We started the morning with "nadi shodhana pranyama," also known as nostril breathing. I had learned some of this from my mom and also some from Sumit. The idea is to purify by breathing in and out through one nostril at a time, closing the other with your thumb or ring finger. The right nostril is the male "pingala," and the left is the female "ida." I'm not entirely sure why that's relevant! We did this for awhile before doing 20 minutes of silent meditation. I found it incredibly relaxing and nice precursor to the meditation.
After the meditation, we did a beautiful chant that translates to "May everyone be happy and free." The chant is:
Loka Samasta Sukino Bhavantu
We were also introduced to the second limb of yoga - Niyama - which refers to the disciplines by which to live a pure life - they include things such as cleanliness, contentment, and education.
Some of the asanas (poses) related to this chakra are: virasana (hero), padmasana (lotus), malasana (garland - one of my personal faves!), and Warrior II. Also some poses that were new to me like cowface and archer. Alot of seated and squatting poses that work the hip rotators, quads, and hamstrings.
Then to practice our Sanskrit pose names, Pretzel made us wrap our ace bandages around our eyes so we couldn't see each other. Then she called out poses in Sanskrit only and we had to do them! She called us out if we got them wrong. This went on for a long time and we were all super exhausted! It was definitely a good way to learn though - and motivation to work on memorizing. :)
This is the symbol for the Swadishthana Chakra.
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