Foundations and Feelings of Being Grounded

Any part of our body connected down is a foundation. We press down to rise up, we can energise from our foundations, from mother earth, we gain our energy and balance and stability from those foundations.

The building blocks of our homes start from a stable foundation. We as people start from our family and community foundations: that from which we learn and grow, and from these foundations we shift, balance and centre and find our place of alignment, in posture and in life.

IN OUR ASANA / PHYSICAL PRACTICE

In any pose: feel your connection to the mat/floor, as we move through flow classes there is a tendency that we can be flighty, but really try to focus and connect, ground down into your foundations when you come into a pose – find that foundation and balance into all parts of it!

WHAT PARTS OF YOUR BODY ARE IN CONTACT WITH THE MAT?

Whichever part of your body is in contact with the mat – press evenly into all sides of the foundation so that no single joint or muscle is under any strain, and then the parts above are able to find their alignment from the foundations below.

Notice how you feel when we pause in Tadasana: Our standing mountain pose. Do you ever feel the body sway to find it’s balance? Press down through your foundations to activate and stabilise.

Some body parts to consider in poses this week

FEET

Front to back and inner and outer edges of the feet. Imagine 4 points on each foot – front, back and inner and outer edges, press into them evenly.

Wide leg forward fold. Make sure you’re not rolling to the outside edges of your feet or collapsing into the inner ankles.

Standing balance. Make sure your foot is evenly weighted and then try and weight your body evenly above your foot, use your toes – grip with them and pull them into your foot.

Trikonasana. Make sure you’re not rolling off the inner edge of your front foot.

HANDS

Fingertips, knuckles and base of hands are all pressing evenly

Downdog. There is a tendency to collapse into our wrists, so please make sure your body weight is evenly pressing through the whole of each hand.

If you have a tendency to push your body back to your legs then this tendency is more likely to occur too, so make sure you’re lifting your body up and strengthening through your whole body, rather than hinging into joints.

If you’ve done the Wed 6am Bolster/stretch class with me, we use the bolster here to hold the forearms up and we feel the body weight come over the more of the whole hand! You should book in and give it a go, feel the difference!

BUTTOCKS

Keep both sides of the buttocks pressing evenly into the mat

Seated Twists. When we shift and wrap our legs in twists there is a tendency to lean away from our foundations and tilt off one hip/buttock/leg.  Try to maintain balance in the buttocks as we rotate the spine. This will also protect the lower back.  In deeper twists such as Marichyasana D there is an exception.

FOUNDATIONS FOR BALANCE POSES

In any Balance poses that we do, keep our foundations active and notice any weight shift on the foundations as we transition in and out of the poses as well. i.e: headstands and arm balances.

Let us build from the foundations up this week.

Have a lovely week everyone, whilst we focus on our foundations helping us to feel grounded and stable, in posture and in life.

Namaste Lou xo