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Sante at The Chase Park Plaza

Inside the Yoga Sutras: A Comprehensive Sourcebook for the Study and Practice of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, Reverend Jaganatha Carrera

Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat, Richard Faulds

Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, Stephen Cope

Light on Yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar

Wheels of Life: A User's Guide to the Chakra System, Anodea Judith

Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to Self, Anodea Judith

Go In and In: Poems from the Heart of Yoga, Danna Faulds

• Avoid eating for two or three hours before class. If you practice yoga on a full stomach, you might experience cramps or nausea, especially in twists, deep forward bends, and inversions. The process of digestion can also sap your energy and make you feel lethargic.
• Wear comfortable exercise clothing like bike shorts or leggings with a tank top or t-shirt. Layers allow you to regulate your body temperature. For beach classes dress appropriate for weather and outdoors activity i.e. sunscreen, towels, etc.
• Bring your yoga mat and towel. Limited eye pillows are available for use in class.
• Arrive Early. Getting to class 10-15 minutes early can help you settle in and align your attitude with the purpose of class. While your waiting you can practice a pose, do a few stretches, or just sit or lie quietly, breathe and center yourself.
• Turn off Cell Phones.
• Speak Quietly in the Practice Room.   Loud conversations can be distracting to yourself and others.
• Stay until the end of class. Yoga is a holistic practice. Exercise brings blood flow away from organs to skeletal muscles. Relaxation brings blood flow back to the organs. Final relaxation and integration are important for healing, balance and equilibrium.

Create A Safe Practice

• Practice at your own level, balancing challenge with ease. If you are suffering or in pain, you're not doing yoga. Pushing or straining to keep up with others will only create resistance and injury. You'll make more progress if you take a compassionate attitude towards yourself and work from where you are, rather that from where you think you should be.
• Let your teacher know about injuries and vulnerabilities. Avoid working out any area of your body that is inflamed. Skip poses you can't or shouldn't do, or try a modified or alternative posture.
• Stiffness. Always warm up before stretching. Never bounce while stretching.
• Hyper-flexibility: Tendons and ligaments are too loose. Stretch the belly of the muscle. Engage and strengthen the muscles around vulnerable joints.
• Herniated or Degenerative Disc Diseases: Practice slowly and carefully. Maintain extended spine in forward bends and spinal twists
• Osteoporosis: Practice carefully at 100% to strengthen your bones. Alignment is important. Maintain extended spine in spinal twists. Support your spine in forward bends. Avoid forward and back spinal rocking or putting all your body weight on a vulnerable joint.
• High Blood Pressure (un- mediated): Avoid inverted postures, or any position where your head is below your heart. Avoid kapalabhati (skull shining or breath of fire) or bhastrika (bellows breath).
• Low Blood Pressure: Come into and out of postures slowly. If you feel dizzy, bring your head below your heart (child pose)
• Asthma: Practice breathing exercises slowly and focus on relaxation.
• Emphysema: Avoid vigorous practice, ujjayi breath, kapalabhati and breath holding.
• Infections of Head and Neck: Avoid Inversions
• Diarrhea, Hiatal Hernia, Heartburn Ulcers: Avoid kapalabhati, abdominal pumping and inversions
• Overactive Thyroid: Modify postures that deeply stretch the front of the throat. Allow only a gentle curve in   your nock or keep your chin tucked.
• Epilepsy: Keep your practice gentle rather than overly vigorous. Avoid prolonged holding of postures. Avoid breath holding.
• Menstruation & Pre-menstruation: Listen to your body, practice at your own pace, and allow your body to relax and much as possible. Avoid strong abdominal work like ha-breaths, kapalabhati and abdominal strengtheners. Avoid strong, prolonged root lock (mula bandha) or abdominal lock (uddhyana bandha). Avoid full inversions with your feet off the floor. (Half inversions with feet grounded are ok) Avoid extreme backbends. Avoid prolonged holding of standing postures if you feel week or tired.
• Pregnancy: 1 st trimester- avoid vigorous practice and abdominal work as above. Its ok to lie on your belly (prone). 2 nd trimester- Avoid prone postures where they become uncomfortable. Use alternatives standing, kneeling, supine, or resting on your side. 3 rd trimester- Practice gently, about 50-60% as ligaments loosen up and can be easily over stretched. Find alternatives to postures that compress the belly. Lie on left side as not to constrict the vena cava and aggrevate veins and hemorrhoids. Inversions may feel unstable and make breathing difficult. Instead, lie on your back with your legs resting against a wall. Postnatal: practice at about 80% for two months as ligaments are still loose and vulnerable.

From Deva Parnell, Discovery Yoga, Inc.