OVER the moon!

My yoga study has instilled in me the passionate belief that yoga postures are not meant to be "performed" OR experienced in two dimensions only!

When we look in yoga books, we often see precise, angular yogis in precise, angular postures. While reading through the accompanying postural instructions, we follow many lines (sometimes pages!) of pointed, targeted, and perfect biomechanical movements. When we practice, we start to squeeze our body into the 2-D visual image we once saw of the pose. Sometimes the experience can be clear, direct and positive. At other times, we feel a rigidity, a hardening, a distance.

Books were my first yoga teachers and I am indebted to the world of inner knowledge to which they introduced me. I knew however that this two dimensional experience just wasn't the real deal. From books alone, my yoga practice felt well...maybe just a little......FLAT. However, when I finally summoned the courage to enter my first real yoga classroom, the tutor suggested that we move through our standing postures as if our body was wedged between two planes of glass! Ouch. This really didn't resonate....

From the beginning of my yoga journey, I was looking for more. Was there room for playfulness, creativity, even joyful exhuberance within the support of good physical alignment?

Many yoga classes and studios later, a favorite teacher showed me how to break the asana mold! In a popular and playful Friday night yoga class, Anusara teacher Moses Brown invited us to expand the MOON. In the midst of our practice, as we moved from Triangle Pose to Half Moon, his voice rang out across the room, "Infusing your standing leg with deep intention, bend your back knee. Reach back with your top arm for your top foot. As you grab hold of your foot, scoop your tailbone forward. From the center of your strength, root down more fully into your standing leg and curl your heart open to the sky!" Ardha Chandra Chapasana.

A revelation!


From the peace and poise of a graceful Half Moon, I curled and arched. Using my breath, I lengthened and opened my spine as if bending sweetly around the support of a FULL bright moon.






What I love so much about the Anusara approach to yoga postures is that well, it IS curvy! Through my practice, I can celebrate living fully in a three dimensional universe! And interestingly, I find this creative freedom by working with good alignment. In each pose, we use universal principles of alignment (an elegant system of loops and spirals) to generate, experience, and manifest our own inner and outer experience with every single breath.


Enter the pose with soulful intention.
Draw into and expand out of the boundaries of the body from the support of our foundation.
Lengthen and curve, ground down and arch up!
Dance and play deeply!
Honour the source of all blessings with the art and poetry of your body and soul!






I taught this pose in my Continuing Yoga classes this week. If you want to learn or delve more deeply into the playful pose Ardha Chandra Chapasana (AKA "FULL MOON" pose!), check out the Yoga Journal article here!