Focus: A Power Yoga Theme
Take a Mindful seat. Soften your gaze to take in my words and if you wish, use this theme as an intention today.
“Steady your vision, where you repeatedly step becomes where you ultimately land.” — Brianna Wiest
I recently took a power yoga class and the theme was to slow down, find the edge and feel it, get through it, see what happens. All the power poses were slowed down, held longer, etc. I found myself really getting into it. Yes, this is what I needed- to slow it down. I found myself really tuning into how my body was reacting when asked to stay in a pose that was really quite difficult for longer than my body was used to or than it wanted to. My fight or flight system kicked in and a funny thing happened. I noticed that every time it got to be too much, I lost my focus. I did all the right things -I slowed my breath and grounded into my mat, but my eyes would start shifting around the room. I looked down, up to the front wall, even to the person beside me. After three or four times that this happened, I really noticed it. So, I steadied my vision and ultimately was able to more gracefully see myself through the challenge.
Consider the things that you focus on most in life. That you put your most attention towards. Do you ever find it difficult to consistently give your attention to the things that you know will ultimately make you happiest and fulfilled? There are so many things to steal our focus. This theme of focus on our mat can help with our focus off the mat as well. Steadying our attention to ultimately get to where we want to be.
Be here. Be now. Focus.
The physical focus and energetic focus of our class is to reign it in when things get challenging and set your focus. Laser focus on one spot with your breath and power through when things get challenging.
Child’s pose
Much of our time is devoted to interacting with others and taking in immense amounts of stimuli. Child’s pose allows us a chance to reconnect with our own inner guidance system. It’s an opportunity to shift to an internal state of awareness where we allow ourselves to check in with our breath, body, emotions, and mind.
Cue before Om
Focus on fingertips bringing hands to heart center. Soften your gaze. Notice how when you focus on your fingertips you can still see the periphery around you.
Cue during Flows — Sun Salutation A and B:
Movement, particularly yoga flows, can help send more oxygen to the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain where decisions are made about what to pay attention to.
Focus during power poses
Cue students to find a spot during each pose to laser focus on when things get challenging— especially during twists. Point them to a focal point and breath.
Waterfall — personal share
From that experience on the mat, I realized that is my patten off the mat too. When something feels challenging or too much, I tend to lose focus on my original intention or plan. This is something that I have really reflected on and done some work on this year. Think about in your life off the mat what you do when things get hard.
Savasana
Relax into your mat, let go of any breath control. Relax your jaw, neck, space between your eyebrows. Savasana.
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