The eagle is seated in a meditative state, proud and high upon it’s rocky ledge, eyes penetrating the ground for prey far below. Puffy clouds like dirty popcorn are rolling in, blackening the skies. The wind howls, the trees are swaying while their leaves dance and swirl. The eagle begins to open his wings. Suddenly the storm worsens but suddenly the eagle leans forward into the air. With openness and grace the eagle soars peacefully into the stormy clouds. With unwavering faith in the wind he’s flying high above the storm.
Below stands the Eagle Pose, designed to twist you up and make you wobble. But you won’t give in, right? You will focus, hold on and have faith won’t you? Actually, the purpose here is to help you to learn the Eagle Pose. Below are the 10 steps to help guide you. Of course you will wobble as we all do. Balancing on one leg is pretty challenging but hang in there. Every yoga pose is always a “work in progress.” It’s far more important what we take away from each pose that helps us live a richer, calmer and more productive, stress-free life.
What might we learn from the Eagle Pose while we practice it? When we get all twisted up and anxious to sit still. Focus on inhaling and exhaling consistently. Consistent steady breaths in any situation will immediately calm our nervous system down. Balancing poses are meant to bring on the chaos in our minds and bodies simply by trying to hold them up. But isn’t that a little bit like life? Trying to hold ourselves up yet the heavy load of stress weighs us down and tires us out. Chaos will always be around it’s simply how we react to it that matters.
What we really want to do is not stress out and respond in a calm peaceful manner. But we all over react sometimes. That’s because we are hardly put in situations where we do have a choice to react in a different way. That is where yoga can help. It offers us a better way to handle stressful situations through the challenge of practicing each pose. We realize there is a better, more positive choice to handle our stress. Then all we have to do is release what weighs us down and have faith that God will not only give us His strength but we can soar as well, high above the drama and chaos of our very own storms in our personal world.
Besides the above benefits the physical benefits are:
Increases overall leg strength especially, feet, ankles, calves, knees and hips.
Improves flexibility in our shoulders, hips and thighs while stretching our upper back, hips and thighs.
Opens back lungs increases breathing capabilities and is helpful to asthma suffers.
Improves focus and brain power while offering a sense of balance, coordination, body awareness and enhances our mind/body connection.
Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. Isaiah 40:31
Cast your anxiety on Him because He cares for you! ! Peter 5:7
keep calm and yoga on!
This iconic bird can be found just about everywhere, from coins and paper to passports, and even the President’s official seal. The idea of using a bald eagle to symbolize America was proposed in 1782, and was immediately accepted by the newly formed Congress. It was officially adopted as the emblem of the United States five years later in 1787.
