Five Fundamentals
Original Hot Yoga Pasadena
Breathing
Learning to breathe in the hot room takes practice. Most people breathe in a very shallow way which will make you feel overwhelmed and panicked in the hot room.
One of the most important tools we teach you in the hot room is to breathe normally, nicely and calmly through the nose.
To learn the basics of effort and ease in the yoga room, , take deep, full breaths. Then notice with calmer breath, you will find a calmer mind, and a calmer mind helps you more effectively connect to your body and practice. When you incorporate breathing nicely, the number one tool for balancing effort and ease, you will leave every class feeling strong in your body and calm in your mind and hopefully take this more conscious breathing into your daily life to experience life as your best self.
Core
Have you heard the word “core” so many times you are not even sure what it means? Connecting to your core strength will help you support your low back, create more power in the rest of your body and allow a deeper relationship to your whole-body connection.
It is a critical connection to develop for almost any fitness routine When your core is engaged and breathing relaxed, you can use my muscular strength to the max, while maintaining calm breathing and ease in the parts of my body. Connecting to your core along with understanding your neutral spine is an important relationship to stay fit and strong, and to avoid or reduce back pain.
Spine and Neutral Hips
Are you frustrated by chronic back and/or hip pain. You might not understand some of your body mechanics to develop tools to reduce that stiffness and pain. We all have curves along our spine, and understanding how your back curves, and needs support, is a great tool to stretch and reduce pain and stiffness
Along with understanding your spine alignment and what and where neutral spine is for your body, understanding neutral hips helps support your spine and range of motion. Once you understand this relationship, you will see how you can deepen backbends and forward bends with more freedom in your low back.
Relax Your Shoulders
Are you tired of always feeling tension and pain in your neck and shoulders?
Learning to relax your shoulders in yoga class and life, creates a calming effect on the whole body. Most people don’t realize how tense their shoulders even are.
Relaxing your shoulders also helps you connect to a calmer and deeper breath. Relaxing your shoulders will also allow more movement in the shoulder join which will help maintain good posture when gravity starts fighting with us as we age.
Learning this connection by staying aware of relaxed shoulders in your daily life, will offer you an opportunity not just to reduce the stress and tension in your body, but it might improve the range of motion in your shoulders to allow more freedom in your spinal movements.
The Feet
Start paying attention to your weight distribution when you stand. You can also look at the soles of your tennis shoes or flip-flops for uneven wear and tear and see if you walk with your toes in, out or straight ahead of you.
The feet can tell you a lot about your hips, knees and back. If you roll to the outside of your feet when you stand, (pronating) you may be causing issues up to your knees, hips or low back. Paying attention to distribute the weight evenly, may reduce pain or tension.
We cannot force our body to move in a way it structurally does not want to, but we can bring an awareness of our structure to our feet so the feet can bring balance and ease to the rest of the body