Recently I was invited horseback riding with some friends. As we were returning back to the stables, and were within a couple miles, the beautiful animal that was carrying me started to gallop (run like the wind!). It didn’t matter what I tried to communicate to her, she was not interested. She had one thing on her mind — Starbucks!

OK, maybe not Starbucks or the juice bar, but the equivalent to it — A big bucket of cool water and a bale of hay. You see, she was so conditioned to know that whenever she returned from a ride, it was lunch time. Before she was even done with her riding practice, her mind was on the prize. Even if it might have been better for her to take the home stretch slowly, slowly so that she could cool down before diving into her vegetarian feast.

Sometimes we human yogis can behave the same way in our Yoga asana practice. We can be too anxious to get off the mat and into our coffee cup, that we don’t take time to wind down and do a proper finishing sequence. Often it may be work, school or the beach that is racing us off before properly finishing and relaxing at the end of our practice.

The inversions in our finishing sequence are very important in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga as well as other strong asana practices. Do you want to know why? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway!

You see, when we do an intense practice like Ashtanga, we free many toxins within the body. Toxins from what we eat, from what we drink, from what we smoke. We may also free emotional toxins within the body. Buried emotional stress that may be from the same day or from previous days. We may even move emotional drama from  weeks ago, years ago or even from childhood. The intense breathing, the internal heat and the sweat all help to loosens these types of toxic gunk. Thus, they begin to float freely around the inside of the body.

 Fortunately, we have this internal energy that helps us get this gunk out called Apana. Apana is a downward moving internal energy that is responsible for eliminating urine, excrement and menstruation. The opposite internal energy is called Prana, which is an upward moving energy.

What Apana does is push all these toxins in a downward direction so that they may be driven into the Agni, or our internal furnace, just below the navel. In this way, the toxins may be burned off.

But, some of these toxins get pushed down beyond the Agni, escaping the furnace. And some toxins that are freed may simply exist in the area below the Agni.

Therefore, we turn the body upside down. The internal flame, which always burns in an upward direction, can now be directed in the other direction of the body, thus burning off any toxins that escaped on the other side.

If we don’t practice proper inversions after an intense practice, then we may not burn off the toxins we release. Later on in the day we may feel a bit nauseous, dizzy or sick, because we are carrying around all these freshly freed toxins.

Now, if you are doing a lite or short practice, maybe you have not gone deep enough to free many toxins and maybe a significant inversion sequence is not necessary. But if you are going deep and moving lots of gunk, it is better to take your time and move through a 5-10 minute inversion sequence to burn it all off.

This month, I invite you to make the time to include a conscious inversion sequence as you finish your practice. Be sure to include, at least, a shoulder stand sequence and headstand. Take notice to how you may have become conditioned to cut corners in this part of your practice. Even if your mind is already done with the practice and ready to gallop after your coffee or juice 🙂 !
WHOOOOAAA!… Eeaaasyy, gurlll!…

Shanti Out,