
Easy Pose
Balance In Your Home Yoga Practice
by Trina
We tend to do more of what we like and less of what we don’t like. This practice also bleeds over into our home exercise practices, but we must learn to balance even when our instructor isn’t around to remind us or to choreograph our routine.
Yoga teaches that balance is extremely vital to the practice and our bodies. When we inhale, our exhale should be the length of our inhale. When we work our right side, we must work the left side. Every muscle that we contract, we must lengthen or stretch. In Yoga, each pose has a counter pose to create the necessary balance.
I want to emphasize the importance of balance in your home routine, specifically when you work your abdominal (abs) muscles. Everyone wants great abs, so people tend to do extensive abdominal exercises, especially at home, where people are enamored with sit ups and crunches. But as you strengthen your abs, you must also stretch out the ab muscle that you worked AND strengthen and loosen your lower back. The abs and the lower back work together to provide strength and stability and to support vital organs and stabilize the skeleton.
Have you ever seen those body builders whose arms are so huge and thick that their shoulders round over? That is an example of imbalance. We are inclined to develop the muscles and body parts that we can see, the front of our body, often neglecting what we don’t see, the back of our body.
In your home practice, I encourage you to do more than crunches and sit ups. Try some of the poses listed below that not only work your abs, but they also work your Core. When you work your abs, include poses that loosen, stretch, and strengthen your lower back too. Essentially, you want to make sure that when you work or contract a muscle, you also lengthen and stretch it, for example, after Bridge Pose (contracting the back and stretching the abs) do Plow Pose (stretching the back and contracting the abs).

Bridge Pose
*After Bridge Pose, do Plow Pose
Camel Pose prepares the body for more difficult Backbend Poses. It makes the lower back flexible, while limbering the shoulders and opening the chest. Child’s Pose is an excellent counter pose to Camel.

Locust Pose
Locust Pose strengthens the lower back muscles, while opening the chest, and encouraging good breathing. A good counter pose to Locust is to lie on your back and hug your knees to your chest.
Bow Pose induces flexibility in the spine, tones the abdominal muscles, and also helps to relieve backaches. Child’s Pose is a good counter pose.
Balancing Poses, such as Tree Pose and Chair Pose, also strengthen your abs and your lower back.

Upward Facing Dog
The Sun Salutations series contracts the abs when you are in forward bends, such as Standing Forward Bend, and it lengthens the abs in back bends, such as Upward Facing Dog.
Here are Core Poses that loosen, stretch, and strengthen your Core muscles:
Full Boat Pose
The Hundred
Dolphin
Plank
Bridge Pose
Staff Pose
Dolphin Plank Pose
Upward Plank Pose
Resources:
The Yoga Bible by Christina Brown
The Yoga Journal
About.com
Althea Lawton-Thompson of Aerobics Yoga & More
*Disclaimer: As with any exercise regimen, consult your doctor or physician before you start. Make sure that you have adequate instructions about how to do these poses before you do them. Leisure Living, it’s contributors, or listed resources are not responsible for any injuries.
© 2009 KaTrina Love

By Tiffany Campbell





Put your left hand on your right knee. Inhale, lifting your chest and rib cage, while your right hand holds on to the back of your chair, exhale as you turn to the right as far as you can and attempt to look over your right shoulder. Keep your shoulders down and back. You want to remain erect. Remember to breath. Do the same thing on the other side. Not only does this move help your shoulders, but it also massages your internal organs, helping digestion, and it massages and stretches your spine. With each exhale, deepen the twist.


Everyday we meet or talk to people who are experiencing immeasurable trials and tribulations during this leveled economy. We encourage each other, but if we don’t have faith, the words disappear in the air.
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Everything, good or bad, begins as a thought. A tiny seed in your mind that gets fertilized and grows as a result of what you continually think about, look at, consume, and hear. Monitor what you allow to infiltrate your senses. Feed the beauty. Intentionally think good thoughts. Be specific in what you think. Your thoughts dictate your words, and your words dictate your actions. Train your thoughts to feed the beauty of you, your life, your surroundings, and the world, and your words and actions will follow suit. Pump positivity, power, life, light, and beauty into your mind, your eyes, and your ears.
Most of us spend more than 45% of our time at a computer on a daily basis, these reminders can help reduce tension, strain, and pain.
of the shoulder. Clasp your fingers together, lift your arms straight up. Keep your shoulders down and back. Lift up out of your waist. Engage your abdominal muscles by pulling your belly button in towards your spine. Extend through the palms, and deepen your breath. Remain in this pose breathing deeply for at least five slow, deep breaths. Slowly release and put hands back on knees.
level. Put your right hand on your left shoulder. Using your left hand, press the right elbow. This movement stretches the top of the shoulders. Don’t push the arm into your face. Keep arms level with shoulder. Keep back straight and sit erect, but not stiff. Release slowly.
floor. Take a deep breath and exhale, hinge at the hips, placing your palms or fingertips on the floor. Keep your head a long extension of your spine. Breathe deeply.
Push your chair out, but stay seated in it. Legs are wide apart, feet on the floor. Your head will be slightly lower than your shoulders. Shoulders are extended. Back is not arched or curved, keep it straight, long, and lean. This movement stretches out your stiff spine. You are also opening the hips and shoulders.
Position 4, but this time you are standing. Hinge at the hips, stick your tailbone out, and your stance is the width of your hips. Spread your fingers out wide.
palms toward each other. Cross your right arm over your left arm, and put your left hand in your right hand. Take a couple of deep breaths and relax into the pose. Don’t force it. You should feel a good stretch in your shoulders. Take deep, slow breaths. You will feel a good stretch between the shoulder blades. Breathe. Pull the elbows down. Now start over, but this time cross your left arm over your right arm. This move is called seated Eagle.
by Trina Love Abram
either above your knee, on your shin, on your ankle, or on the mat. Simultaneously, lift your left arm straight to the ceiling. Imagine that your arms are making a vertical T (in line with the tops of your shoulders).
challenged to maintain the pose in its proper form. Triangle also benefits your posture because the dynamics of the position challenge your balance and your coordination.
I emphasize
follow with a pose that bends in the opposite direction. If you work your right side, you must balance by also working your left side. In Triangle pose, you are bending from side to side. I suggest Wide Leg Forward Bend followed by a Wide Legged Backbend.
There are Yoga poses that seduce, challenge, and humiliate you. Some poses will make you smile with satisfaction, while others illicit a grunt of frustration. What ever the pose, and regardless of how it makes you feel, the most important aspect of a Yoga pose is alignment.
Every morning I speak empowering affirmations. In these affirmations, I am repeating God’s Words and reiterating to myself who I am. I am indicating to God that I have faith in Him and the Him that resides inside of me. These are powerful, positive statements that unleash affable actions and great expectations all day, for example: “I am a victor, not a victim. God inspires me. I attract peace, love, and joy. This is going to be a great day!”
In this Yoga Basics series, we discussed how important it is to
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