Back To Your Body with Legs Up The Wall

Once again, I want to highlight my teacher and mentor Matthew Sanford’s quote, “your body is the best home your mind will ever have.” This statement lives within me. I explore it endlessly in different dimensions and different situations. Today I’d like to highlight a posture called legs up the wall and share a story about an integral point in my yoga journey.

I didn’t find yoga, yoga found me. I had dabbled in yoga off and on but found my teacher and my practice in 2006. In my 3rd class with Matthew, a shift happened as I laid with my legs up the wall, the Sanskrit name, Viparita Karani. Being new to Sanskrit, I whisper to myself, “viparita what????” Immediately calm set in. I felt safe in my body and had no pain. I didn’t know that space existed. My world shifted. I was inverted and my world was inverting before me. Trust was embodied from a space larger than me. I knew at a deep level this wasn’t the only time I would find myself in this space. I trusted; again I would find a safe place using my body. I was hooked. I would come again and again. Yoga is now an integral part of me; much more than a physical practice. The depth of what I’ve learned is too deep and vast to easily put into words. This is why I choose to continue to share yoga with others!

Legs up the wall – Viparita Karani

• Place a bolster or pile of blankets folded about 6” wide a fist width from the wall

• Lay on your side, placing your buttocks on top of the edge of the bolster and against the wall

• Swing your legs up the wall

• Place your hands in cactus pose or rest them in your lap

Options

• Eliminate using the bolster

• Tight hamstrings? Back your buttocks further away from the wall

• Unable to swing your legs up the wall? Lay your legs on a chair or on top of a pile of firm pillows or blankets

Benefits

• Legs up the wall is considered an inversion posture because the head is at or below the hips

• It’s considered a restful posture, where the body is fully supported and inverted without effort using a wall, chair or pile of blankets

• The spine is supported which is calming and can help with anxiety; a supported spine calms the mind!

• Can relieve leg pain, back pain, and poor digestion

• Being inverted calms the nervous system and slows fluctuations in the mind

• Improves blood circulation and lymphatic drainage

• Stimulates blood flow which helps regulate blood pressure and can ease headaches

Come share a practice with me.

Tuesdays, 6:00-7:15pm

Sun Acupuncture, Minnetonka

Registration is encouraged as space is limited.