Practice Yoga for more than the physical postures

An exploration of the Anusara Yoga method

Yoga is a wonderful practice to help you reveal and step into your authenticity. That is, if you are willing to practice yoga in a way that offers you more than a focus on the practice of the physical postures (asana). There is so much more to Yoga than the physical practice and in this blog we will breakdown some of the broader benefits of practicing Yoga in the style of Anusara Yoga, which are in summary:

• The physical Yoga practice is taught using Anusara Yoga’s universal principles of alignment. These support you to align optimally in the pose and therefore practice safely. They also support you to align your mind, body, and heart to connect to a deeper understanding of the broader impact of these alignment principles in your life.
• Key yoga philosophy is taught during each class, via the heart-centered class theme. You are encouraged to bring the philosophy to life off your Yoga mat. Anusara Yoga’s philosophy is based on a non-dual Tantric path that initiated in India in the 5th Century.
• Progressive class sequencing means the individual poses are taught in a way to prepare students for the level appropriate ‘peak pose’.
• Holding it all together is an uplifting community of heart, referred to as a Kula. Your Kula helps your progress on the path as you are surrounded by others on a similar journey.

As a practitioner of Anusara Yoga since 2008, Kristina will let you know:

“the practice has continued to inspire her to keep stepping on the mat, or into the philosophy to reveal more of her true nature, ground her and return her home to her heart”.

Universal Principles of Alignment

The Universal Principles of Alignment (UPA) are Anusara Yoga’s way of building the poses to support each student to experience their deepest expression of the pose. Note, Yoga poses are in themselves simply arbitrary shapes we make with our body. It’s important to learn how to align ourselves ‘optimally’ within the pose to enable the ‘prana’ (life force) to move as freely as possible throughout the body.

The focus of Anusara Yoga is not to achieve the picture-perfect pose. It is to support the student to connect with the goodness and beauty of who they are. Which means in an Anusara Yoga class you will see all the students expressing each pose uniquely and the teacher will support the student to use the principles of alignment to find more freedom in their body in that experience.

There are five Universal Principles of Alignment:

• Set the Foundation, Open to Grace
• Muscle Energy
• Inner Spiral
• Outer Spiral
• Organic Energy

Each UPA has associated feeling elements, physical and energetic effects and supports the student to be able to refine the pose in the optimal way for their body.

In our upcoming Karma Uncovered workshop with Christine du Fresne, she will explain how the free movement of Prana through the body supports you to clear your Karmic conditioning.

Heart-centered theme

Each Anusara Yoga class has a heart-centered theme based on the school’s non-dual Tantric philosophy. Anusara Yoga teachers are taught to not use a theme sandwich (introduce the theme at start of class, then summarise the theme at the end of class) but are taught to weave the theme into the UPA and throughout the class.

Non-dual simply means that students are taught to shift their perspective to see the oneness that holds everything together and see the divinity in everything.

“We are taught that we are all unique expressions of the divine, participating in the flow of life so that the divine can come to know itself”.

The heart-centered theme is used as a tool to build greater awareness (consciousness) in the student and their ability to connect to their true nature. The philosophy teaches you that your true nature is innately good and perfect; we practice to reveal this and remove our internal blocks to feeling this as our truth and then we feel more alive in our body.

The Sunday afternoon sessions in our upcoming Art of Anusara Yoga workshops with Christine du Fresne, students will be introduced to the Art of Theming.

Progressive class sequencing

Each Anusara Yoga class is planned by the teacher to ensure that the class will safely and progressively prepare the student for a ‘peak pose’. A peak pose is simply the most suitable ‘challenging’ pose; it is offered as an invitation students can decline and chosen as it supports the student to feel connected to the heart-centered theme in their body. Teachers provide variations of the peak pose, props and modifications to the class to support each student to feel successful in their attempt.

We say most suitable as beginning or senior students will be very challenged by ‘easy’ poses such as Warrior 1 or Tree and long-standing students of yoga will be better challenged by ‘hard’ poses such as arm balances like Firefly Pose (Titibasana) or deep backbends like the Eka Pada Rajakapotasana cycle.

The Kula

Each of us are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. This means that if you want to positively transform your life, you need to consciously choose the people you spend time with, ensuring they align with the more positive vision you hold for yourself. When you find these people, start hanging out with them NOW.

This is why Anusara Yoga supports students and teachers to be part of the Kula. The Kula will encourage and remind you to practice the Yoga on and off the mat as you move through each day. Without a community of people to support you to stay on the ‘right’ path (choosing to see and reveal your true nature) when life may make you forget.

Anusara Yoga teaches you much more than the physical postures. It teaches you to connect to the philosophy (heart-centered theme) in your body, mind, and heart as you move through each class and most importantly take that embodied experience and express it off the mat after each class. It is this that gives the practice the ability to be enlivening, inspirational and transformational.

 The postures will move you. The philosophy will move you. Movement is the backbone of your life experience.