This year Solstice Surya Namaskar will take place at 6 am at Hangstones Playing Fields in Yatton. Not exactly at the point of sun rise but it will have to do! A change of place and time will coincide with us doing Sun salutations on the morning of the 21st of June, mid-Summer solstice. This has been a Yoga for Blokes tradition since we started in 2016. The function of it is to link ancient practices with yoga in a challenging but fun way – if you can’t get out of bed early in Summer then …..
Normally we meet at Stanton Drew Stone Circle along with other freaks, Druids, Pagans and the Curious. You have to be quite hard to shake yourself out of bed at 3 am to get there in time for the sun’s rising but it is worth it for the madness factor alone. Covid clobbered it for a while however, not to be deterred, we will press on with our own cardboard stone circle in Yatton!
Surya Namaskar is a vinyasa (sequence of moves) which I am told (by my previous yoga teacher) was invented to focus emerging sexual energies of pubescent males in India. So get that! all you village halls full of middle-aged and elderly women. The sequence of moves helps loosen our muscles and is a good warm-up before classes. It increases energy and isn’t always good if you do too much in the evenings – too energising. At Yoga for Blokes we regularly use this at the beginning of each session, but not always.
Solstice Surya Namaskar addresses the Sun (which symbolises the masculine) at the peak of it’s appearance in the solar calendar. After June the 21st it all starts sliding back to darkness and Winter! If you listen to the Robin’s song it changes around mid-Summer to something akin to it’s Autumn/Winter version. But that’s not a bad thing, just nature at work.
