Rachel Ishiguro Yoga

People often think of yoga as being a visible practice, more about shapes made with the body. This way of thinking is also hierarchical: some shapes are better than others.

I see yoga as more about the inner experience. What you feel when you do the postures and practices matters more than what things look like from the outside, and the experience can be subtle and deeply personal.

Patanjali gave us some guiding principles. For one thing, we're looking for a balance between steadiness and ease, structure and flow, effort and sweetness.

There's a lot of play that can happen within a pose, just to see how it changes the inner experience. An example of this is noticing what your breath is doing, and what happens if you use breath imagery or breathe in different ways.

Other examples are shifting the positions of your limbs, fingers, eyes, etc.

It can even be as subtle as shifting your attention within the posture or practice. What happens if you focus HERE?

It's important to note that none of this, in my opinion, is about getting it RIGHT. It's about turning up in the moment and getting real about what is.

We learn the forms, and then we get to experience and play and explore within the forms. Often that's invisible work, but that doesn't make it less powerful.

A key element of yoga therapy is curiosity and exploration. Healing can often come from letting go of what we think we know, and learning to enjoy movement, be more intuitive and spontaneous, and discover our own inner experience as though for the first time.

What we're really talking about here is an element of play. While we might think play is for children, it's actually quite important to our health and wellbeing as adults.

Although play may look different for us older folks, including elements of play regularly in our lives can help with:

🤸🏽 Being present - Play brings us out of our habitual patterns of rumination and into the moment.

🤸🏽 Stress relief - When we take time to play, it can shift us out of the stress response and reduce the symptoms of stress and anxiety.

🤸🏽 Increased energy - Play can improve mood, decrease fatigue, and help us feel refreshed.

🤸🏽 Connection - When we play with others, it improves our relationships and helps us bond more closely

🤸🏽 Creativity - Regular play fosters better problem solving and helps build our creative brains.

🤸🏽 Happiness and wellbeing - Through all these mechanisms, regular play can make us happier, and can reduce the effects of stress. It can improve our mental health and even reduce pain in some cases.

I'll be talking more this month about how to bring an element of playfulness to your yoga practice.

What do you think? What are you already doing to incorporate elements of play, either on or off the mat? What do you find challenging about play as an adult. I'd love it if you shared in the comments.

Gentle Yoga is a chance to slow things down and take a breath in the middle of it.

Join me on Wednesdays for a calm, supportive practice that blends quiet meditation, slow movement, and restful poses to help your body reset.

🗓 Wednesdays in June
⏰ 10:00–11:00am PT on Zoom
✨ Recordings included

Come as you are. Move at your own pace. Leave feeling a little lighter.

👉 Registration link in bio.

Holding space today for the messy, the meaningful, and everything in between.

Not every story fits into celebration.

If today feels heavy, complicated, or tender, I'm sending you some love.

I hope you can take space to honor what you feel today and always.

May can be a busy month. Gentle Yoga is a chance to slow down in the middle of it.

Join me on Wednesdays for a calm, supportive practice that combines quiet meditation, slow movement, and restful poses to help your body reset.

🗓 Wednesdays in May
⏰ 10:00–11:00am PT on Zoom
✨ Recordings included

Come as you are. Move at your own pace. Leave feeling a little lighter.

👉 Registration link in bio.

What's up with your sore/ tight hip flexors?

If the fronts of your hips feel tight, you might be cursing your hip flexors out—but hang on! They might actually be trying to help you.

What are the hip flexors?

This group of muscles that crosses the front of your hip is responsible for lifting your thigh towards your abdomen or tilting your pelvis forward towards your legs. They're also key stabilizers, and some can help with hip rotation.

This is where we can sometimes get into a little bit of trouble, function-wise. The hip flexors can be so helpful that sometimes they compensate for other areas of weakness.

If your core muscles (meaning both abdominals and other muscles in the pelvic region) aren't doing their part to create balanced stability that responds well to movement, the hip flexors may tighten up in order to control your pelvic position. You may also find them taking a lead role in hip rotation instead of letting the outer hip muscles be the primary movers.

Not bad, necessarily, but not the most well-rounded strategy—and it tends to result in muscles that are both tight and weak.

So now what?

Well, you can try stretching the front of your hip, but you may have already noticed this isn't always the best strategy for long-term change. If there's stability lacking and you're not providing it in other ways, this muscle group is likely to tighten back up again so it can hold you together!

Try a combination of strengthening all the major muscle groups in this area (including the hip flexors themselves) and practicing slow, controlled movements that isolate your hip movement from your pelvis.

For ideas, here are some resources you can try:

For hip movement that builds stability, scroll back & check out my recent social media posts.

For hip flexor strengthening, visit my latest YouTube practice. I'll share a link in my Stories, or use the link in bio to access my channel.

While you're over on YouTube, check out the whole Yoga for Hips playlist for more practice ideas.