A Yoga Sequence for Landing

slow, graceful transitions

“If you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it’s an outstanding landing.”

— Chuck Yeager

Soft landings

Yoga sequences can be such a great, embodied way to play with gravity. Sometimes in the more “difficult” or demanding poses, we might feel like we’re trying to defy gravity. Other times, for instance in restorative poses, we might feel like we’re surrendering to gravity.

How can we be in between those extremes? How can we both work in the opposite direction of gravity while also releasing parts of ourselves into gravity? If we can strike that balance, we can stay grounded and uplifted at the same time, and create soft, graceful landings as we transition from pose to pose.

The sequence

Here’s a little sequence on practicing those soft, smooth transitions as we land in different standing poses. We’ll finish it all off by choosing our own way to land in Child’s Pose. By allowing you to choose your own transition to that final resting pose, I hope you feel free to play and experiment with how you move your unique body to get there:)

As always, you can either practice along with the video (though I only do the sequence on one side) or you can watch it and then use the list below to do it on your own at your own pace.

Here are the poses/transitions I show in the video below:

Tadasana

Up on the toes - Utkatasana

Airplane

Virabhadrasana 1

Modified Ardha Chandrasana

Virabhadrasana 2

Find your way to child’s pose 

 

What goes up must come down

In my recent pose focus post, I provided details and guidance on Virabhadrasana 1 and the main thing I zeroed in on was stretching in opposite directions: the arms and top of the head stretch up while the feet push down into the ground. The idea is to stay lifted and grounded at the same time. I like to think of it as rooting down strongly through the legs and feet so that your upper body can stretch up like the branches of a tree. You can feel that same opposing stretch in other standing poses like Tadasana, Urdhva Hastasana, and Airplane Pose, which we do in the video sequence above.

Bhavana

“Time: a landing field! Death needs time like a junkie needs junk.”

-William S. Burroughs

I know, the Burroughs quote above seems heavy, but if you think of how we often end a yoga practice with Savasana, which translates as ‘Corpse Pose,’ then it seems more relevant! Really, death and life are two sides of the same coin and can give us perspective — how can we keep the idea of death in sight while also still fully living? Yoga philosophy focuses on this concept in so many ways. 

One way we can bring this into greater focus in the present moment is to reflect on the bhavana of this yoga sequence. How can we lay to rest the idea of being in a perfect shape? The bhavana, or feeling/intention here can be one of letting go of what’s not needed or necessary (letting it die is maybe a more dramatic interpretation, but it is in essence, what we’re doing) so we can be more thoughtful and precise in our landing.

With a focus on alignment in yoga, it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to perfect yoga poses. But then the question remains: what’s the point? What does it really mean to perfect a pose and then where do you go from there?

For this sequence on landing, I’d like to invite you to let go of any conceptions you have about what some might call ‘the highest expression’ of each pose. In my opinion, the highest expression is not some set of alignments that push the boundaries of our flexibility and/or strength; it’s more an issue of which variation or modification of the pose is right for you as an individual in this unique moment. Give yourself a break from being perfect, or even from just being ‘good’ at yoga.

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 February 2, 2024. Here’s the post from our current theme of Landing 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:

1. Seasonal theme/reflection

2. Yoga pose focus

3. Breathing practice

4. Restorative yoga pose

5. A yoga sequence to tie together the month’s themes

6. A kids yoga practice for little ones or young-at-heart mamas

Why 6-week cycles? You may have noticed this format of Urban Yoga Mama began near the Autumnal Equinox, continued the next cycle around Samhain (Halloween/Day of the Dead and All Souls Day), and changed themes again around the Winter Solstice. 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.

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Also, I will be able to develop and refine my offerings here (including better videos — I haven’t had time to improve the videos for lack of time and the funds for childcare). If you decide to become a paid subscriber, you’ll help this Yoga Mama and writer to tailor this community to you all a little bit better. Until I get enough paid subscribers, posts are free to all. And of course, I am so grateful to all subscribers, free and paid!