Yoga inspiration
Illustrator Erin and yoga teacher Naomi have combined forces to give you some yoga inspiration to get you onto your yoga mat with beautifully illustrated yoga poses you can practice at home.
Over the next seven weeks Naomi and Erin will focus on the chakra system.
Our first chakra, the root chakra (otherwise know as muladhara) is found at the base of the spine. It’s linked to our human survival needs and how we show up in our life to achieve those. When this chakra is in balance, we feel secure, steady and grounded. When out of balance we feel ‘rudderless’, drifting and without firm footing.
This pose is an advanced pose that requires deep openness around the hips and lower back and a strong pelvic floor lock (Mula bhanda) – both of these qualities stimulate the root chakra.
It’s good to practice this pose when the body is warm during or after a yoga class.
Remember to breathe deep and practice patience.
Root chakra
Step 1.
Start by squatting with your feet a little wider than hip-width apart, bringing your upper body between your inner thighs.
While keeping your upper body down, lift your hips until your thighs line up with your knees.
Step 2.
Now feed your arms and shoulders as much as possible under the back of your thighs, placing your hands on the floor outside of the feet.
Step 3
Draw up through your root lock by engaging your pelvic floor muscles and ground your hands firmly on the floor.
With care, gently shift your weight back, off your feet and onto your hands. Play around here with your balance – straightening the arms and lifting the feet. Maybe work to cross the ankles.
Next week is Anjaneyasana (low lunge) pose.
A little bit more about Naomi and Erin.
We Heart Living – Naomi Constantino
Naomi has been teaching for over 10 years, originally training as a dancer and working on stage, TV and film.
It was through the emotional ups and downs of life and physical injury that Naomi discovered yoga and the transformational quality it can have on mind, body and spirit.
Naomi shares her passion and understanding of working with the physical body as a gateway to healing through her teaching and writing.
We Heart Living – Erin Petson
With a pale face like a Bronte heroine and delicate hands, Erin Petson draws like a botanist on a light box, illuminating a sleeve, a hem or a wisp of hair with a nuanced precision that swiftly blurs into abstraction.
Having worked with Dior, Selfridges, Vogue, Victoria Beckham, Swarovski, Diane Von Furstenberg, Moncler, Lancome, The New York Times, The Guardian, Elle, Harvey Nichols, and Penguin, Petson’s story is a modern day fable of drawing your dreams on the sky and making them all come true, one by one.