Yoga self practice - natural movement patterns to support ease, strength and grace

I’m almost three months into a year long deep dive on daoism, qigong, somatics and meditation with the brilliant Jean Hall, Mimi Kuo-Deemer and James Rafael. This course has been eye-opening, heartfelt and very much inspiring for both my practice and teaching. I hope you’ve started to notice some of their wisdom seeping into our classes.

After our second intensive study session, here’s a few reflections from our work on primary movement patterns - where we have been questioning the way we approach patterns in asana and transitions and start to explore non-linear ways of moving on the mat. Also sharing thoughts on patterns that may have been forgotten and shapes from our first stages of life to be remembered in the body. Here our yoga practice becomes a re-learning, a re-patterning and perhaps a feeling of coming home to something organically familiar.

Natural movement patterns emerge as we grow from embryo to baby, from toddler to child and into adulthood. Each movement develops as a need to reach, grab or move towards something. Think crawling, reaching or rolling in order to get to where we need to be for food, warmth or safety. There’s a messiness to this development, with patterns overlapping one another and the potential to skip developmental movements all together eg. by-passing crawling movements with a bum shuffle. It’s common that these patterns diminish with age as we move in more structured ways and have less opportunity for freedom and play in our daily lives. This unique, and sometimes forgotten, developmental history can be reconnected through a conscious yoga practice, supporting our movement in a well rounded and functional way that allows us to move through the world with a natural ease and grace.

These movement patterns are directly linked to our breath. Each pattern grows from the breath and is affected by our capacity to breath. You may notice your breath naturally starts to rise and fall alongside movement.

Here’s just three of the movement patterns we’ve been exploring in classes over the past few weeks ..

Flexion and Extension

Begins with an identification of front and back body. As we move through flexion there is a movement inwards towards centre and away from danger - the front body becomes smaller and the back body expands. On the flip side, extension takes us into the world as the front body becomes expansive and the back body decreases in area. Here we are moving outwards into the world, open and exploratory into the unknown. To embody ourselves with ease we flux between these states as we interact with the world.

Reach and Pull

Moving beyond the edges of the body to extend our outer awareness and attention. The ability to grab and reach for something just out of reach helps us to develop elongation and expansion through both the limbs and the spine. There is a lightness as we reach outwards and a heaviness as we draw back in.

Navel Radiation

“The six limbs of the body (head, tail, arms and legs) connect out to one another through the core of the body. The initiation of movement from core to the limbs and form the limbs back to the core is called ‘navel radiation”. Donna Farhi in Yoga Mind, Body and Spirit

Imagine the navel centre of the body with six starfish-like limbs expanding in all directions. This whole body movement allows for condensation as all limbs draw in towards the centre, before radiating back outwards to meet space. This allows for a mobile core that connects out to the periphery. An internal pulse or ripple.

Try this, the human starfish …

Come to lay on the back. Expand both legs and both arms away creating a starfish shape. Consider your two more subtle limbs of crown and tailbone also to create a 6 limbed star. Draw your awareness towards the navel centre. As you inhale, allow your awareness to spread in all directions from centre, reaching end points of the body. As you exhale, allow your awareness to draw back inwards towards the navel. Follow this ripple of awareness

After a few minutes, add movement. As you exhale, condense all six limbs in towards centre, taking hold of knees or shins and drawing both the crown and tailbone into a ball. As you inhale, expand outwards. Continue to pair this movement with breath. Let yourself be moved by the breath.

Notice any change in your experience as you move, how you meet the ground, how the breath feels.

Exploring these patterns in my own practice and then into my sequencing has been a really interesting process. Noticing which patterns feel familiar and comfortable and which I’ve tended to forget. I’ve particularly enjoyed playing with reaching in class … imagining an object just beyond the fingertips and exploring … How can you move your body to get to it? How can it lead to further movement? What patterns follow from here?

Perfectly summed up in Peter Blackaby’s book Intelligent Yoga.

“Our yoga practice, if performed intelligently, is an extremely useful method of self-exploration”.

Ripples from centre. Beautiful photo shared from Slow Roads.