by Kara-Leah Grant I first came across Feldenkrais in a yoga teacher taught by a friend in Wellington - Oli Wiles. He was smitten with the technique and skilfully wove it through his yoga teaching to great benefit. Now that I've been practicing yoga for almost two decades, I've also become very interested in how the body opens up, or doesn't open up. From my own experience I can see that it's not a simple equation of doing x, y, or z posture enough times and achieving your optimum range of … [Read more...]
The Full Creative Abundance Sun Salutation Sequence
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the sixth and final Creative Sun Salutation Abundance flow video here on The Yoga Lunchbox. This week we put it all together - everything that we've been exploring over the last five weeks. This time, I verbally talk you through two circular sun salutations - once on the right leg and once on the left leg. This is to help you fully learn the sequence. However, once you've got it, forget about watching me and the video and instead play and explore in your … [Read more...]
Why it’s Possible to Evoke Abundance through a Yoga Practice
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the fifth Creative Sun Salutation Abundance flow here on The Yoga Lunchbox. This week we explore our final three postures, facing the back of the mat. As always, we're using the same tools and techniques to find freedom and ease in our bodies - breath, micro-movements, pulsations. It's also becoming more clear how it's possible to evoke a sense of abundance through a sun salutation. Our first posture this week is about releasing and bowing to the earth - … [Read more...]
The Ups and Downs of Mastering Squat Pose
by Kara-Leah Grant Welcome to the fourth Creative Sun Salutation Abundance flow here on The Yoga Lunchbox. This week we explore a transition posture as we move from the front of the mat to the back of the mat - an important part of working with circular sun salutations. In this particular variation, I'm using a squat to make that transition, which gives us a greater sense of our roots or foundation. Squatting is all about our relationship to the earth - we have to both surrender downward … [Read more...]
Exploring How to Release the Iliopsoas Muscle Group in Warrior I
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...]
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...]
Forty Days of Meditation and Manifestation – Did It Work?
by Kara-Leah Grant I've just finished a Forty Day Meditation and Manifestation practice. It's something I completely made up. I'd been wondering for many months about combining daily meditation with a conscious manifestation process because I'd observed in my own life that the first key step for creating anything new is always getting clear. Usually, before I write, I meditate or walk first. This helps to shift me into the ground of being, and out of my head. Out of this space, creativity and … [Read more...]