How do you get down on the ground to play with your children? Do you get down on the ground to spend time with them?
Maybe your kids are older and they’re not in that play-on-the-rug phase anymore. If that’s the case, I invite you to keep getting down on the rug so that you can play, mama. Do it for yourself. Let that be your greatest yoga practice. In honor of that, here’s a idea I’ve been playing with for years: using brief yoga sequences to get down on the ground, whether it’s to play with your little one, to practice yoga on your mat, or even to get low so you can clean the baseboards (not saying I do this religiously, but hey, maybe I should!).
If you’re a seasoned practitioner that has followed prescribed yoga sequences, then I invite you to take off your yoga expert hat and look at this as something like a sun salutation, but more of a ground salutation.
If you’re more of a newbie to yoga, then I hope you are open minded and willing to get creative with your practice because that’s what it’s all about!
Have some blocks nearby if you like having support under your hands in a lunge pose; even if you can touch the ground, it can be nice to take it back a notch and not push yourself so hard.
Start in Tadasana (Standing Pose) and gently sway side-to-side, back-and-forth. Feel your feet on the ground, maybe even wiggle your toes. Exhale all the way, then as you inhale raise the arms up in Urdhva Hastasana (Upward Salute); exhale, step your right foot out to the side in a Wide Stance, bend the left knee as you bring arms parallel to the ground and look over your left shoulder in Virabhadrasana 2 (Warrior 2 Pose). Stay for a few slow breaths, then pivot onto the ball of your right foot and turn to your left in Crescent Pose; arms relax at your side, hands rest on the thighs, or hand to the ground or blocks. Stay for a moment or a few breaths, then exhale as you bring your left foot back to meet your right in Plank Pose. Hold it for a few breaths, or bend the knees, lower them down, and gently sit back into Balasana (Child’s Pose). A block under the hips might feel nice here. Repeat on the other side if you like, since Warrior and Crescent are ‘asymmetrical’ poses. Just remember which side you already did (in the example above, it was the left leg that was bent in those two poses)!
For a demo, or to follow along, here’s a video of the sequence:
Over the next week, I’ll share a few more get-down sequences but until then, here’s another one from a couple of years ago linked here.
What’s next?
Going forward from here, I’ll be sharing a kids yoga practice next Friday before I dive into the next seasonal theme on December 22, 2023. Here’s the post from our current theme of Falling in case you want to revisit it or read it if you haven’t already. Essentially, these will be 6-week cycles with the following offerings:
Seasonal theme/reflection
Yoga pose focus
Breathing practice
Restorative yoga pose
A yoga sequence to tie together the month’s themes
A kids yoga practice for little ones or young-at-heart mamas
Why 6-week cycles? You may have noticed this format began near the Autumnal Equinox, and continued the next cycle around Samhain (Halloween/Day of the Dead and All Souls Day). Every six weeks, there are significant turns in the season known as cross quarter days — not just the 4 seasons, but their midpoints between consecutive seasons, too. The posts here won’t line up with them exactly, but having some kind of connection to this flow of seasonal change has been very grounding for me and I thought it valuable to share the cycles of Mother Earth with all of you Yoga Mamas!
Please feel free to comment here if there are issues or topics you’d like me to add or modify in this 6-week structure. There are mamas here at different stages of motherhood and with their own unique lifestyles and interests. This space is meant to be a community where we co-create a yoga practice that suits our varied and busy lifestyles as moms. You can also join the conversation on this thread linked here.
And just because I love you all (and I love yoga, too)...
And might I add that I love writing as well. Urban Yoga Mama has been a labor of love for me since 2018, but I also have aspirations to make it my ‘work.’ That is why I’ve been aiming to launch the paid subscription tier (which would include #2, 4, 5, and 6 above in the list of posts, whereas the free subscribers would get #1 and 3). However, these past 6 weeks I’ve been testing the waters regarding what readers need/want and at this point, I am realizing that perhaps it’s not quite time to add that paywall.
I’ll still be offering the weekly post structure I have proposed above and keep it free to all until it seems a better time to launch, hopefully within the first few months of 2024!
What does this mean? It means that until then, if you’d like to show some love and support for my work, you can still subscribe at $5/month or $55/year. Feel like the value of this newsletter is higher than that? You can become a founding member! The suggested annual rate for that is $100, but you can choose any amount above $55. I am truly grateful for my current pool of paid subscribers for showing their support in this time of transition! Please spread the word if you enjoy this newsletter:)
Until then, I want to share this thread again: what would you like to see more of on Urban Yoga Mama? This is not just my newsletter, it’s our community of real yoga for real busy mamas!