and moan in Guinea,
And thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
Are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
In major we're the same.
I note the obvious differences
Between each sort and type,
But we are more alike, my friends,
Than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
Than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
Than we are unalike.
​