By Swami Samvidaananda

In almost every yoga class, I say, “Support equals release.” It is a key principle of Svaroopa^® yoga. 

The support you receive in class takes many forms. The plaid blankets are the most obvious, and colorful!

We fold and roll and stack and tuck blankets in wherever you need them most.  We give you blocks, a strap, or a chair. Your teacher excels at knowing how and when and why to provide you with a prop. 

The props meet your body where tension is holding it back. When you lean into that support, your deep internal tensions let go. Support = release.

You’ve been carrying those tensions for so long.  Sometimes you are so used to holding them, you don’t even know you have them. Then you do a supported spinal-opening pose, and the tensions let go. It feels so freeing!

In my very first Svaroopa^® yoga class, I didn’t understand the purpose of the props. I had done other styles of yoga, where your only prop was a sticky mat. I didn’t think I needed any.  Begrudgingly, I let the teacher give me one blanket roll for Shavasana, yoga’s relaxation pose.

The more poses we did, the more I warmed up to using the props — blocks under my hands in Lunge, blankets under my belly in Half Frog.  I was open to using them because I felt better and better. 

By the end, I felt so amazing that I was on board with whatever props the teacher wanted to give me! I hadn’t actually ever felt that way at the end of a yoga class. It wasn’t just relaxation.  It was bliss.

With Svaroopa^® yoga’s core-opening poses, you can experience not merely relaxation, well-being and renewal, but bliss. It’s the bliss of your own Beingness, which yoga calls your own Self.

Your spine is a doorway to the inner depths of your Beingness. When you release the deep tensions in your spine with these precise, supported and deceptively simple poses, you open that doorway inside.  And the experience of your own Self is inherently blissful.

I taught Seated Side Stretch the other day. After one side of the pose, I asked the students to describe the differences between their two sides. One student had a look of utter surprise and joy on her face. All she could say was, “Wow!” Though she didn’t have the words for it yet, she was experiencing her own Self. 

This is the gift of Svaroopa^® yoga. And it begins for you by accepting the support of those ubiquitous plaid blankets.