We seem to have missed our Pose of The Month in May but are very pleased to bring you a Pose of the Month in June.
Our teacher Susan Smith shares one of her favourite poses.
Parighasana - Gate Pose
Parighasana is one of my favourite poses to bring into my practice.
Parigha means the horizontal bar used to shut a gate; the bar which comes down at a level crossing. We are that long extended bar.
It is an energising and freeing pose, from our hips to our armpits, to our fingertips, a lovely stretch. It also, like a gate, opens up and leads us to other postures which it compliments, such as Uttitha Trikonasana, Uttitha Parsvakanasana, Virabhadrasana 2.
As always with the wonderful system that Iyengar Yoga is, we have a multitude of benefits. We start with the stretch and find that it helps us breathe better then reaping those benefits to our mind and our bodies we latch our outer self with our inner self.
We begin with our physical body and learn to go in through the layers.
As BKS Iyengar says in Light on Life, " The practice of yoga teaches us to live fully - physically and spiritually - cultivating each of the various sheaths.” (p.5) These sheaths are called koshas. They are like layers of an onion. The layers are: the outermost layer of the body, that is our physical form, our energetic body, our mental body, our intellectual body and ultimately our blissful or soul body."