What does ‘Matrika’ Mean?
What’s In a Name?
There are many different styles of yoga and new traditions are being created each and every day. If you are new to yoga, all of the different names for yoga classes, different studios and teachers can seem confusing at worst and unclear at best. If you have practiced yoga for some time, you may only be familiar with one style or perhaps you have a teacher or studio that you loved in a different city and can’t seem to find what you are looking for. As we grow in our practice and as the circumstances of our lifestyle and our bodily realities shift and change, our yoga practice changes. Therefore, the best advice that I would give anyone is to be open to new styles and new teachers and trying new things—-you never know when you might find the perfect fit for where you are right now. If you take a yoga class that you don’t like or with a teacher you weren’t particularly fond of, try not to be discouraged! Just roll up your mat, mark it up to experience and try a different class or a different teacher.
What is Yoga Matrika’s Style?
While yoga is great for your body and you will see and feel a positive difference in your body shape, level of flexibility and skin clarity with regular practice, yoga is not primarily an exercise program. The primary goal of yoga offered by Sharon through Matrika Yoga (Matrika Calm, Matrika Flow, Matrika Prenatal, Matrika Mom & Baby) is to enhance the mind-body connection. When we move and breathe mindfully, there is a therapeutic response from every system of the body. For more athletic students, this idea that “less is more,” can feel quite strange and the practice may even feel frustrating or boring at first. Learning to balance effort and ease, to breathe with full expansion and release, to move with clarity and excellent alignment and to stretch and open the body by giving permission instead of a push are all part of developing a yoga practice.
Yoga Matrika Traditions and Inspiration
The Matrikas: aka “Little Mothers”
The MATRIKAS are the “little mothers” and they inspire us to an intelligent, compassionate, fierce and delicious practice. Sharon Rudyk was inspired to open Yoga Matrika after the birth of her son. His birthing was a struggle that required incredible strength, passion and violence that resulted in the most spectacular transformation from pregnancy to motherhood. This struggle is embodied in the Matrika goddesses who are both soft and maternal and violent destructors and warriors. These Matrika goddesses inspire all of us, men and women, to accept both the creative and destructive sides of ourselves so that we can be whole. We stop battling ourselves and become centered in our own strength and warrior spirit. With practice, we start to know that we are on our own side. Stepping off our mat and into the world, we are strong, confident and compassionate as we recognize that we and all of the living things around us are most beautiful in complexity. What we have to offer humanity is most fabulous because it is unique and not because it is perfect.
MATRIKA SHAKTI is also the powerful energy vibrations of the sounds that make up our internal truth.
In Hindu mythology, Brahma the creator, first showed himself as a golden embryo of sound. He was a vowel, vibrating outward, the sound echoed back upon itself and became water and wind. In Sanskrit, this power is called Matrika Shakti, the inherent creative energy behind the letters that make up words. It is said that each letter of the Sanskrit alphabet has a corresponding sound vibration both in the subtle energy channels of our bodies and in the cosmos. When these sound vibrations resonate with a corresponding vibration within us they create thoughts, then these thoughts gradually manifest the grosser forms of feelings and then speech. The Matrika Shakti resides in our energy body and rises of its own volition into consciousness, manifesting as our thoughts. [Original Reference HERE]
Through our practice of meditation, yoga asanas and mantra, we create a new kind of matrika that transforms our experience of life itself. We are purified, relieved and open to the fullest expression of our most genuine selves. We create greater potential for relationship by cultivating compassion for all living beings. This is not about being perfect or adhering to a strict regimen of diet or rules. Rather, it is about tuning our instruments of life to the matrika shakti that travels the energy channels of the body. It is about opening to the darkness so that the light may shine through.
