Yoga for the sacral chakra in South Goa
Reconnect with joy, creativity and flow.
Sacral classes take their theme from Svadhisthana, the second chakra, placed in this framework in the lower belly and pelvis and traditionally linked to the water element. They tend to mean fluid movement, hip openers and an invitation to play.
No classes scheduled in the next two weeks.
What Sacral does for you
You move your hips and pelvis in ways a desk day never asks of them. Circles, waves and slow hip openers can leave your lower body loose and warm. Many people come for a sense of flow and pleasure in moving, and some for space to feel whatever comes up. It is often the most playful class in a chakra series.
It suits you if
- your hips feel locked after long hours sitting
- you like circular, flowing movement more than straight lines
- you want a class that feels a bit like dancing
- your creative work has gone stale and you want to shake things loose
Read the full guide to SacralWhat a class is like, your first time, history and the words you will hear
What a class is like
Classes usually last 60 to 90 minutes. Expect a fluid warm-up with hip circles and cat-cow, then flowing sequences, then deeper hip work such as lizard, pigeon, goddess squats and bound angle. Some facilitators add unstructured movement or dance to music, while others keep it slow with longer, yin-style holds. Orange imagery, water metaphors and the seed syllable 'vam' are common. You will warm up and might sweat lightly in the flowing parts.
Your first time
- Wear stretchy clothes that let your hips move in every direction.
- Bring water, as the flowing sections can get warm.
- Let the facilitator know about knee or hip issues so they can offer options in pigeon and deep lunges.
Good to know
- Long holds in hip openers can stir up emotion for some people; you can come out of a pose or rest at any point.
- Facilitators sometimes talk about sensuality and sexuality as part of this theme, so expect that language in some classes.
- If you are pregnant or have pelvic pain, check with your doctor, midwife or physiotherapist first and tell the facilitator, since some hip and core work will need adapting.
Where it comes from
Svadhisthana is usually translated as 'one's own seat' or 'one's own abode'. In the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana, the 1577 tantric text by Purnananda that underlies most modern chakra teaching, it is a vermilion lotus of six petals at the root of the genitals. Inside sits a white crescent moon, the sign of water, with the seed syllable 'vam' and a makara, a crocodile-like sea creature, as its animal. Like the other lotuses, it is an image for meditation rather than an organ.
The English name 'sacral chakra' is a modern label taken from the sacrum, the bone it sits near in Western descriptions. Mapping the chakras onto nerve plexuses and body parts began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the older tantric texts, which disagree among themselves about how many centers there are, do not do this.
Arthur Avalon (the pen name of Sir John Woodroffe) brought the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana into English in The Serpent Power in 1919, and the Theosophist Charles Leadbeater layered clairvoyant descriptions on top in The Chakras (1927). The orange color and the cluster of themes around emotion, pleasure, sexuality and creativity belong to a Western system that took shape between the 1930s and the 1970s, drawing on color therapy, Carl Jung's 1932 seminar on kundalini yoga and the human potential movement. Anodea Judith's Wheels of Life (1987) gave many studios their vocabulary for it, and New Age writing spread it widely.
In Berlin, sacral themes show up in seven-week chakra series, hip-focused workshops and women's and mixed circles, and they sit comfortably next to the city's many ecstatic dance and movement practices.
Words you will hear
- Svadhisthana
- Sanskrit for 'one's own seat', the name of the second chakra in the lower belly.
- Vam
- The seed syllable (bija) traditionally chanted for the sacral chakra.
- Baddha konasana
- Bound angle pose: seated with the soles of your feet together and knees falling open.
- Pigeon
- A deep hip opener with one shin forward and the other leg stretched back, in Sanskrit eka pada rajakapotasana.
- Jala
- Sanskrit for water, the element this chakra is traditionally linked to.