Full Moon Yoga

Gloria Drayer
Year Released: 2002

Categories: Yoga


Full Moon Yoga presents a 50-minute yoga practice with a strong spiritual component. Although instructor Gloria Drayer invites men to join the practice, their is an emphasis on connecting with the feminine in the honoring of the moon. Gloria encourages you to begin your practice by arranging an "altar," or simply a sacred place. Unlike the title would suggest, the practice is mostly filmed in a bright, sunlit dessert, but alternate views of Gloria and her three accompanying female yogis feature a night setting lit only by luminaries and the moon itself. Gloria instructs via voiceover throughout the practice.

The first 20 minutes of this practice feature traditional seated and standing yoga postures with the addition of some more flowing movements. For example, Gloria first leads you through basic yogic breathing in a seated position, flowing the arms overhead and back down. Next, with the hands laced behind your head, Gloria instructs you to continue breathing while moving your elbows in and then out for a chest expansion. Moving into down dog, Gloria transitions into a standing segment which includes a lunge series, standing forward bend, forward bend/squat flow, mountain with arms overhead (held for an extended period), warrior 1 with optional backbend, five-point star (wide-legged stance)/goddess flow, warrior 2, goddess (extended hold), and squat.

The second half of the practice (also 20 minutes) focuses on opening the chakras, or energy centers of the body. For each of the seven chakras, Gloria asks you to hold a single pose while meditating on the color of that chakra and chanting the sound associated with the chakra. The postures are as follows: 1st chakra (red)=cobbler's pose; 2nd chakra (orange)=bow pose (beginning with half-bow); 3rd chakra (yellow)=cobra pose; 4th chakra (green)=fish pose; 5th chakra (blue)=bridge pose; 6th chakra (purple)=seated twist; 7th chakra (white)=yoga mudra. I enjoyed this section the most, especially the spiritual emphasis and the gentle, progressive backbending postures.

The practice concludes with a nice lengthy savasana which includes a guided meditation component. Overall, I enjoyed this practice very much, especially given that it is very different from the other yoga videos I own. I probably would hesitate to recommend it to men, but I would freely recommend it to women who enjoy practicing yoga with a spiritual component.

Instructor Comments:
I found Gloria to be gentle and soothing. Given that the participants in the practice were arrnaged in a circle and the camera rarely focused on Gloria alone, I'm not sure if she was mirror cueing, but it didn't seem to matter here. To view clips of this video, check out Gloria's web site at http://www.yogasimpleandsacred.com/video.htm.

Beth C (aka toaster)

08/08/2006