Sridaiva in the light of the feminine 02-10-2015

I love to dedicate October to the universal feminine principle because it is when India celebrates the festival to the DIvine Mother. Today, the Drop of Light is full of shakti, talks about my new practice and explains the question Why do people talk about Sridaiva with feminine words?  

One of the women that participates in the Deeper Studies Program and Art of Teaching Yoga that I teach every year in Palma shared with the group yesterday that the main reason why she enrolled the program was because she felt the need to practice a more "feminine" yoga. By it she meant a softer and deeper practice. This lady has been teaching a very popular style of yoga for a while, but her body-mind-heart were asking for something different and she has found it in Sridaiva. She is not the only one feeling this way. I don't think that Sridaiva is only feminine because the system is based on a current of thought that enhances the perfect balance between feminine-masculine, Shakti-Shiva, but I do believe that there are several reasons why men and women experience it as more feminine than Modern Postural Yoga: 1. Sridaiva really embodies the qualities of the divine feminine, which is the universal creative power in both men and women. If you want to review what those are, just click on the link. Many body work disciplines say that they cultivate it, but Sridaiva takes is to a level of manifestation as never before. 2. Postural alignment is based on a system that honors the shape of the natural curves in your body and therefore it is highly healing and restorative. There is nothing linear nor angular in the Bowspring, just as in Nature. 3. It requires you to be receptive and aware 100%, inviting you to go slower, to contemplate and feel intuitively. 4. It is extraordinary in awakening the power of Kundalini Shakti, the most potent and concentrated form of creative energy in our body. It does not try to control it by keeping the body in a static position or by manipulating the breath. It gives Kundalini the freedom to flow sinuously throughout the whole body. Sridaiva allows subtle movements, rebounds, breathing through the mouth and expressions of emotion/feeling throughout the outer and inner practices.  5. Actions and movements are fluid and wave-like like water and this is the quintessential feminine element that allows coherence, adaptability and flexibility. During a Sridaiva class many students have the experience of dancing with their powerful inner energy and the reason is because it works at the level of the fascia, the network of tissue that makes you a whole and that is it basically made of water and collagen. 6. It enhances dynamism for awakening the body-mind-heart. There is nothing static in an Sridaiva class because that does not exist in Nature. Everything is in constant pulse and tensegrity. Balance between opposites is cultivated by the integration of all parts from the heart core. The application of the Bowspring Algorithm interconnects all parts of the body and makes them play the tensegrity game of push-pull. The body is not studied as a group of isolated components, but as a unified whole. Each posture and each class evenly take care of the whole. 7. Cultivates  mindfulness as a mother cares for her children, with a constant outpour of love. Free from judgement or competitiveness, always watching with a smiling heart and, at the same time, compassionately re-directing as many times as needed. 8. The practice itself does not allow you to force or to go beyond your limits. Only a soft attitude will take you towards the deepest transformation. Through Sridaiva you let go of old mental patterns that made you fit your body to certain postural forms. Here you can not impose your will, you have to allow it to happen organically. Nonetheless, you become incredibly strong and powerful, your body-mind-heart really get to manifest their diamantine qualities. 9. It is the most beautiful celebration of life and tangible praise of God-Goddess in your body-mind-heart!

“Reverence to the Divine in the form of Female Power (Shakti) that defends the entire world in various forms” Rig Veda