Using the “Earth element” for better yoga

6 Easy Yoga Poses To Find & Build Your Earth Element.

Yoga from 50 cents a day for Toowoomba yoga, & far beyond

Looking for the best Yoga Toowoomba Qld Options? See how and why “earth element” yoga will deliver it for you. It means you’ll get top yoga in Toowoomba (or anywhere), including beginners yoga Toowoomba. Try an online yoga studio Toowoomba offer, with a full two weeks of free. Use these online yoga classes Toowoomba for your own town too, no matter where you are located.

It’s worth searching out a high quality yoga school that offers the Earth Element type of practice that I discuss below. (In addition, look for a wide range class times, a variety of optional class types, and packages or deals that make it affordable to do enough yoga. Taken together, they will ensure you get all the benefits that yoga offers.)

In your search, make sure you include online yoga. Many of Flametree’s students find that online yoga works just as well as yoga in a studio. In addition, online yoga is done in the safety of your own home.

In this post, I outline another reason to find and do yoga online. Doing Flametree yoga at home (unless you’re in Darwin), allows you to find yoga that works on the so-called Earth Elements that are part of all of us.

In the rest of this Post, I outline what I mean by Earth Elements, and the benefits you get from it.

Alternatively, if you just want to get on with it, use the generous deals below to try Flametree’s online yoga classes Toowoomba or beyond.

Online beginners yoga Toowoomba & 2 week free trial. Package $1.24 a class.

Non beginners: Flametree yoga studio Toowoomba online for 50 cents a day!

Private yoga classes Toowoomba, online anywhere, or in-studio

Six poses to access the “Earth Element” of yoga

Below, there are pictures of six yoga poses to connect you to the so-called earth element within you.

These poses will help you feel grounded, stable, confident, calm and strong.

You can use your understanding of the elements of nature to gain better health, as well as a greater understanding of yourself.

(Obviously, other poses can also deliver these Earth Elements. In the post, I’m just using these six poses to illustrate what it is).

A yoga practice is a journey. In addition to getting fit, flexible and strong, it will deliver an insight into our bodies, and our minds.

The poses I’ll outline are standing poses. Some yoga classes or studios don’t explain the significance or power of standing poses. As you probably know, if you know why something is worth doing, you’re more likely to do it. That’s another reason why I encourage you to read on.

To get the benefits of yoga, it is also important to do the poses correctly. Clearly, if you’re not in the pose, or a suitable preparatory version of it, then you can’t get the benefits it offers.

So, at the end of this post, and elsewhere in this Flametree blog, you’ll also see some suitable variations of the poses, including with the use of yoga props.

Sadly, some yoga studios or yoga teachers don’t point out the best ways to do the poses I will outline. The result is that yoga students can be short-changed in the yoga benefits they should be getting.

How the material world shapes yoga

For thousands of years yogis have understood that the material world is made up of five elements. They are earth, water, fire, air, and space.

In this Post, I’m discussing the Earth element. (At another time, I’ll also discuss the others in more depth.)

The proportions of each of these five elements are continually changing. Obviously, human beings are a part of nature. So we too are also continually changing.

In addition, the proportions of earth, water, air space and fire are continually changing within us.

For instance, the result is that some days you can easily do a simple balancing pose like Tree Pose. Kim is demonstrating it in the picture further down this page. But on other days, your balance, or mindfulness, is more elusive.

Earth element for firmness, strength, much & more

When we practise yoga asana, the physical body corresponds to the earth element.

Earth is solid, and it forms solid structures within the body, bones, flesh, skin, tissues and hair.

When you practise yoga asana (or yoga postures), you practise to develop the qualities of earth within yourself. For example, I mean solidity, firmness and strength.

We use our bodies in such a way as to feel grounded, stable, resilient, strong, secure, and confident. Health begins with finding firmness in the body.

It’s true for Toowoomba yoga students, and wherever you practise yoga.

Building a firm foundation with good quality yoga

In Iyengar yoga, a beginner learns to develop the qualities of earth within themselves. To do this, beginner yoga students first learn a set of standing poses.

The first standing pose that is taught is Mountain pose (or Tadasana in Sanskrit). It’s also demonstrated further down this page, by Chris, Flametree’s Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher.

In Mountain pose, a beginner yoga student learns how to stand steady on their two feet. They are taught to open and spread the feet, plus to extend and spread the toes.

They also learn how to balance their body weight evenly on both feet. Once they feel sure footed, then they can use this steady base to learn how to straighten their legs, make their legs strong, attach muscles onto bones, and draw bones into hip joints.

Via beginner yoga classes online or in-studio, a beginner then learns how to feel balanced, steady, and confident. For example, they learn to stand on one foot, such as in Tree Pose.

Even those who’ve done quite a lot of yoga, know how long it takes to improve standing on one leg. In addition, your steadiness varies, depending on physical and mental health at the time.

The more you stand on one leg, the stronger the legs become, and the more of the other “earth qualities” you develop (such as focus, balance, and mindfulness).

Energy flows and the mind quietens

When you find the earth element in your standing poses, your energy flows better, and your mind quietens. For example, to be blunt, your “monkey mind” shuts up!

As a result, when you pay close attention to spreading and grounding evenly that part of the body that is on the floor, you are learning how to shift (or rebound) energy up into other parts of the body.

When you press down with your feet, an equal and opposite force ascends up into the legs and spine.

So the outcome is that the earth element grounds you, leading you to feel safe and centred. As well as that, it also helps you feel fully alert and alive.

In summary, when you work with the earth element in asana, the mind gets the chance to settle and calm down. In colloquial terms, you learn to be less “airy”, or full of strong emotions (“firey”).

Understanding the qualities of Earth deepens your yoga.

If you understand how you can use the qualities of Earth in the way you practise yoga asanas, then the deeper you can penetrate the asanas. For instance, it will help you find balance and harmony.

Moreover, firmness in the body creates the conditions for compactness of limbs, flexibility without hard muscular rigidity, and a steadiness of mind.

(Hard muscular rigidity, versus longer muscles and flexible strength, is one of the major differences you notice between those you do yoga, versus activities like weight lifting and gym).

Without firmness in the body, then it is impossible to reflect and refine on your actions. Therefore, it is also impossible to find mental and emotional quietness. As well as all that, it’s impossible to use your asana practice to reach a state of meditation, or mindfulness.

In these challenging times, you and many others may feel anxious about the nature of the world we live in. For these times, good quality standing poses are especially useful to build into your practise.

Among other things, if the earth element is weak in us, then our legs cannot hold us firm and upright.

For example, you may notice times when the legs are shaky, or wobbly, or the feet cannot press down evenly, or you sway from side to side. If so, you may have also noticed that you then tend to feel even more anxious, fragile, and moody.

Six easy standing poses to build your Earth element

So to put all this into practise, here are six easy yoga poses that you can practise. In the process, you’ll connect to the Earth element in yourself.

Of course, each pose has its own range of benefits, and will achieve even more beyond the earthing outcomes that I’ve discussed in this Post.

As I mentioned earlier, all of these poses can also be done with various types of yoga props. Most importantly, the props help you do the yoga practices correctly, so you get all its benefits.

In addition, props will help you learn and practise the pose when you may not yet have the strength, stamina, focus, or flexibility to complete the pose without props.

Online beginners yoga Toowoomba & 2 week free trial. Package $1.24 a class.

Tadasana or Mountain pose

beginners yoga toowoomba

Mountain pose using a chair to improve body alignment. Chris, in the picture, is one of the most experienced yoga teachers you’ll find. But she still uses simple poses like this to keep the spine straight. In all these standing poses, the deliberate placing of the feet, and spreading out each foot, is a basic part of the Earth Element of yoga. 

Vrksasana or Tree pose

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Tree pose can also be done with a chair for the leg. On the face of it, its a simple pose, but it has many stages. It’s also one of the many effective yoga techniques for building strength and focus. Remember, you are lifting your whole weight on one leg, so the process is especially grounding. In addition, when you pay close attention to spreading and grounding evenly that part of the body that is on whatever surface you are on, you are learning how to shift (or rebound) energy up into other parts of the body.

Uttanasana or Standing Forward Bend

toowoomba yoga Queensland

A resting forward bend. It does extend you, but is also resting between other poses. It obviously works on your outer health via grounding your legs, as I’ve explained. But like all yoga, it has a range of mental benefits too. Make sure you are evenly weighted on each part of your feet.  When you work with the earth element in asana, the mind gets the chance to settle and calm down. In colloquial terms, you learn to be less “airy”, or full of strong emotions (“firey”).

Online beginners yoga Toowoomba & 2 week free trial. Package $1.24 a class.

Trikonasana or Triangle pose

triangle pose

This Triangle pose can be learnt with a variety of props, if needed. The pose is a staple of traditional yoga teachings. However, unless it’s done with straight legs, and bending sideways rather than forward, it will deliver less benefits than it should. You may also notice times when the legs are shaky, or wobbly, or the feet cannot press down evenly, or you sway from side to side. If so, you may have noticed that you tend to feel even more anxious, fragile, and moody.

Warrior 2 pose

online yoga classes

Kim, a Flametree teacher, demonstrates Warrior 2 yoga pose. All these poses work on both parts of your nervous system. As a result, you’ll get more systematic relaxation, and physical benefits, then you get in conventional options like walking groups. The correct foundation of this pose, via placing the legs at the right distance, is critical to achieving the relaxed and focussed power that Kim is demonstrating. 

HALF price beginner ten class pass for online yoga classes Toowoomba

Savasana or Relaxation pose.

relaxation

Relaxation pose with chest support. Use it at the end of a practice, or even after a busy day at work. Relaxation is the best part of a yoga practice! If it and other poses like “Legs Up The Wall” are used at the end of the practice, there’s no particular need for yoga nidra to help you sleep. Your teacher will guide you, online or in-studio, with the right mix of yoga poses. All yoga poses, including relaxation, put natural processes to work so as to maximise your healthy life.

Get a stitch in time for Yoga Toowoomba & beyond

The cost of getting underway with yoga classes is far less than leaving health issues dormant or unaddressed.

On top of making you feel better and happier, yoga heads off health costs that often crop up when we least expect them.

Don’t leave it until it’s an emergency. And don’t even put up with any more pain or discomfort than you have to.

In summary, if you only want one beginner class a week, then the online ten class pass is a good option.

But if you’d like two or more yoga classes Toowoomba (& beyond) a week, then the beginner yoga pay-by=the-week online option is cheapest.  It also starts with the two week FREE trial.

Alternatively, learn more about the online beginner course deals and beginner timetable, including FREE two week trials.

Online beginners yoga Toowoomba & 2 week free trial. Package $1.24 a class.

Non beginners: Flametree yoga studio Toowoomba online for 50 cents a day!

Private yoga classes Toowoomba, online anywhere or in-studio

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Easy standing poses that all can do, including via options like Gentle Yoga. This pose uses a chair to give you a variation of Triangle pose. Notice the body alignment (or straight lines) that is a feature of Flametree’s style of yoga. 

Flametree’s options & class times

Each Flametree beginner class is LIVE online, at the local time of Darwin, Australia (+9.30GMT). In other words, the class times are half an hour behind Toowoomba.

On the timetables, you can also see all class time in your own local time, no matter where you are. Just look at the times underneath the main timetable grid.

The classes are all standard, introductory hatha yoga poses.

There’s also additional beginner class options, including Gentle Yoga, Yoga for Back (& Neck & Shoulders), Women Only Yoga for female health, and Restorative Yoga For Heart Health.

At the non-beginner level, there’s extra options like Yoga For Immune System, Fifty Plus Yoga, and more advanced levels.

If you’ve already done some yoga, you can also get ten FREE breath meditation (pranayama) classes. It’s a perfect way to try out your own breath meditation workshops, at your own pace. Instead of using a sound meditation that you may know of, you’ll be using the breath as a focus technique.

Flametree’s qualified teachers are all full teaching members of the international yoga teacher association for their style of yoga.

In-studio classes are in Darwin Australia. Flametree has three studios across the region, with one only three kilometres from the city centre. All studios have reverse cycle air conditioning. At all studios, there is plenty of street parking.

In all Flametree classes, you get the benefit of a small group online, and another group in the studio. This means that the teacher can dynamically demonstrate and teach based on observing where students are at in their yoga journey.

The teacher is also able to give individual feedback as needed, including further adjustment of poses with suitable yoga props.

Yoga Toowoomba Qld options, or for far beyond

Flametree’s Beginner level yoga class can be started at any time. (There is no particular school term).

The week to week program is on the Flametree beginner timetable, or non-beginner timetable.

With the beginner course, and the pay-by-the-week deals, there’s also a two week free trial. You need a credit or debit card, but unless you continue after the trial, you pay zero.

Follow the relevant links to learn more about the most popular of Flametree’s beginner yoga deals.

Best of all, with online yoga, you don’t need to be anywhere near Toowoomba City Qld. Or if you are in anywhere in the heart of Toowoomba, you can also take your online yoga with you when you travel for work or play. Wherever you are, you’ll be part of the yoga community of Queensland and far beyond.

Beginners can just pay week to week, or via the ten pass mentioned earlier, or via the six week beginner course deal (with a two week free trial). We know of no other course provider with a two week free deal like this, so don’t miss it.

All these options are in-studio or online, or both. Its the best deal among the Toowoomba yoga studios.

Some students also start with some private classes, and then move onto regular online or in-studio classes. Among other things, they help assess any particular individual needs.

Try out some of Flametree’s low impact options, and work towards the attainment of your health targets.

If finding time is a challenge, remember that maximising mental and physical health will actually save you time, and maximise productivity right now.

No matter what are your current levels of fitness, yoga is the most powerful of the fitness treatments you’ll find. But it is also much more than that.

Use the generous deals below to try Flametree’s online yoga classes Toowoomba or beyond.

Online beginners yoga Toowoomba & 2 week free trial. Package $1.24 a class.

Non beginners: Flametree yoga studio Toowoomba online for 50 cents a day!

Private yoga classes Toowoomba, online anywhere or in-studio

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2 Replies to “Using the “Earth element” for better yoga”

  1. aol email basile says:

    are the teachers Iyengar yoga students or certified Iyengar?

    1. stuart mcgill says:

      Thanks for the question. As as May 2022, over 70% of the current Flametree teachers are fully certified Iyengar Teachers. That means they have completed well over 300 hours of training, over at least 3 years, and been certified by an independent, third party panel of Senior Iyengar Teachers. This is the most rigorous of any of the yoga teacher certifications in Australia.
      The certification process includes reaching a high standard with their own yoga postures, practical teaching, knowledge of yoga, and personal ethics.
      By the time they get certified, and often much before, they have completed around 600 hours of training.
      In the case of the Senior Iyengar Teacher at Flametree (Chris Lalor), she has in fact completed over 12,000 hours of training with independent, third party trainers. In the process, she has also completed several further levels of certification. She is the in-house trainer of Flametree teachers, at all stages of their training and ongoing professional development. As mentioned, they complete the process via the external, independent certification.
      The other scheduled teachers have completed their 300 hours of training, over 3 years, as well as extensive practical teaching experience (usually around 600 hours or more).
      In the process of that training, all teachers are required to join the Iyengar association. This also gives them and their students the relevant insurance cover.
      However, these other teachers at Flametree have not yet done the final certification panel process, but will relatively soon. Such teachers are approved to teach by the Iyengar teaching association once they have done the initial 12 months of that three years of training… as which point they will have completed an initial 200 hours of training, and hold a Teacher Trainee Qualification.
      Nevertheless, not all Iyengar teacher trainees at Flametree are permitted to teach. They must also reach and maintain the high standards required by Flametree’s in-house Senior Iyengar Teacher, including being regularly available to teach.
      As you may know, the vast majority of other yoga teachers in Australia only complete 200 hours of training in total, often over as little as a month or two (in offshore locations). In addition, they do not get any practical teaching experience, and they are not required to be certified by an independent third party panel. (Instead, their trainer does the approval process, with no third party vetting.).
      All Iyengar teachers, including all of those at Flametree, therefore have many more hours of training and practical experience then most other studios and yoga teachers, and are in fact certified by an independent, third party panel of industry experts.

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