One of the benefits of a consistent yoga practice is an increased sense of confidence that emerges from within, brings a sense of ease, and makes you feel grounded and complete. These three meditations can help build confidence and foster a feeling of being deeply rooted. Bonus: They fit right into asana practice.
Try incorporating these practices into at least three rounds of Surya Namaskar: Before each round, take a moment with your eyes closed and your hands in Prayer to think about what each meditation means to you. Keep weaving the one you need the most into the rest of your practice—especially in moments when your concentration wavers.
1. Acknowledge your practice as an act of self-love or self-care.
Seeing your practice as an act of self-love or self-care allows you to feel a sense of gratitude for taking the time and making the effort to practice. It’s not always easy to bring yourself to the mat, but when you do, it’s always good, it always matters. Having gratitude for your efforts is immediately grounding.
2. Think of someone who makes you smile or feel at ease.
Thinking of someone who makes you smile or feel at ease allows you to feel lighter. When you feel lighter and content, there is clarity and an ease behind your sense of Self. The back and forth of how you define or see yourself decreases; you start to feel like yourself. It feels authentic. It comes from within, not from someone else’s definitions or expectations.
3. Trust your personal compass.
Trusting your personal compass is big. We are inundated with what we should do, say, and think. Listening to the advice of others is important, but in the end, trust yourself. The more you practice, the easier it is to have clarity. You’ll be less likely to compare yourself to others and more able to accept things the way they really are.
inspirityogastudio.com | (407) 203-6866 | twitter.com/inspiritstudio
Showing posts with label arco yoga orlando. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arco yoga orlando. Show all posts
Friday, August 7, 2015
Monday, June 15, 2015
Find Your Meditation Style
Sorting through meditation styles can be a lot like sifting through yoga-class schedules when you are a new practitioner. Here are 4 styles...
To begin:
Broadly defined, “mindfulness” refers to any practice in which you concentrate and try to remain aware of your experience moment to moment. That experience is anchored by an object (like the breath), a sensation (like walking), a sound, a visual, or more, and ultimately aims to cultivate mental stability. Some of the following styles of meditation relate to mindfulness, some take the practice further—to a deep level of inquiry—and some rely on different techniques like using an object or manipulating the breath to change your state of consciousness. Like mindfulness, some are rooted in Buddhist tradition, while others stem from a lineage of Hindu meditation practices.
If you are ready for enlightement
Try vipassana: This Sanskrit word essentially means “insight.” It refers to a variety of meditation techniques that help the practitioner access a deeper level of consciousness, see “reality,” and experience impermanence. In classical vipassana, a 2,500-year-old Buddhist tradition, you first focus on breath awareness. Insight may come naturally, once you’ve calmed the mind, or you can add advanced techniques that involve dissecting arguments and concepts, and using props.
If you want to practice at your desk
Try Dzogchen: This is a form of Tantric meditation that asks you to be aware of everything, meaning it is “object-less” or “nondual.” You practice with the eyes open and avoid labeling thoughts, feelings, or sensations.
If you need to find forgiveness
Try lovingkindness meditation: Popular in the West, this practice is similar to some Tibetan traditions around developing compassion, but is essentially a relatively new form of meditation. You repeat a mantra related to freedom from fear and suffering, shifting your intention to different people in your life and yourself.
inspirityogastudio.com
7575 Kingspointe Pkwy Suite 21
Orlando, Florida
(407) 203-6866
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Avoid Wrist Pain in Yoga
By nature, our wrists are particularly prone to injury. Learn how you can protect them in your yoga practice.
If your yoga practice involves moving into and out of Downward-Facing Dog Pose and Chaturanga Dandasana, wrist pain may be a current or looming problem. I teach workshops internationally to teachers and students who are serious about improving their practices, and about 25 percent of my students admit to wrist pain during vinyasa. And when you explore the anatomy of the wrists, it’s easy to see how these vulnerable structures might easily suffer from improper weight transfer and repetitive movement.
Wrist Anatomy
Your wrists have a lot of moving parts. They start where your two forearm bones, the radius and ulna, meet with three of the eight carpal bones on each hand. The rest of the carpal bones connect with each other and the fingers. An array of ligaments connects the many bones to each other, and muscles and tendons lie above and below the bones to move the wrist and fingers.
Common Wrist Injuries
With all this complexity, misalignments in bones, ligaments, and muscles during weight-bearing poses are bound to happen, which can trigger wrist pain and two common conditions in particular. The first, called ulno-carpal abutment syndrome, indicates pressure where the ulna meets the carpal bones on the little-finger side of the wrist. This may occur if the ulna bone has an unusual shape—something just a small percentage of us are born with—or if the wrist is repeatedly turned out toward the little finger in weight-bearing poses like Downward-Facing Dog.
The second syndrome, tendonitis, is characterized by tendon inflammation, often due to misalignment and weight transfer in poses such as Chaturanga Dandasana, where the wrist joint is in full extension. Chronic wrist injury is also common in yogis with relaxed or hyper-mobile ligaments, which can cause inflammation, pain, and ultimately arthritis.
The Surprising Secret to Protecting Your Wrists
The key to protecting your wrists is—surprise!—a strong core. Evidence-based medicine demonstrates that a strong core can increase the efficiency of the rotator cuff muscles. These muscles stabilize the shoulders and can thus decrease the load that is transferred to your wrists. On the flip side, low core strength or failure to engage the core in poses like Chaturanga Dandasana can lead to decreased trunk and shoulder stability. If the core is weak, strong shear forces transfer across the wrist, especially during transitions between poses. So picture the ubiquitous Down Dog-Chaturanga-Up Dog-Down Dog sequence. Each time you repeat it, your wrists bear weight throughout. Over time and without proper support, this can lead to the injuries described above. But when effort is well dispersed throughout the core and shoulders in a vinyasa-based practice, that force in the wrists is minimized
inspirityogastudio.com
7575 Kingspointe Pkwy Suite 21
Orlando, Florida
(407) 203-6866
If your yoga practice involves moving into and out of Downward-Facing Dog Pose and Chaturanga Dandasana, wrist pain may be a current or looming problem. I teach workshops internationally to teachers and students who are serious about improving their practices, and about 25 percent of my students admit to wrist pain during vinyasa. And when you explore the anatomy of the wrists, it’s easy to see how these vulnerable structures might easily suffer from improper weight transfer and repetitive movement.
Wrist Anatomy
Your wrists have a lot of moving parts. They start where your two forearm bones, the radius and ulna, meet with three of the eight carpal bones on each hand. The rest of the carpal bones connect with each other and the fingers. An array of ligaments connects the many bones to each other, and muscles and tendons lie above and below the bones to move the wrist and fingers.
Common Wrist Injuries
With all this complexity, misalignments in bones, ligaments, and muscles during weight-bearing poses are bound to happen, which can trigger wrist pain and two common conditions in particular. The first, called ulno-carpal abutment syndrome, indicates pressure where the ulna meets the carpal bones on the little-finger side of the wrist. This may occur if the ulna bone has an unusual shape—something just a small percentage of us are born with—or if the wrist is repeatedly turned out toward the little finger in weight-bearing poses like Downward-Facing Dog.
The second syndrome, tendonitis, is characterized by tendon inflammation, often due to misalignment and weight transfer in poses such as Chaturanga Dandasana, where the wrist joint is in full extension. Chronic wrist injury is also common in yogis with relaxed or hyper-mobile ligaments, which can cause inflammation, pain, and ultimately arthritis.
The Surprising Secret to Protecting Your Wrists
The key to protecting your wrists is—surprise!—a strong core. Evidence-based medicine demonstrates that a strong core can increase the efficiency of the rotator cuff muscles. These muscles stabilize the shoulders and can thus decrease the load that is transferred to your wrists. On the flip side, low core strength or failure to engage the core in poses like Chaturanga Dandasana can lead to decreased trunk and shoulder stability. If the core is weak, strong shear forces transfer across the wrist, especially during transitions between poses. So picture the ubiquitous Down Dog-Chaturanga-Up Dog-Down Dog sequence. Each time you repeat it, your wrists bear weight throughout. Over time and without proper support, this can lead to the injuries described above. But when effort is well dispersed throughout the core and shoulders in a vinyasa-based practice, that force in the wrists is minimized
inspirityogastudio.com
7575 Kingspointe Pkwy Suite 21
Orlando, Florida
(407) 203-6866
Friday, May 22, 2015
The seventh chakra
The seventh chakra, called sahasrara, is located at the crown of the head. “Sahasrara” means thousand-petaled and represents a thousand-petaled lotus flower.
7th Chakra’s Natural Element: Thought
This energy center is associated with the element of thought, connection to spirit, universal consciousness, enlightenment, wisdom, unity and self-knowledge.
Life Motif of the Crown Chakra
Working with this chakra indicates an interest in a higher purpose and an elevated way of being. You are ready to let go of misunderstandings about who you are and why you are here.
Signs of Blocked Sahasrara Energy
Complications that come from this chakra can be confusion, imbalance, a lack of connection to the manifest world, unfocused, hyper spiritualization (aka too much meditation not enough laundry) and an inability to function practically.
Energetic Benefits of Aligning the Crown Chakra
Working toward enlightenment is a worthy endeavor for anyone. This is the gateway to super-consciousness where it is no longer possible to experience yourself as separate from anything or anyone.
inspirityogastudio.com
7575 Kingspointe Pkwy Suite 21
Orlando, Florida
(407) 203-6866
7th Chakra’s Natural Element: Thought
This energy center is associated with the element of thought, connection to spirit, universal consciousness, enlightenment, wisdom, unity and self-knowledge.
Life Motif of the Crown Chakra
Working with this chakra indicates an interest in a higher purpose and an elevated way of being. You are ready to let go of misunderstandings about who you are and why you are here.
Signs of Blocked Sahasrara Energy
Complications that come from this chakra can be confusion, imbalance, a lack of connection to the manifest world, unfocused, hyper spiritualization (aka too much meditation not enough laundry) and an inability to function practically.
Energetic Benefits of Aligning the Crown Chakra
Working toward enlightenment is a worthy endeavor for anyone. This is the gateway to super-consciousness where it is no longer possible to experience yourself as separate from anything or anyone.
inspirityogastudio.com
7575 Kingspointe Pkwy Suite 21
Orlando, Florida
(407) 203-6866
Monday, April 27, 2015
Navigate your change with Inspirit Yoga Studio Orlando
7 Ways to Navigate Change Like a Yogi
Most of us who practice yoga will, at some point, find ourselves facing internally motivated choices that can radically alter our lives. That’s when we need to learn how to bring our practice off the mat so it can help us birth the emerging self that change promises to bring forth—and support us as we work through the fear and confusion that change can bring.
Yoga—in its widest sense—can give us the strength and insight we need to navigate the most radical forms of change. Equally as important as the practices of yoga are some of yoga’s basic (and highly applicable) teachings—the recognition that we affect the exterior by working on the interior.
1. Know That Change is Inevitable
The Buddhist Doctrine of Impermanence, annica, tells us that change is inevitable, continuous, and unavoidable. Everything changes. Just realizing that fact can protect you from turning to that most disempowering of reactions to change: “Why me?
2. View the Change as an Initiation
In traditional societies, every phase of life was regarded as an initiation into a new way of being and was marked with a ceremony that often asked the initiates to step into the unknown in some way, whether it was observing a prayer vigil, spending the night in darkness, or answering questions that tested their skills. The change itself, if you go through it consciously, is the doorway into the next stage of growth—one that propels you into a deeper relationship with yourself and the world.
3. Meditate Through Uncertainty
The deep uncertainty that arises during processes of change is perhaps the most daunting part of the experience. Why? Because a true change process will involve surprises, reversals, false starts, and periods of coming to a dead halt. In these moments, you’re likely to experience fear, anxiety, anger, irritability, sadness, grief, and the physical and psychological contraction that often goes along with feeling uncertain and unclear. It’s much easier to stay steady through a life-change process when you have a meditation practice, because meditation teaches you how to keep going back into your center, the core awareness that is your contact point with the Self and that aligns your individual consciousness with the heart of the universe.
4. Uncover Your Truest Desire
Self-inquiry, or atma vichara, is the core yogic process for navigating change. It’s a simple but effective process of asking yourself core questions such as, “What is my true desire in this situation?” or “What outcome would be the best for everyone?” As answers surface, write them down.
5. Set a Strong Intention
The next step is to make a sankalpa—a clearly articulated, affirmative statement about what you intend to do. When you make a true sankalpa, you call on the power of your personal will and align your personal will with the cosmic will. If you have gone through the self-inquiry process and have a sense of what your true desire is, you should be able to make a sankalpa that is in line with your truest wish. The deeper the alignment between your core desire and your intention, the more likely you are to successfully initiate a life change that supports that alignment.
6. Take Action, One Step at a Time
The very heart of the practice of yoga is abhyasa—steady effort in the direction you want to go. So when you are initiating a life change, consider the steps you need to take to make it happen, again using the technique of self-inquiry. Once you’ve thought things through, it’s crucial to take action. Effective abhyasa, in the yoga of life change, is to take things one step at a time so you avoid feeling overwhelmed.
7. Practice Letting Go
One of the positive byproducts of making a life change, from a yogic perspective, is the opportunity that it gives you to practice vairagya, which is usually translated as “detachment,” or letting go. That means letting go of the past; letting go of the way that things used to be; letting go of your fear, your grief, your old relationship, your old job. But you don’t want to let go in a “hard” way, forcing yourself to be a samurai of change. Instead, let yourself grieve the losses or feel the anxiety. Then breathe out and imagine that whatever you’re holding on to is flowing out with the breath
We're here to help you navigate your change. Come visit.
http://inspirityogastudio.com/
7575 Kingspointe Pkwy Suite 21
Orlando, Florida
Most of us who practice yoga will, at some point, find ourselves facing internally motivated choices that can radically alter our lives. That’s when we need to learn how to bring our practice off the mat so it can help us birth the emerging self that change promises to bring forth—and support us as we work through the fear and confusion that change can bring.
Yoga—in its widest sense—can give us the strength and insight we need to navigate the most radical forms of change. Equally as important as the practices of yoga are some of yoga’s basic (and highly applicable) teachings—the recognition that we affect the exterior by working on the interior.
1. Know That Change is Inevitable
The Buddhist Doctrine of Impermanence, annica, tells us that change is inevitable, continuous, and unavoidable. Everything changes. Just realizing that fact can protect you from turning to that most disempowering of reactions to change: “Why me?
2. View the Change as an Initiation
In traditional societies, every phase of life was regarded as an initiation into a new way of being and was marked with a ceremony that often asked the initiates to step into the unknown in some way, whether it was observing a prayer vigil, spending the night in darkness, or answering questions that tested their skills. The change itself, if you go through it consciously, is the doorway into the next stage of growth—one that propels you into a deeper relationship with yourself and the world.
3. Meditate Through Uncertainty
The deep uncertainty that arises during processes of change is perhaps the most daunting part of the experience. Why? Because a true change process will involve surprises, reversals, false starts, and periods of coming to a dead halt. In these moments, you’re likely to experience fear, anxiety, anger, irritability, sadness, grief, and the physical and psychological contraction that often goes along with feeling uncertain and unclear. It’s much easier to stay steady through a life-change process when you have a meditation practice, because meditation teaches you how to keep going back into your center, the core awareness that is your contact point with the Self and that aligns your individual consciousness with the heart of the universe.
4. Uncover Your Truest Desire
Self-inquiry, or atma vichara, is the core yogic process for navigating change. It’s a simple but effective process of asking yourself core questions such as, “What is my true desire in this situation?” or “What outcome would be the best for everyone?” As answers surface, write them down.
5. Set a Strong Intention
The next step is to make a sankalpa—a clearly articulated, affirmative statement about what you intend to do. When you make a true sankalpa, you call on the power of your personal will and align your personal will with the cosmic will. If you have gone through the self-inquiry process and have a sense of what your true desire is, you should be able to make a sankalpa that is in line with your truest wish. The deeper the alignment between your core desire and your intention, the more likely you are to successfully initiate a life change that supports that alignment.
6. Take Action, One Step at a Time
The very heart of the practice of yoga is abhyasa—steady effort in the direction you want to go. So when you are initiating a life change, consider the steps you need to take to make it happen, again using the technique of self-inquiry. Once you’ve thought things through, it’s crucial to take action. Effective abhyasa, in the yoga of life change, is to take things one step at a time so you avoid feeling overwhelmed.
7. Practice Letting Go
One of the positive byproducts of making a life change, from a yogic perspective, is the opportunity that it gives you to practice vairagya, which is usually translated as “detachment,” or letting go. That means letting go of the past; letting go of the way that things used to be; letting go of your fear, your grief, your old relationship, your old job. But you don’t want to let go in a “hard” way, forcing yourself to be a samurai of change. Instead, let yourself grieve the losses or feel the anxiety. Then breathe out and imagine that whatever you’re holding on to is flowing out with the breath
We're here to help you navigate your change. Come visit.
http://inspirityogastudio.com/
7575 Kingspointe Pkwy Suite 21
Orlando, Florida
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Valentines Day Acro Yoga
http://inspirityogastudio.com/valentines-day-acro-yoga/ | Valentines Day Acro Yoga
Valentines Day Acro Yoga Saturday Feb 14th at 12:00pm - 2:00pm Only four days left to sign up! This special Valentine's Day Acro Yoga Event will be held at: Inspirit - Orlando Yoga and Fitness Studio 7575 Kingspointe Pkwy Suite 21, Orlando, Florida 32819 Tickets Available clients.mindbodyonline.com Event Information: Inspirit - Orlando Yoga And Fitness Studio is excited to present another awesome Valentines Day Acro Yoga class! The class instructors will be Keausha & DJ (@keaushaj and @dade2shelby). This is a powerful Acro Team that will break down how to move fluidly with your partner while having fun! We are opening this workshop up to only 15 couples! Price: $45 each couple Due to limited availability this event is non-refundable once purchased
Valentines Day Acro Yoga Saturday Feb 14th at 12:00pm - 2:00pm Only four days left to sign up! This special Valentine's Day Acro Yoga Event will be held at: Inspirit - Orlando Yoga and Fitness Studio 7575 Kingspointe Pkwy Suite 21, Orlando, Florida 32819 Tickets Available clients.mindbodyonline.com Event Information: Inspirit - Orlando Yoga And Fitness Studio is excited to present another awesome Valentines Day Acro Yoga class! The class instructors will be Keausha & DJ (@keaushaj and @dade2shelby). This is a powerful Acro Team that will break down how to move fluidly with your partner while having fun! We are opening this workshop up to only 15 couples! Price: $45 each couple Due to limited availability this event is non-refundable once purchased
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