Moon Salutation / Chandra Namaskar

Welcome to the Moon Salutation Challenge! I invite you to join me each evening this week in completing 3 Moon Salutations/ to complete your day. You can join this challenge for 5 or 7 days (ideally consecutive days) To create a sense of equilibrium in our lives and yoga practice it’s helpful to observe the power of opposites. Yin and Yang, ebb and flow, contraction and expansion, effort and surrender. As we have just past a 2nd full moon this month, we enter into the Yin seasons (Autumn & Winter) and we also embark on another lockdown... I thought we’d bring more Yin into our practice and set ourselves a challenge to calm and settle the mind in the evenings... It’s important that we recognise the qualities and benefits on each side of the spectrum so that we can find balance and unity between them. Sun Salutations are said to be a yang practice, related to activity, heat and light, whilst Moon Salutations are associated with a yin practice – receptive, meditative and cooling. Although yin and yang represent opposites and Sun & Moon Salutations embrace different qualities, they compliment each other perfectly. The yogic term Hatha also reflects these individual yet interconnected qualities – Ha referring to the warming, active energy of the sun and tha – the cooling, receptive elements of the moon. Hatha yoga, therefore, seeks to unify these apparently opposing elements, creating harmony and balance.