O my gosh! Something clicked for me this morning while I was playing with Snake breaks. I decided to work my Heart chakra by doing consistant upper body breaks in Snake position for abut 30 minutes straight and I started to find amazingly juicey nooks and crannies in these moves. I've never been a huge fan of paddling, so it seemed like a good exercise.
What I discovered was that I can make it much more stimulating by bringing equisite awareness to my fingers -- paddling hand always has straight fingers pointing directly up and centered at my heart. Also, by bringing more awareness to my hands and arms and where they go between paddles and breaks, it becomes much more exciting to me... I created a routine where everytime my hand is not activly paddling and breaking, it must extend all the way down the side of my body and my hand must touch my thigh and my arm is fully extended. It was neat... like the entire exercise was about seeking sensation and precision in my hands. Then it became about making the moves less choppy and making the touch which was more of a hit at first, more of a sensual slide. Then I added the layer of foot steps at the moment of paddle, extending my leg and foot our to the side and bringing my head up. Finally, I really worked on opening my heart -- typically during these moves I am slightly leanging forward with my hoop, so I really arched my back so my chest pushed the hoop forward and on a level plane in front of me instead of droopy. There is just so much to play with in all of this... an infinite universe of what can emerge with the hands in all of this! I love my hands and arms!
Spent the rest of my hour with upper and below handed reversals and one-handed reversals on each side, lots of outflow dancing after the sensation of joy, itself.. which brough lots of smiling, giggles and release. By the end my arms were red, tingley and flushed, but it felt good. I'll take my vitamins and joint supplements .. all of this work wakes up sensation in my wrists. So grateful for this play!
Today's image from: www.astrophoto.com