Twisting and Untwisting

Becoming more aware of how we breathe, and how to do so more integrally, is accompanied by the realisation that there are no new, radical techniques or styles needed, but that we often need to un-do, and strip away artificial habits or breathing patterns that have been acquired so we may return to what Donna Farhi terms our “essential breath”.

Our essence is a natural flowing easy state of being which is at one with what is inside and out, above and below us, in front and behind us.

Travelling to a yoga practice this weekend I felt very much in need of unravelling a particularly agitated mind of thoughts and emotions and once on the mat found I was to be part of a beautiful practice of twists; standing, sitting, supine, to tease and challenge an already entangled mind, and yet as I was to discover, the practice was to lead me to be soothed as my body entered in, around, and outside these wonderful shapes.

The marvel of this particular practice and a huge insight was how my body, mind and breath felt as I UN-twisted. The release of muscles and joints, the flush of blood into the soft inner organs and the wonderful tingling sensation spreading across my skin each time I unwrapped myself from the twists was both soothing and therapeutic to the scrambled state of mind I had entered with.

Tuning in to these gentle feelings of squeezing and releasing gradually unwound the knotted ball of twine until I lay still in savasana, light and free, and once more in awe of this wonderful subtle and so powerful practice of yoga.