SIDEBAR: TRY THIS! Jathara Parivrttanasana Reclining Spinal Twist, Rotated Stomach Pose

I arrived at the Svaroopa yoga class a few minutes early because it was my first time to study this style, and I wanted a spot near the teacher. The teacher greeted me, sweetly told me to leave my yoga mat against the wall, and invited me lie down on one of the soft, colorful blankets on the floor. She helped me drape my legs over a stack of blankets and supported my heels on some blocks. When she reached underneath my shoulder blades and hips to position them flat on the floor, I knew this was a yoga class unlike any I had experienced before. Through the remainder of the class, the teacher helped me to hold various poses, some familiar and some new to me, with my body supported by blankets and blocks. The poses were easy to do, and extremely effective in releasing my tight areas as I fully relaxed into the support. By the end of the class, I had a feeling of peace. I had an awareness of a deep healing for a chronic pain that had lived in my sacrum for a long time, and it was no longer there.

Svaroopa is a Sanskrit word that means “the bliss of your own being.” Rama Berch chose this word, with help from her Sanskrit teacher, to name the revolutionary style of yoga that she had been teaching after twelve years of training in the U.S. and seven years of study in an ashram in India. This was a new concept in yoga: opening the core. It was effective and exciting. Her students expressed their desires to teach it to others. Rama Berch, founder and president emeritus of the Yoga Alliance, started the Master Yoga Foundation in San Diego, California, through which she has trained over 800 teachers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia.

Svaroopa yoga teaches with attention to alignment and compassionate adjustments, allowing the body to release into the poses rather than straining into them. The results bring benefits of physical, mental, and emotional changes into healing and blissful experiences of energy rejuvenation and awareness.

The blankets and blocks that support the Svaroopa yoga poses, help to make the class accessible to students of any level: beginners, seniors, those with special needs, as well as highly experienced yogis. The teachers are trained to assist the students in gaining the most benefit from the poses with precise alignments and gentle adjustments. The poses are sequenced to start releasing tension in the spine with the tailbone and moving up from there.

Rama Berch tells us in her book, Yoga in Every Moment, that “Svaroopa Yoga is a way of working with what your body really needs, instead of with how you wish it were. It brings you right back to reality, starting with your physical form. Your experience of that outer level of reality will link you to the deeper inner level of reality, svaroopa. We teach you to find that deeper reality by beginning with your body. Do more yoga.”

TRY THIS!
Jathara Parivrttanasana Reclining Spinal Twist, Rotated Stomach Pose

Lie on your back, bend both knees, and hold them near your chest with your hands, knees together and big toes side by side. Keeping your knees near your chest, extend your arms from your shoulders onto the floor in a “T”.

Let your knees float to the floor on your left side. Your left knee and left foot are on the floor and your right foot and knee are on top of your lower foot and knee. If you have a gap between your legs, place a pillow between your thighs. Move your arms down into an “A” frame with your left wrist bone touching your left kneecap. Slide your feet out toward the left until you have a 90 degree bend in your hips and in your knees so that your back doesn’t arch.

Turn your palms to the ceiling with the backs of your hands on the floor. If your right shoulder lifts off the floor, it’s okay. If it lifts so far that your right hand does not land on the floor, bend that elbow and lay your palm on your lowest ribs.

Turn your head toward your bent knees. Very slowly, turn your head toward your other shoulder then back to a comfortable position. With each head position, allow your whole body to relax. Feel the twist massaging gently through your abdomen. Let your rib cage twist, and feel your neck and face soften.

When you’re ready to come out, roll your legs to the center slowly. Rest on your back, holding both knees again for a few breaths.
Do your other side.

Benefits: Deeply calms your mind and soothes your nervous system; relieves tension through the whole spine, creating length and space between the vertebrae; can relieve headaches and help you to sleep; massages your stomach and cleanses digestion and elimination systems; reduces fat; tones your liver, spleen, pancreas; relieves low back pain and sciatica; balances the flow of prana in ida and pingala nadis; centers your awareness and makes meditation easy.

Patricia Kilpatrick teaches Svaroopa-style Yoga at Harmony Learning Center in Decatur, GA. Patricia may be reached at 404-315-9000 or www. HarmonyLearningCenter.net

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