In Feel Good Friday Yoga in Rugby, we explored the Lotus Flower “Padma” Mudra. A mudra is a symbolic gesture performed by the hands. It is the Sanskrit word for “energetic seal.” So it is an energetic seal that affects the flow of energy in the body.
Practising specific mudras is an outward representation of your own inward intentions. In yoga, they are generally performed in cross-legged, lotus or hero position.
I remember the moment when one of my yoga teachers said, “…and now in class, you may like to set an intention.” My mind went blank. I had no idea what an intention was all about.
In a nutshell, what you think, you become. Thoughts become things. Intention creates our reality.
Many people think that yoga is all about touching your toes. Although yoga makes you flexible, the main goal of yoga is not about touching your toes. As Jigar Gor once said, “It’s what you learn on your way down.”
In reality, it can take years to be able to touch your toes or to do the splits. So over time, yoga begins to teach us things about ourselves.
It can be easy to think that our home yoga practice has to be a complete replication of what we practice in a public class. In reality, we can’t always expect that what we do at home is going to have the same feel, intensity, duration as when we practice yoga in a public space.