This 6-minute devotional yoga session anchors practitioners in gratitude, elemental awareness, and circular breath-guided movement. The practice opens with the Sanskrit gratitude Anugrahi tasmi ("I am graced by being near you"), then flows through asana sequenced around air-element qualities: expansion, circular motion, inspiration, and creative vision. Core teachings include spreading light through the body as rays (rashmies), using breath to coordinate movement, and understanding yoga as a "wake up" within the spirit and body. The session weaves asana, pranayama, mantra, and meditation into a devotional frame that honors the earth and interconnected beings.
What Does "Anugrahi Tasmi" Mean and Why Start There?
The practice begins with the Sanskrit phrase Anugrahi tasmi, which translates to "thank you for I am graced by being near you." The teacher unpacks this word as containing both gratitude and grace—anuraha (grace). This isn't mere politeness; it's a theological statement embedded in the opening of the practice. By starting in collective acknowledgment that one is "graced by being near" others, the practice establishes a foundation of interdependence and reverence. This creates what might be called the devotional container for everything that follows. Rather than yoga as personal fitness or individual spiritual gain, the practice is framed from its first moments as a shared honoring—a coming-together in reciprocal grace.
How Does the Air Element Structure the Flow?
Once on hands and knees, the teacher introduces the air element as the organizing principle for this portion of the practice. She explains: "as we enter through the air, we will have a deep honoring with the flow of our breath. And this part of the practice will be more of a flow for the air element so that we create space for inspiration, for vision, for the creative living wisdom inside each of us to open like the dawn of the day right inside every cell of our body."
The air element in yoga philosophy governs movement, circulation, and the invisible forces that animate matter. The teacher uses this framing to shift attention away from achievement or alignment cues toward the qualities air embodies: expansion, circulation, inspiration, and the dawn-like awakening of creativity. The sequencing itself reflects air's nature—nothing is held static; everything moves in waves and circles.
What Are Rashmies and How Do They Function in Practice?
Early in the flow, the teacher introduces the concept of rashmies—rays of light. She distinguishes between chandra rashmies (rays of moonlight) and sura rashmies (rays of sunlight). The instruction is to "spread your fingers and spread your toes as rays of light." This isn't merely a visualization; it's a way of understanding the body's relationship to radiance and luminosity. By spreading fingers and toes widely, the practitioner extends awareness outward, as if the body itself is a source of radiation.
Later, when repeating leg circles and expansions, the teacher returns to this image: "Spread the rashmies, the rays of light. So it's like the dawn of inspiration, the sun rising up over these mountains and something in the spirit wakes up." The rashmies serve as both a metaphor and a somatic anchor—they give the mind something tangible to hold while moving, transforming abstract breath awareness into embodied light.
Why Are Circular Motions Central to the Air Element Flow?
Throughout the practice, circular motion dominates. When lifting the right leg from all fours, the instruction progresses from linear knee-to-belly movement to a wide knee circle: "Then open your knee wide to the right. Circle it up to the sky. And reextend the leg." The teacher explicitly connects this to air's nature: "The air element moves in every direction and it has big wide circular expanding flow."
Later, the practice incorporates circular hip motion and what the teacher calls "stirring the cosmic cauldron." She explains the rationale: "So you're like stirring the cosmic cauldron here to open up vision." These circles aren't decorative—they're meant to activate rotational freedom and generate the expansive, non-linear quality of air. The circles also echo Hindu cosmological imagery; the churning of the cosmic ocean (samudra manthan) stirs creation itself. By embodying this motion, practitioners join their personal movement to a mythic order.
How Does Breath Coordinate the Movement?
The practice is rigorously breath-synchronized. Almost every movement cues follow inhalation or exhalation. "Inhale, lift your right leg up behind you. Exhale, draw your knee into your belly and your heart." This isn't incidental—the breath becomes the metronome and the intelligence directing the body. The teacher says, "Keep moving with your breath like this," as if the breath is the primary mover and the body follows.
This breath-movement marriage serves multiple functions. Physiologically, it coordinates the nervous system and ensures oxygenation. Spiritually, it attunes the practitioner to prana (life force) flowing through the body. Psychologically, it anchors attention in the present moment, preventing the mind from wandering into past or future. By tethering body and breath, the practice ensures that movement becomes meditation.
What Does Yoga Mean as a "Wake Up"?
Near the midpoint of the practice, the teacher offers a concise teaching on yoga's purpose: "Yoga is a wake up. It's a wake up inside the soul, inside the spirit, inside this body." This reframes the entire session. Yoga is not about achieving perfect poses, building strength, or even reaching enlightenment in some distant future. It's about waking—a sudden opening of awareness to what is already present.
This teaching aligns with the opening invocation of grace and the structured use of the air element. Each movement, each breath is an instrument of awakening. The circular motions spread that awakeness through the body; the rashmies illuminate it; the breath sustains it. When the sun rises over the mountains (as the teacher metaphorically describes), the landscape doesn't change—it was always there. But the presence of light makes it visible. Yoga works similarly: the practice illuminates what is always present but usually obscured by habit and inattention.
What's the Role of Krishna and the Universal Soul?
Midway through, the teacher references Krishna's flute, noting: "It's like when Krishna plays his flute. We were telling stories this morning with MC Yogi and Amanda. He stirs the universal soul." Krishna's flute-playing is a classical metaphor in Hindu devotion—the flute's sound draws all beings, entrancing them in love and cosmic play. By likening the circular stirring motion to Krishna's music, the teacher elevates the practice from physical exercise to an act of cosmic participation. The practitioner, through their movement and breath, joins Krishna in stirring the universal soul. This is not metaphorical embellishment; it's a theological assertion that individual practice participates in universal animation.
How Does the Practice Build Toward Deeper Surrender?
The sequencing progresses from more active, expansive movements in the early air-element section toward increasingly inward, surrendering poses. After the flowing leg circles and torso spirals, the practice moves into traditional asanas: downward dog, chaturanga (lowering of knees, chest, and chin), cobra, and eventually child's pose. The teacher cues "Shift your hips all the way back to child's. Slide your hands back. Come on to your fingertips. Inhale, open up the heart space."
Child's pose is traditionally an asana of surrender and rest. By the time practitioners arrive there, they've already generated heat, opened the hips, spiraled the spine, and awakened the creative vision through the air element. Now the instruction to "open up the heart space" while in a resting pose suggests that the awakening isn't about achievement but receptivity. The heart opens when the mind releases its grip.
How Does Live Music Enhance the Devotional Container?
The practice features live music by DJ Drez, which grounds the session in sonic presence. While the transcript captures the verbal cueing, the music creates a sensory surround that holds the practice together. In devotional yoga, music isn't background—it's a co-teacher. The rhythm supports pacing; the tone affects emotional resonance; the overall soundscape creates what the teacher's initial phrase names: a shared grace. The music ensures that practitioners who might otherwise feel isolated in their individual effort are instead held in a collective resonance.
Where to Go From Here
This practice offers several entry points for deeper exploration. Those interested in elemental yoga philosophy might study how earth, water, fire, and space are each said to have distinct energetic and movement qualities, and how sequencing practices around elements creates different effects. Those drawn to the gratitude and devotional frame might explore the Sanskrit of thanksgiving and how gratitude-based practice differs from achievement-based yoga. Those curious about the Krishna reference could investigate the role of bhakti (devotion) in yoga philosophy, particularly how personal practice participates in cosmic play. Finally, those moved by the circular motion and spiral work might explore how the body naturally wants to spiral and rotate when freed from rigid, linear alignment cues—a more somatic, less architectural approach to asana.
