Spring Yoga Guide
How to Adapt Your Yoga Practice for Spring
Each season has specifics. Ayurveda breaks everything down into the five elements: space, air, fire, water, and earth. These elements are always present but vary in intensity during the different seasons.
The spring is dominated by water and earth elements. In the summer, fire and water elements dominate, and in the autumn, space and air.
Understanding the unique conditions of each season is crucial. It's not just about our daily rhythm, the food we eat, or the spices we use. Our yoga practice also needs to adapt to fit the seasonal requirements.
Today, we will explore the spring season and how adapting our Yoga practice can invigorate and uplift us during this heavy, cold, and sticky season. By aligning our practice with the season, we can experience renewed energy and enthusiasm.
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What's Kapha, You Ask?
Ever wondered what Kapha is? It's one of the three doshas in Ayurveda (together with Vata and Pitta dosha), representing the earth and water elements. This might be your dominant dosha if you're naturally calm, patient, and grounded but sometimes feel sluggish or heavy. Let's explore more about Kapha and how it affects our yoga practice.
Kapha is defined by cold, heavy, stable, and dull characteristics. If you have a Kapha constitution or imbalance, customise your yoga practice to encourage the opposite qualities that naturally bring Kapha back into balance. Adding heat, lightness, mobility, and sharpness to your Yoga practice helps re-establish your natural health. You might practice the same asanas (Yoga postures) as during the rest of the year, but your approach and attitude must change.
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to adapt your yoga practice for the spring season:
Intent
It's crucial to set a clear intention at the start of your practice. This will not only help you stay engaged throughout your practice but also bring a sense of purpose and focus.
Pause the Breath
Appreciate or extend the natural pauses after each inhalation and exhalation. Pausing the breath creates warmth, provides focus, and stimulates digestion.
Inhale and pause for two counts. Exhale and pause for two counts. Notice both the warmth and the space of the pause.
Create Heat
Generating heat in your practice breaks up stagnation, heaviness, and dullness. The opposite keeps Kapha in a rut and feeds into the tendency to pull downwards into heaviness. Therefore, physically demanding and invigorating movements are favoured to create that heat and enthusiasm.
Practice with precision and vigour to generate internal friction and heat.
Choose challenging postures, such as a camel pose (Ustrasana), deep twists like a twisted seat (Ardha Matsyendrasana), and dynamic heating flows like the sun salutation (Surya Namaskar). Weave Ujjayi breathing into your practice to maintain warmth and focus.
Stay Focused
Gaze upward sharply to create heat, intensity, and lightness.
A downward gaze promotes stability and connection to the earth. Remember, these are the natural tendencies of Kapha, which need to be balanced with the opposite.
Whenever you have the opportunity in your yoga practice, turn your eyes up toward the sky. Create intensity with a sharp-focus gaze and engage in a dynamic, brisk pace to release stagnation and lethargy.
Break a Sweat
Moving slowly without direction or intent doesn't provide the needed stimulation. Keep moving at a pace that produces sweat and an upbeat attitude to encourage Kapha not to give up.
Long holds in demanding postures also generate heat, promote sweating, and maintain focus within the pose, which helps reduce Kapha. Short holds require less energy and effort.
So, hold with intense muscular effort in demanding postures and stay long enough to break a sweat. Then, stay in the posture for one breath longer than you think you can to create a personal challenge and cultivate willpower.
Pay Attention to Detail
Use a whole-body effort to engage in the posture when working with flow and move with precision from one pose to the next. Precise, sharp transitions keep Kapha fully engaged and uplifted. Not paying attention to the transitions opens the door to losing interest and laziness.
The more Kapha can transition between postures with attention to detail, the more Kapha moves away from dullness and engages its total energy.
Look Forward To:
As a result of your dedicated practice, you may start to feel hot, light, expansive, and clear. These are signs that your Kapha is coming into balance. Over time, you may also notice other positive changes, such as weight loss, reduced congestion, and a more expansive presence in your body and energy field. These are all encouraging signs of progress.
This is a lot to consider. But try to take one aspect each day to focus on; this will make a tremendous difference to your practice and keep Kapha balanced.
Let's Recap – A Spring Yoga Overview
Kapha represents earth and water elements in Ayurveda, characterised by cold, heaviness, stability, and dullness. Balancing Kapha involves adding heat, lightness, mobility, and sharpness to your yoga practice.
Be Intentional: Aim to practice vigorously to raise your heart rate and get your blood pumping.
Be Attentive: Pay attention to the subtle aspects of each pose. Notice how your body feels and how the energy flows.
Stay Warm and Break a Sweat: Practice in a warm environment; it helps stimulate your Kapha energy.
Breathe with Intent: Invigorate body and mind with a strong, deep breath. Ujjayi breathing is excellent in Spring.
Reach your Breath: Take one more breath when you think you're done with a pose.
Breathe Pause: A brief pause between inhalation and exhalation can help you stay focused and centred.
Keep your Chest Open: Keep your chest open and lifted, shoulders rolled back. Feel the lift through the spine.
Be Precise: Pay attention to your alignment to stay focused. Remember, Kapha has a natural laissez-faire attitude.
Lift your Gaze: Lift your gaze up towards the sky to stay alert and open.
Add one Pose You don't Like: They're great for creating resilience and making you feel good afterwards.
Keep Moving: Keep the rests between poses short to stay warm and focused.
Take Rest: End your practice with a short relaxation. This allows the body to digest the practice and re-energise.
Keep Going: Persistence is key. Keep showing up on the mat, even if it's just for a few minutes a day.
Remember these tips next time you roll out your yoga mat. They keep you feeling vibrant and balanced.
Signs of Balance: Feeling hot, light, and clear; weight loss; reduced congestion; and a commitment to daily practice.
Yoga isn't just about flexibility or strength; it's about finding harmony within yourself. Here's to a more balanced, energised you!
Resources
www.banyanbotanicals.com
Was that helpful? Have you thought about adapting your Yoga practice to the seasons? Does your body feel differently during the seasons? Let me know what you think. You can leave a message on Instagram, Facebook, or even an old email OR leave a comment below :)
I love hearing from you!
Katja x
P.S. Your Yoga practice benefits from healthy eating habits.
