Tree Pose Vrksasana वृक्षासन

📍 Location: GAINESVILLE, FL
⏱️ Playback: 2X

Tips & Cues:
✶ Be patient and tell yourself that you love you.
✶ Roll your shoulders back and down.
✶ Root the four corners of your standing foot into the floor.
✶ Activate your calf, thigh, and glutes on your standing leg to maintain a strong tree trunk.
✶ Rotate your hip open on the leg you wish to lift.
✶ Trace the foot on your lifted leg up the interior of your standing leg.
✶ You can rest your lifted foot between your ankle and the floor as a kickstand for the most accessible tree.
✶ For more, you can rest your lifted foot on your calf and practice balancing.
✶ For even more, you can place your lifted foot on your thigh, press it into your thigh, and press back into your foot with your thigh.
✶ Or try half lotus: take your heel into the hip of your standing leg and point your toes.
✶ Do not press your lifted foot into your knee in order to protect your knee joint.
✶ On your lifted leg, turn your toes towards the back and your heel forward (clockwise) to exaggerate the openness of your hip.
✶ Tuck in your core, lift your spine tall, growing length from your rooted foot to your crown, and open your chest wide to expose your heart.
✶ When you feel comfortable in your balance, grow your branches (extend your arms) any way you like.
✶ For an extra challenge, try closing your eyes 🙃
✶ Remember to breathe.

🙏 If you’re interested in perfecting your alignment and deepening cue knowledge, take my advice and study with Daniel Taylor @ Vira Vinyasa School.

✨ Intention:

This 300-year-old oak is a burial ground for a family member that I lost (too soon) to addiction. He was a genius who taught me that behind a computer screen, there sleeps a code, and he who codes rules the land. He was wed to another family member of mine that I almost lost to addiction as well. She is now a mentor to me. Her strength to beat addiction - one day at a time - is an inspiration.

You can be addicted to anything - most people assume drugs are the only thing humans can be addicted to.

I was addicted to masochism. Because I thought it was an addiction that hurt no one but me. But I learned from a great guide that my masochism actually does harm to others - not just me. The Asanas cured me of 99% of my masochism. It was finding a supportive community and the Svādhyāya that brought me final clarity/purity.

I have moulted my masochism - and I leave behind an exuviae of excuses that no longer serve me.

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