The session opens the way Navratri itself does, with stillness before motion. The teacher asks the practitioner to sit with the spine erect, palms resting on the knees facing the sky, face and shoulders softened, eyes closed. Then comes long Ujjayi breath that travels from the base of the spine up to the crown of the head and back down again, with a smile held on the face throughout. It is a quiet beginning, but the sequence it launches is built on a specific map of human energy, and once that map is clear, the poses that follow stop looking like a random warm-up and start reading as a deliberate argument against lethargy. This article walks through that argument: the three gunas that frame the nine nights, the reason the first three nights target the left side of the body, and the practices that make up the Conquer Tamas session.
The video's framing is precise. The nine nights of Navratri, in the teacher's words, are "beautifully structured around the 3 primal forces or Gunas": tamas, which stands for inertia and stability; rajas, which is activity and passion; and sattva, which is light and purity. The sequence is presented as a progression. Practitioners do not simply pick one quality and cultivate it. They channel, balance and then transcend each force in turn, with the stated aim of reaching what the teacher calls inner victory, Vijaya Dashami.
Tamas comes first because it is the heaviest of the three. In the familiar yogic picture, it shows up as the dullness that makes getting out of bed feel impossible, the stagnation that keeps old habits in place, and the stiffness that settles into the body when energy is not moving. The session names it plainly, describing the practice as "Conquer Tamas" and framing the first phase as a way to "release what holds you back." It is an unusual starting point for a festival that many people associate with celebration. But the logic is consistent: you cannot move toward activity or clarity while the base of the system is still sluggish.
This is where the teaching gets specific. The teacher explains that the first three nights "tackle the Ida Nadi, which governs the left side of the body and mainly the right brain activities like emotions and the past." Ida is one of the subtle channels described in classical yoga, and the practice assigns it a particular emotional and memory-related role. Invoking Goddess Durga during this phase, according to the video, "burns away excess Tamas that may be the cause of lethargy, deep seated emotional trauma and negative karmic imprints."
That is a strong claim, and it is worth reading it as the teacher presents it: a framework within yogic tradition, not a clinical promise. What is concrete, and what a practitioner can actually feel, is the choice of movements. The first three days emphasize rooting into the earth, breaking old patterns, and loosening physical stiffness. The poses are grounded, repetitive and often floor-based, and the breath is slow. Almost every movement is paired with a deliberate exhale, which is the simplest way the practice asks you to let something go.
The session moves in a clear order, and each stage prepares the next.
Breath and seal work. Ujjayi breathing is followed by Moolbandh, the root lock. The instruction is to gently squeeze the anal muscles, pull them inward and upward toward the spine, then release, repeated four or five times, very slowly. The teacher returns to a single principle here: "The whole point of doing asana or pranayama or yogic practices is to be sthiram sukham. Steady, stable and enjoying the practice. No force and just a smile on your face." That phrase is the key to the whole session. Effort is welcome, but force is not.
Om and vibration. The session then invites a chanted Om, with attention on the vibration inside and outside the body. It is a brief moment, but it marks the shift from breath to sound, a pattern that recurs through the practice.
Ha breathing. One of the more vigorous techniques is the Ha breath. You inhale through the nose and, on the exhale, pull the navel toward the spine while making a Ha sound from the mouth. The teacher counts it out in long, repeated rounds, then asks the practitioner to relax and feel the sensations across the whole body. The effect, in practice, is a clear, audible reset of the abdomen and breath.
Neck and spine. Gentle neck rotations follow, timed with the breath: turn the chin to the right on the inhale, come to center, and exhale to the left, then trace circles in both directions. Seated twists come next, lifting the spine on the inhale and turning on the exhale, with the hand reaching behind the body and the gaze following. The teacher repeatedly pairs these movements with a look at the sky, an easy and unforced way to bring attention upward.
Around the nine-minute mark, the session turns to a practice that looks simple and does a great deal of work: gentle tapping, head to toe. The teacher directs the practitioner to tap the temples ("wake up the cells"), the sides of the head, the shoulders, the arms, the chest, the belly, the thighs, the legs and the soles of the feet, then the back of the spine. The instruction shifts in intensity as the body wakes: lighter on the face and wrists, firmer on the biceps and thighs. It is a warm-up that asks you to be present with each area, which is itself a direct response to tamas. Heaviness tends to be inattentive. Tapping makes attention land.
The floor work begins with the wrists stacked under the shoulders and the knees under the hips, fingers spread wide to ground the hands. In Marjari, the cat pose, the breath drives the spine: inhale to lift the chin and chest, tailbone up, exhale to round and draw the abdomen in. The teacher calls this "coming back to the center" between each movement. The Tiger pose, Vyaghrasana, follows: lift one leg on the inhale, bring it down on the exhale, and optionally bring the knee toward the forehead. The cue to "engage your core" as you do it keeps the movement from becoming a loose swing.
Then comes the surrender. In Shishuasana, the child's pose with legs wide, the practitioner is asked to "dissolve into the Mother Earth" and to "surrender everything. Your good, your bad, to the Divine." This is the emotional center of the grounding phase. After the active work, the body is invited to stop holding its position and let the floor take the weight.
Simhasana is the most theatrical moment in the first three days, and the instruction is worth quoting in full: "We'll breathe in through the nose and roar like a lion. Maa Durga comes on Simha. And you're going to let go of all your self-pity, self-doubt, your pleasing people programming out of your system." The roar is done three times, followed by a pause in which the teacher says, "At this moment, you are nothing. You do nothing. You are nothing." It is the sharpest change of tone in the session, moving from release into stillness.
Malasana, the garland pose, comes next, with hands in prayer and the hips low. The teacher suggests an intense version, lifting the hips slightly, and then asks the practitioner to "let me know how you felt." Malasana is a squat that opens the hips and lengthens the spine, and it works well as a bridge into standing.
The standing section is where Durga's imagery enters most clearly. The teacher describes the goddess as someone who "would ditch the mat and ground on the earth and feel the earth," and invites practitioners, if they are outdoors, to rub their feet and hands on grass or floor. Then the trishul, the trident, becomes a prop. Swing it from left to right, twist, and bring it into the right hand while blessing with the left. The teacher ties this directly to balance: "It's all about balance in the mind."
From there the session moves into Warrior I and Virabhadrasana, with feet set roughly three feet apart, the right foot turned out and the left turned in slightly, the hips square, and the arms lifted on each inhale. The second side is a warrior with a slight backbend and a gaze upward. A forward fold and hold of the big toes or the backs of the legs grounds the warrior energy, and the sequence closes with the Kali pose, feet turned outward, arms raised, hips lowered, which the teacher introduces as "the fierce form of Maa Durga." A final tadasana, or mountain pose, brings the body back to a standing neutral.
The Conquer Tamas session is best understood as a whole, not as a list of poses. Its logic runs from breath to root lock, from sound to tapping, from floor to standing, and from heaviness to a deliberate, theatrical release. If you want to follow it, start slowly and keep the rule the teacher repeats: steady, stable, enjoyable, with no force. Give the Ha breath and the Moolbandh a few careful rounds rather than a rush. Use the tapping as a real attention practice, and let the surrender in Shishuasana be genuine rather than hurried.
The video is the first part of a three-phase arc. The teacher's own framing moves from tamas to rajas and then to sattva, and the session ends with a reminder to "whenever you feel complete" come back to stillness. For a practitioner, the most useful next step is simple: practice the first three days as written, notice what changes in your energy and attention over a few sittings, and only then move on to the activity of the middle nights. Tamas is not an enemy to crush. It is a starting ground, and the session treats it that way.
