Re-visit Basics Of Yoga With Louise Ellis

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The world is shifting towards social media Challenging Yoga, that intimidates all of us, let’s have a quick chat with Louise Ellis, on how beautification of external appearance of yoga poses has overshadow the basic concept of yoga – Set an Intention before practice, Use of Drishti and Surrender during the flow.

HMY : Majority of the students are drawn blank, when teacher asks for, “We’ll start by taking a moment to set an intention for your practice.” How should we set an intention and in what way it helps us?

Louise : Mentally acknowledge that we allow the conceptual mind to take a step back so we let the deeper wider mind come to the forefront for the duration of practice. This transition can be done in many ways through a mantra, a gesture a small ritual action or a mental suggestion. This is the vast mind which is non analytical, inclusive fearless and interconnected. This is the sub stratum mind which is vast, non analytical , witnessing, inclusive, loving and fearless and inter connected. Intention makes the space to come into direct connection unclouded by concepts. A very simple intention could be just to be present for the duration of the practice that present concept free space allow


HMY : While practicing yoga, Drishti is the gazing technique. Could you share some tips for beginners on how to use Drishti and its significance on the mat and off the mat?

Louise : Dristhi is the soft unfocused gaze. It is a meditative use of the eyes and is a form of tratak. It’s a  way to reverse the senses from their out going pattern. This is pratyahara. Start by just directing the eyes to a particular  point without trying to focus. The eyes will become used to this after some practice.

HMY : The philosophy of ‘Let go’, comes with more and more practice of Surrender during the flow. We all are stuck in this fancy world, racing to climb the ladder of success, feeding our expectations, nurturing our ego. How do we learn to surrender in this ecosystem?

Louise : Through practice we learn to accept things as they are. I suggest letting practice be the one place where you can let go of goals self judgement, competition and the idea of being the doer. After some time we can take this into life in a wider way.

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