Core Strength

Hope created magic at yoga yesterday. This was the coolest thing. So we started off doing sun salutations and instead of going into cobra after plank pose, we did chaturangas. (Look at the above picture-it's almost like a push up pose, but your elbows are in tight next to your body). After holding this pose for a few seconds we were then suppose to slowly push up, hold it, slowly lower ourselves, hold it, slowly push up, hold it, and slowly lower again. This for me was extremely difficult. I'll just admit now that I had to put my knees on the ground after the second one. Well, Hope recognized the difficulty of it for the whole class and told us she had an idea. We then went to several other poses and did a few twists. The thing was, we were asked to really concentrate on our core. We breathed in puffing up our kidneys and then with our kidneys still expanded we opened our hearts and created a real openness and strength in our core. After a few times of doing this we then went back to the chaturangas. Let me just tell you, I was able to bust out 5 in a row EASILY! I probably could have done more but we were asked to stop. When we were done the whole class just looked around at each other like, "what just happened?!" Everyone was now able to easily do these yoga type push ups. Hope explained that our cores were engaged, so we were no longer pushing our selves up with our arms, we were using our cores to raise ourselves up. It was the most amazing thing!

So of course Hope always applies these yoga techniques into our daily lives. When our inner spiritual core is strong, then we can do anything we want. If it's weak, then it's hard to face our trials. Isn't that so true? From a religious stand point when our core (testimony, faith, etc.) is strong we are more able to handle the hard things that are thrown at us. But if we are weak and unsure and our testimonies aren't strong then life seems so much harder to handle. It also reminded me of Diana's lessons she gave at Relief Society last week. When those core things in our daily lives are done (prayers, scriptures, etc) it seems as though everything else falls into place. But when their not getting done, life seems like chaos. This was such a fun class to contemplate about. The whole hour I was there I concentrated on the core things that I need to make stronger. I saw a miracle happen in yoga from strengthening my core... there's no telling what miracles our Heavenly Father can make happen if our spiritual core is strong!