Finding Your Flow: Tips for Developing a Smooth and Graceful Yoga Practice
Yoga is a science which requires patience and a strong foundation to achieve that stage of calm and tranquility. And it is possible for you to master the art of performing elegant and graceful yoga asanas by engaging your spiritual and physical core by controlling your breath and gaze.
You can always incorporate new movements into your practice and keep transitioning to create fluidity and rhythm. Even if you have just started practicing yoga and mindfulness you can develop confidence for smooth and graceful yoga practice. Here are some tips that can help you learn while enhancing your strength and safety during practice.
- Enforce connection
When you are performing asanas one thing to keep in mind is to be subtle and flexible both at the same time. Many people get caught up in making poses look as perfect as possible on the outside, but they do it from the state of hyper-awareness and critical mindset in order to appear perfect. Compare your body with water, it is when you are able to experience the union of mind, body, and spirit.
Emphasize on the beauty of natural flow. Most yoga tutors often ask you to perform poses while thinking of a person or a thing who you would like to direct all this positive energy towards. Doing this helps you to bring your conscious and unconscious to that one person or thing that you are setting in the center rather than critically examining your body for performing an act. Doing this allows the distractions to fall off and your focus and concentration increases.
- Affirm the cores
Smoothness in your motion begins once you start centering out your practice from the core which supports and strengthens your body for the graceful movement. With the help of the core muscles one is able to bring out physical focus and balance in a body for the firmness it requires. One can grow the limbs outwards using the core strength of the muscles.
An example of this is a hand-to-big-toe pose where people often try to put the strap under their foot in an attempt to lift their leg without unlocking the knee. This not only leads their torsos to be out of alignment, but also makes it difficult to complete the pose. Instead, if the pose is achieved from a low lunge position, walking in slightly forward the floor while shifting more weight into the front leg followed by bending the back knee before extending the leg outwards. Here, several muscles get to experience tension and movement leading to higher aid for support and easier to achieve pose with a little effort.
- Breath sustainably
For the asanas to go in a smooth flow, breathing plays an important role except in the asanas where one is required to hold their breath. Breathing is the most significant initiator of movement which provides support to the body as commanding the body to inflate or dilate and changing together the shape of our torso. And hence, it is understandable how breathing and its patterns can affect the movements and performances.
If you like to experience how the change in breathing changes your movement to the most basic asana, uttanasana can help you. Stand forward in uttanasana slowly rising to the mountain position of tadasana while you inhale and hold your breath. Do the pose once again but this time keep inhaling slowly while you rise up in the pose of tadasana. The change of breathing pattern will affect how your movement feels.
Coordination of breath, movement and awareness is a key point in Yoga asanas
- Take it one step at a time
The secret recipe to master flow and achieve the smooth graceful yoga practice is by performing a posture following one step at a time. Rather than picking out a tough pose and trying to complete it in a single step, break it down into pieces and build it up gently.
In addition to that, you can practice locking or setting up your gaze at a certain point ( Drishti ) while making a pose to create more focus and stability. This will make your pictures turn out to be more elegant and smooth.
Conclusion
Grace and elegance can be achieved by anyone who is committed to giving effort and time. But as BKS Iyengar said : “ The asana has to look good on the outside and the inside too “ .
With a little practice overtime you will find yourself flowing in and out of the postures without any discomfort while fulfilling the union of mind, spirit, and soul. We hope the above mentioned tips will help you improve your postures with smooth and graceful transitions.
ADDA YOGA STUDIO IN BALI : If you are looking to practice Yoga while in Bali, our studio offers meditation classes, breath work and asanas practice. We are regular Yoga workshops too and miscellaneous spiritual events. Please check our website for more information !
Come and join us !