Dru Yoga is often recognised as one of the most powerful forms of yoga to open up the heart centre in a gentle and flowing way. When you consciously open the heart many beautiful qualities become available to you including compassion, generosity, kindness, loyalty and gratitude. For this reason, the Seat of Compassion is a very important posture within Dru Yoga and it holds the key to one of our most important principles: the opening of the heart centre or Anahata chakra.
In this posture you are opening the lower energy centres, gently stimulating your fire and motivation and then, through the movement of the arms, drawing that energy flow upward to the heart centre and out through the hands. This allows your creative dynamism to be expressed out into the world through the heart qualities of generosity and kindness, rather than through emotions such as anger, irritability or low self esteem. Use this posture when you need to get into your heart space.
The Seat of compassion stretches the front of the hip - the iliopsoas muscles - as well as being a great stretch for the quadricep muscles on the front of the thigh (it’s great for runners and cyclists!)
How to do this posture?
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Step 1 Come into a kneeling position and engage your core muscles in the lower abdomen. Then take your right foot forward, ensuring that the knee is directly above the right ankle in the full extension. If you have knee problems or are pregnant, please keep a shorter distance between the front foot and back knee, and you may wish to place a blanket or cushion under the knee that is on the floor. Step 2 Raise both arms up in front of you to shoulder height. Keeping your right arm extended away from you, breathe in and lift your left arm up to vertical above you – gazing at your hand. With the out breath, allow the left arm to continue to arch over head and extend out behind you. Continue to follow the hand with your eyes so that you are now looking behind you. Step 3 With the next in breath soften both your arms, and with the out breath push the palms of the hands away from you, stretching the palms slightly. You may find that you are able to sink deeper into the hip opening stretch with each out breath. Repeat at least 3 times with slow, deep breaths. Focus on opening the heart centre and the connection between your hands and the heart. Step 4 With the next in breath raise the left arm up to vertical – following your hand with your eyes - and with the out breath return the hand to shoulder height in front of you. Slowly lower your arms to the floor. When you are ready swap sides and repeat with the left foot forward.
Please do not over stretch in this extended runner position. To begin with, keep the back knee directly under the hip with a 90 degree angle between the hip joint and knee. Gradually increase the angle by taking the back knee further away from you as your muscles lengthen and you feel more comfortable in this position. |