A jar of pickles….is not a standard yoga practice theme. Since I started teaching Sunrise Morning Yoga classes, I’ve been thinking about opening, waking up and ways to unfold. The first week I looked at poses that reminded me of opening a book like dancing warrior. The second week I looked at poses that made me think of flowers blooming or birds taking flight, like locust, ustrasana or brikasana. This week I looked to gentle twists, like opening a jar, like a revolved side angle or twisted chair. Exploring how we wake up and open to the world through yogic poses and movement has been fun. We started seated one day, in a child pose another and today from a reclined position. Each start progressed through the standard sequencing practices of centering, sun salutations and warmup, standing poses, balance poses, seated poses and back to floor. At this point, I’m getting better at time awareness and “feeling” where I should be in the sequence. I still have to figure out my unique concluding phrase that each yoga instructor seems to have. Do I even need one? I don’t know yet.

Today I’ve been thinking about Aristotle’s De Anima (On the Soul) and how the soul (and nature) is understood as movement, as animation. Can there be philosophy-themed yoga sequences? Nietzsche would definitely require a headstand. Hegel, a lot of opposing movements and then centering. Aristotle would definitely be an Iyengar practitioner, attentive to alignment between movements. Hmmm…I like thinking about this strange yoga thematic turn in practicing philosophies of embodiment. My mind is certainly wobblying now!

Maybe I need to compose Philosophers do Yoga like Monty Python’s Philosopher’s World Cup. Makes me laugh every time. Enjoy!

Wishing you ease and laughter,

The Wobblyogi

Image from: https://daphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/yoga/