As a yoga teacher, as much as I love cyclical themed yoga classes for the seasons and the letting go of the Autumn leaves, I find my mood plummeting with the falling leaves and the darkness. 

As I observe yoga students in my classes, I remind myself that the letting go (of the autumn leaves) is not always welcome and often bodies and minds hold on tight for good reason – it is wise in the moment. Letting go too much, going too deep into the darkness is the nervous system simply keeping you safe. 

With overwhelm of darker days and a darkening world, it’s useful to find the opposite in class, in the body, the inner sunshine of Spring waiting to spring. If students can leave class with a spring in their step and feeling a little lighter and softer around the edges, that’s worth unrolling your yoga mat and coming to class for. Sometimes it's hard to even leave the house!

I don’t want to wait for Spring to come round before I can feel springy and light in my body and mood so I often guide students into the somatic experience of ‘getting springy’, the feeling of springiness that they can find in their own body. 

How to find the spring in your step 

I use the power of imagery, suggestion and embodied experience. 

Feeling into the feet on the yoga mat is the first point of contact – from the physical touch of the ground underneath, I cue slowing down and getting a little quieter as if you are tiptoeing so as not to distract yourself, disturb your mind too much and activate somewhere else-ness. This takes you into feeling mode, somatic, embodied, mindful...

Here’s a guided practice  

Stand still on your mat and take in your surroundings, the space, the floor, the ceiling. 

From standing still, start to swing the arms forward and back - feel how the arms move from the shoulders

Continue with the same arm movement but bend the knees as you take the arms down and back. 

Feel the feet yield into the ground as the knees bend and arms go down and back. As the arms go forward and up, feel the rebound from the ground upwards. 

Get a little momentum going, strong breath IN for rebound up, and EX for yielding down. 

Use imagary - eg.

- springs in your joints like good suspension in a well-oiled and luxury vehicle going over the speed bumps smoothly 

- Imagine bouncy balls in the arches of the feet, the ankles, knees and hips so there is an awareness around the chain from the earth through the feet and up the legs, into the hips sockets and between the vertebrae of the spine. 

- Speed up as the momentum takes you into a bounce, springloaded, swing, get the energy flowing, vigour and flow 

- Be a little playful and lighten the mood– IN though nostrils, make a WEE or a HAAA or an EEE as you EX (great for on zoom)

- Slow down to a natural pace for you – students can choose their own pace and find their own description of how it feels through embodied mindful attention. Name what you notice

- Come back to stillness, eyes closed and observe how you are now inside, and any changes you note.

- Invite students to walk around the room as they pack away and then leave so they take the feeling off the mat and into the world, imagining springs/little fluffy clouds/(insert your own) in the feet, arches, ankles, knees, hip joints, nutation of the tail and pelvis, movement up through the spine through the abdominal diaphragm into the lungs, chest, throat and neck, allowing the head to bob a little as the impulse runs up from the ground. 

Go back into the world with a spring in your step and see how long it lasts. Whenever you want to revisit, you can come back to the somatic feel of it it in the body again now you have made a body memory.

I hope you enjoy the practice. I’d love to hear about your experience – email me at judy@yogaunited.com

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