by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the third Creative Sun Salutation Abundance flow here on The Yoga Lunchbox. This week we move into the heart of our abundance sun salutation, moving through variations of Warrior I pose. Most of you will be familiar with Warrior I, yet no matter how many times you may have done it, there's always something to learn. Taking time and playing within each pose, separating out the components of it, is a masterful way to learn the posture from the inside … [Read more...]
How to Cultivate Abundance on the Yoga Mat Part 2 {video}
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the second Creative Sun Salutation flow here on The Yoga Lunchbox. As with the last six-part series, the first two episodes in this series are free for anybody to access, and the final four are for Insiders only. (You can become a member of Inside the Box here.) This week we add on to the beginning of our abundance sun salutation, moving through halfway lift, high plank, low plank, upward dog, downward dog, three-legged dog and knee to nose. Most of you … [Read more...]
How to Cultivate Abundance on the Yoga Mat Part 1 {video}
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the second Creative Sun Salutation flow here on The Yoga Lunchbox. As with the last six-part series, the first two episodes in this series are free for anybody to access, and the final four are for Insiders only. (You can become a member of Inside the Box here.) When I teach and practice yoga, my tendency is to work with different energies on the mat, cultivating those energies as required, depending what's going on in my life at that time. This particular … [Read more...]
How to Uncover the Treasures of the Chakras through Yoga
by Kara-Leah Grant Back in 2000 I was living with chronic back pain including agonising spasms, searing sciatica on the right side and a right foot that was half numb, meaning I walked with a limp. I had no faith in doctors because I'd had a spinal fusion eight years earlier (aged 16). I'd felt like like the doctors I'd seen then or since didn't understood my back or what was causing my pain. Yet I dutifully took myself off off to the Whistler Medical Clinic to get x-rays and see if … [Read more...]
Putting the Flow Together: A Complete Mandala Surya Namaskar {video}
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the last article and video in this series of Yoga Explorations. Yes, you've made it all the way to the end and now it's time to bring everything together in one smooth flow. Circular sun salutations work on a few different levels. Usually on our mats we work in a purely linear manner - we move left and right, back and forward. Plus we usually only face forwards, or sideways to one direction. However when we do circular sun salutations we use all four sides … [Read more...]
How to Open Your Wide-Legged Forward Bends using Variations {video}
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the fifth article and video in this series of Yoga Explorations. You've now learned how to spontaneously allow the body to move within the structure of a posture, as well as two breath pairs - the Ascending and Descending breath, and cultivating the core and radiating from the core breath. Last week you learned how to use core cultivation to open the body in Lunges and Lunge variations. This week, we take a look at the Wide-Legged Forward Bend and ways to … [Read more...]
How to Open the Front of the Body using Core Cultivation {video}
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the fourth article and video in this series of Yoga Explorations. You've now learned how to spontaneously allow the body to move within the structure of a posture, as well as two breath pairs - the Ascending and Descending breath, and cultivating the core and radiating from the core breath. This week, we start to put it all together even more, using these tools to work with a posture to find alignment. In particular, we'll be exploring Lunge and variations … [Read more...]
How to Use Breath Movements to Free the Body’s Spontaneous Movement {video}
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the third in this series of Yoga Explorations. You've now learned two breath pairs - the Ascending and Descending breath, and cultivating the core and radiating from the core breath. We're going to take that understanding, and use Downward Dog and Three Legged Dog to look at how tuning into the breath can allow our body to move spontaneously within the structure of a posture. As I mentioned in the first article on the Ascending and Descending breath, … [Read more...]
How to Cultivate your Core and Radiate through Your Limbs {video}
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the second in this series of Yoga Explorations. This week we're going to continue building on our sequence while exploring a second pair of breath movements. Tuning into these two breaths - inhaling and cultivating the core, exhaling and radiating through the limbs - helps us to find strength and integrity in postures. But for many of us, tuning into the breath movements within the pose can be difficult. We struggle to keep our awareness on the breath … [Read more...]
How to Work with the Ascending & Descending Breath {video}
by Kara-Leah Grant This is the first in a six-part series of Yoga Explorations which takes you through a creative Mandala Surya Namaskar - or a circular sun salutation. The focus on this series is in teaching you how to use the breath to explore and play within your home practice. It's about giving you the confidence to step outside the usual linear flow of your practice and see what it is that your body needs moment to moment. There is a huge difference between a home yoga practice and … [Read more...]