Costa Rica Yoga Journal

Costa Rica Yoga JournalMark Goldstein

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana or Pigeon Pose

This pose is a wonderful hip opener, because of that it can help out many types of lower back pain. As a massage therapist, the most common issue that I hear from clients is regarding back pain. Of course it can feel wonderful to have some great massage strokes done to your back when you are in pain, but, I find that whether we are healing through massage or yoga, that we always need to address the front of the body too in order to really make your back feel better.

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Costa Rica Yoga JournalMark GoldsteinYoga

Breath and Movement

Many, if not all styles of yoga integrate breath into their practices. I teach the Vinyasa Flow style of yoga, and we link breath to each movement we make. There are quite a few asanas, or yoga poses, that can illustrate the experience of linking breath with movement, and this edition’s pose of the month is really a pair of poses named Cat and Cow.

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Costa Rica Yoga JournalMark Goldstein

Inversions

It’s March, and a few days ago the Northern Hemisphere will be experienced it’s spring equinox, when Winter begins to turn to Spring. Many of our visitors are here from the northern latitudes, and have been going through a long cold winter. The arrival of spring launches growth and new beginnings. Many of you reading this are ex-pats from up north, and have experienced huge changes by relocating to Costa Rica. This brings up this month’s subject and pose of the month. Change: how to create it, embrace it and how to use yoga to make it more meaningful.

During the third week in March, Earth reaches it’s tipping point on a geological scalewhich will initiate Spring to our north and Autumn to our south. Simply put : What was up becomes down, and what was down becomes up on a globalscale, and this creates massive changes.This brings up our Pose(s) of the Month: Inversions. An inversion pose is one that gets you upside down. A pose when your heart is above your head, or at least your feet are up into the air.

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Costa Rica Yoga JournalMark Goldstein

The Tree Pose

I’d like to present an important concept from yoga, one which I encourage in every pose that we practice. There is not really a name for this concept, rather a description.

It can be summed up as: “In a pose, what parts of my body do I need to use, and which ones can I let go of?”

When practicing yoga, many people seek, and achieve, improvements in their physical bodies: six pack abs, less fat, more muscle, increase in flexibility. All of these are great goals, and can look and feel great as you achieve them. Many of these results come when we use our muscles, and burn calories. That’s fine, however, that’s not really where the “yoga happens”.

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