Is Your Head On Straight For The New Year?

Dear Friends,

One of my favorite aha moments on my yoga mat was the day that I felt my head move fully integrated with my spine. I could feel my whole front body open, lengthen and extend. It was truly remarkable.

Try it for yourself,

1. Place your left hand over your heart and your right hand over your belly. Keep your hands there and feel as you tilt your head up, as if you wanted to look at a rainbow in the sky. Do this several times.
2. Now keeping your hands where they are, do the same movement except this time initiate the movement from your mouth, as if you wanted to catch a falling raindrop in your mouth. Do it again and reach a little stronger the second time.

Feel the difference?

I hope you where able to feel more movement in the front body when you initiated head movement from the mouth. In this instance, your jaw joint levered into the skull which bumped your first vertebra which caused force to sequentially move down the whole length of your spine.

When you reach for something, chances are you initiate the movement from the eyes or the hands and your head just follows along. If your mouth is not engaged in the head's movement, than it is mostly the muscles in your neck supporting the movement and not from length and force produced from an integrated spine. In such a case, tension in the neck and shoulders build.

Come to yoga and learn to reach with awareness for what you want and help your self to a pain free, joyful New Year.

In Love and Light,


Maurene