Yoga Practice Tips for Spring

Spring is a season of awakening, growth and renewal. It’s time to emerge from the inward time of the winter (and all of 2020), recharge your yoga practice, and stir up your energy to spring forward.

Here are a few tips to embrace the energy of Spring, both on and off your mat:

Add in core work: Activate your solar plexus, the energetic center within your core that embodies the strength and power of the sun. In your practice, focus on toning and strengthening your abdominal muscles as well as moving from your center in all transitions. Powerful abdominal muscles support your everyday movements, improve your posture, stabilize your lower back, support your overall vitality, and create more efficient movements and power within every pose. When you strengthen your core, you can open all sorts of new energy and power, and connect more deeply to your inner wisdom.

Go upside down: Practice challenging yourself by adding more inversions in your practice. Inversions, like handstand and headstand, are known for mood- and health-boosting benefits, but they’re also great tools to help you break free from the seriousness and stress of life today. Inversions are said to be the fountain of youth, and positively impact all the major systems of the body. So play with kicking up to handstand, and go upside down to infuse a sense of wonder and play into your practice.

Get outside: The flowers are blooming and the trees are signing! Go out and soak up the unique energy of the new season. Take your shoes off and walk on the green grass, and notice your connection to the earth with every step. Marvel the light hitting the trees, soak in the colors of the plants, and feel the warmer temperature of the air on your skin. Allow nature to hold you and ground you into your body, and get present with what’s possible now.

Lighten up your diet: In Ayurveda, the sister science of yoga, springtime is ideal for cleansing to reset your body and boost your energy. Add in more fruits and vegetables to your diet, drink more water with lemon, and choose more plant-based meals. As you lighten the load on your digestive system, you will have more energy to use in your yoga practice and in your life.

Let’s open to the energy of spring together, and embrace the light and wonder of the change in seasons. We’ll see you on the mat!