Video: The Five Pranas - Samana
What do you need to transform and assimilate? What do you need to let go of?
Today's class explored samana, the gathering, centring quality of prana associated with digestion and assimilation. Building on our exploration of apana’s downward grounding and prana’s upward lift, we bring attention to the place where these complementary movements meet. The image is of energy spiralling inwards towards the centre of the abdomen.
What changes when we orientate a yoga sequence around the abdomen?
As we turn, reach and transfer our weight, the belly can become a reference point, giving us a sense of continuity through quite different shapes.
Throughout the practice, we explore a rhythm of reach and return: radiating from the navel through the limbs, then gathering back towards the centre. The breath offers a quiet expression of this same rhythm, with the inhale reaching out and the exhale inviting a return to the interior.
The standing flow in the video brings these themes into movement, taking us from Warrior 2 through Skandasana to Half Moon and Warrior 3.
In Warrior 2, we begin by radiating out from the navel through the arms, legs, crown and tail. Then we explore the return. Without moving the feet, we draw them towards one another, sensing that inward movement travelling back towards the abdomen. From the fingertips, we gather along the arms towards the heart and down to the navel. The wide shape contains a movement towards the centre.
Moving through Side Angle into Skandasana, we bring the back of the arm against the inner bent knee. This contact creates a gentle bind, with enough pressure to feel securely connected within the pose. In the class, we explore this as a way of feeding energy back towards the spine. There is room to adjust the intensity and notice how that relationship changes our experience.
A wide-legged forward fold and Goddess pose provide space to fold in, shift from side to side and find the centre again before moving into Half Moon.
Here, the transition becomes particularly interesting. From Half Moon, we turn the torso towards the ground, then gather the lifted knee towards the chest as we rise, bringing the hands to the heart. “Orientate around the abdomen” is the invitation: let the belly guide the change of direction, with the limbs moving in relationship to it.
We then extend into Warrior 3, maintaining that reference to the middle as the leg reaches back and the torso moves forwards. The sequence gives us a clear experience of gathering in and reaching out again, carrying our awareness of the centre into an expansive balance.
Returning to Tadasana, we pause to feel the grounding through the feet, the lift through the upper body and the inward gathering of samana. That pause allows time to absorb the movement, noticing how the body assimilates the sequence, the breath and the changing demands of balance.
As you explore the video, notice what happens when the abdomen becomes your point of orientation. How does that influence the way you move between the poses?
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