Sweet High Summer Special Quantum Yoga Daily Sequence

1) Awakening the Spine with Ajna Chakra stimulation.

Balancing & Stimulating

 

Having found a convenient space and prepared to dedicate the next half hour to your yoga practice, lie down on your back. Bend your knees and position the feet hip-width apart and parallel to each other. Place your hands in prayer and set the knuckles of the thumbs against ajna chakra, the third-eye region. Gentle pressure on this point stimulates a turning inward of the gaze, away from outer sense stimuli. Breathing evenly through the nose, draw the prana deeply into your body. Release the belly into the back and spread the back into the ground. Draw the chin in, so that the back of the neck is long and slowly begin to peel the spine off the floor, vertebrae by vertebrae. The more you can isolate the movement of the individual vertebrae, the greater the benefits from this practice will be. Make sure that the feet remain grounded, never splaying. If you’d like to refine the movement even more, turn what could be a push into more of a lift. Avoid unduly clenching the buttocks and instead skilfully redistribute the weight in such a manner that you feel it dropping from your knees into your heels. Keep the movement smooth and spread your consciousness throughout the body. 

 

2) Joint Rotating 

Prepares safe movement, impact and weight-bearing

 

Lift your limbs gently up into the air, arms and legs. Now begin making big rotations, getting into the hip- and shoulder-sockets. Other way. Stop these and instead start making smaller circles, getting into the wrists and ankles. Other way. Finally, wiggle your fingers and toes, especially the toes that for many of us are so reluctant to move.

 

3) Swastikasana

Hip Opening (ensures comfortable sitting & releases sexual tension)

 

Cross the legs and place the heels beneath the knees. Looking from the top, the legs should be at right angles. Inhale lift the arm up and exhale, bend forward, placing the hands shoulder-width on the floor. Draw the shoulder-blades apart and away from the ears and avoid hunching the back. In this position the hips will automatically release, as gravity draws the knees towards the ground. Don’t force and instead let go of held tension using the breath. Inhale arms rise, exhale release down.

 

4) Paryankasana

Heart Opening (releases emotional tension)

 

Roll over your crossed legs and come to kneeling. Knees together, feet hip-width apart, stick the tips of your fingers into the back of your knees, pushing to make some space behind the joint. Then flatten the calf and release the sitting bones to the ground between your feet. If the bum does not reach the floor, use a support such as a foam block. Now always keeping the knees together and grounded, slowly lower yourself onto your forearms, hang the head back and bring the crown to the floor. Then grab the elbows with the hands and bring them overhead. Your drishti, view-point, is in ajna chakra. Couch pose. 

 

5) Supta Virasana

Even stretch through legs, safeguards & heals knees

 

Arms overhead, push into elbows and lift chin to sternum. Carefully lay back and place the arms alongside the head, hands in Jnyan mudra, index and thumb finger-tips touching. If you feel any strain in the lumbar region you could try pushing the flesh of the sitting bones towards the knees. Otherwise, come out and if you want to go back into Virasana, this time place a large bolster under the spine. 

 

6) Vajrasana

Strengthens core & increases focus

 

Push up onto your knees, bring the feet together and tuck your toes under. Sitting on your heels, interlock your fingers, and stretch your arms up, rotating your wrists, so that the palms face up. Without yanking, working from the core, inhale the knees off the floor. Exhale there in Vajrasana, the diamond thunderbolt pose. 

 

7) Twist on Toes

Detoxes and tones

 

Inhale up to standing, still on your toes, exhale rotate to the right, inhale to centre, exhale to the left, inhale to centre. Exhale arms down, then heels down.

 

8) Side bend on flat feet.

Grounds and stretches intercostal muscles thus improving breathing

 

Interlock the fingers the opposite way, so that the opposite thumb is on top. Inhale the arms up again. Stay flat on your feet, as you exhale to the left now bending, inhale up again. Feet remain perfectly rooted, as you exhale side-bending to the right. Inhale up again. Exhale the arms down.

 

9) Tadasana

Improves Posture

 

Now establish Tadasana, the Mountain pose, with your feet together, big toes touching. Lift the toes and spread them out, so that your soles are maximising your connection to the ground. Like a mountain you are stable and strong, firmly aligned along your central axis. Visualise this axis as a ray of light running through the medial line of the microcosm of your body, but extending far beyond its physical confines, right down into the core of the earth and soaring up through a limitless sky. 

 

10) SURYANAMASKAR: SUN SALUTATIONS

Invigoration, weight loss, increases lung capacity and breath control. The heat generated purifies the system, bringing lightness & radiance.

 

(1). Inhale the arms rise for Urdhva Hastasana (2). Exhale bend down into Uttanasana (3), inhale look forward, spread the shoulders and arch the spine Ardha Uttanasana (4). On the exhalation, bend your knees, place the palms firmly on the ground and jump or step back into Chaturanga Dandasana (5). Inhale into Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (6), exhale into Adho Mukha Svanasana (7)      

· shake head “yes” and “no” to release tension in neck.

· spread palms and connect firmly to ground

· bend knees and stretch tailbone up or lift onto toes. Then release heels towards ground, whilst sustaining length and line of spine.

Jump forward and inhale into Ardha Uttanasana (4). Exhale Uttanasana (3), inhale Urdhva Hastasana (2), Exhale Samasthitii (1).

Do up to 10 cycles of Suryanamaskar, always carefully and smoothly synchronizing breath and movement.

 

Now, either lie on your back, close your eyes and relax completely, or sit upright for meditation, focusing on one point and emptying your mind, by not getting involved in the play of thoughts. Step out and just BE! Having connected to your divine essence, remember you are at one with the rest of existence; this is the state of yoga or union.

 

For more information, please visit www.quantumyoga.co.uk

---

Content provided by Body in Balance