This past week’s classes focused on the Air Element. Air is lightness and movement. On a still, humid day we feel listless and heavy, while on a breezy day we feel refreshed and enlivened. If you are quick and alert and come up with lots of ideas and can be a great inspiration to others but sometimes might just be full of hot air, you’ve got a strong Air Element within you! Air is associated with the east, a new day, and new beginnings. In the body Air is associated with the shoulders and arms, lungs and respiration, the kidneys and the legs. (Our yoga asana sequences this week included lots of nice back-bending postures for the fronts of the shoulders and the lungs, as well as forward-bending postures to get into the backs of the legs and the kidneys.) Imbalances in the air element are seen as nervous exhaustion, panic attacks, headaches, gas, bronchitis, heart problems, neuralgia, and leg cramps. Balanced air promotes our sense of love, devotion, compassion, open-heartedness, joy and fun.
