Spring rarely arrives all at once. The mornings become lighter. The air softens. There is an almost imperceptible change in energy before the season has fully announced itself.
For yoga teachers Shelley Armstrong, Alessia Frisina and Ryan Mannix, that shift is felt in different ways. For Shelley, it brings greater intention and curiosity to practice. Alessia sees spring as a period of emergence that needs to be approached without rushing. Ryan is less inclined to change his practice according to the calendar at all, but even he notices the unmistakable lift in energy.
Together, their reflections suggest that perhaps the practice of spring isn’t necessarily about doing more. It is about noticing what is beginning to move.
An open doorway
Shelley Armstrong noticed the change in her own practice before consciously connecting it with the season.
“When the season shifts to spring everything feels more expansive,” she says. “Intentional would be the word I’m looking for, my practice has more intention.”
There is something beyond the physical emerging for her. The poses remain important, but they are no longer necessarily where the practice ends.
“Less anchored in just the physical, but more aliveness to everything beneath it. There’s a clarity that comes when the noise of doing subsides, a few more lightbulb moments.”
It is an interesting description of a practice becoming simultaneously more deliberate and less goal-oriented. Rather than abandoning the body, Shelley describes using it as a way into something else.
“Not that the physical matters less, but lately it feels as though the physical is an open doorway rather than the destination.”
Perhaps that is one of spring’s invitations. After the inwardness of winter, practice can begin to feel more exploratory. There is room again for possibility.
“The practice becomes more deliberate, expansive and more curious,” Shelley says. “Hopeful too about what’s to come.”
Don’t pull the bud open
For Alessia Frisina, spring’s increasing energy has a more complicated quality.
She associates the season with “the energy of the crescent moon” and, for women, the later follicular phase of the menstrual cycle: a time when energy, motivation and possibility begin to return.
But Alessia is equally interested in what can happen when we become carried away by that energy.
“There’s a natural sense of energy, motivation and possibility returning, but it can also come with a certain urgency, that ’spring cleaning’ feeling of wanting to do everything, change everything, and see results now.”
Spring may signify renewal, but it doesn’t mean winter simply disappears. Alessia sees value in remembering where the season has come from.
“Spring is still emerging from winter. There’s a tenderness and innocence to this transition that we can honour, even as we begin to invite more playfulness, curiosity and creativity into our practice.”
That can find expression quite literally on the mat. Alessia suggests experimenting with new or more creative flows. In Yin, she might introduce gentle movement and moving rebounds between the longer periods of stillness.
The intention isn’t to suppress spring’s energy. It is to experience that energy without becoming impatient with ourselves.
“Spring can feel incredibly positive and motivating, but when that energy becomes impatient or frustrated, the practice can remind us not to rush our own unfolding.”
She captures the thought in a simple image:
“A bud doesn’t need to be pulled open for it to blossom, there is a natural timing to becoming.”
One practice Alessia particularly enjoys at this time of year is Viloma 1, a pranayama practice in which the inhalation is interrupted by pauses.
“The interrupted inhalation becomes a beautiful reminder of this: taking in only as much as we can comfortably receive, pausing, and allowing expansion to happen gradually.”
It is spring not as sudden transformation, but as emergence.
The practice doesn’t have to change
Ryan Mannix offers an important counterpoint to the idea of seasonal practice.
“I’m not really one to follow the seasons,” he says. “I’m very consistent all year.”
His practice remains disciplined and largely unchanged. Yet that does not mean he is oblivious to what is happening around him.
“Spring is a beautiful shift. More life and energy.”
And recently, he has felt it quite distinctly.
“I’ve definitely felt a shift of energy in the last week. More light in the morning, more energy waking up, wanting to be outside more.”
Ryan’s response is revealing precisely because he doesn’t attempt to turn that feeling into a new practice or philosophy.
“My practice doesn’t actually shift through the seasons. I tend to stay focused and disciplined through the year. I just notice a shift in my energy.”
There is something very yogic in that too: simply noticing.
Allowing spring to arrive
These three approaches are quite different.
Shelley feels spring opening her practice into greater intention, curiosity and possibility. Alessia welcomes its rising energy while resisting the temptation to force transformation. Ryan maintains the same disciplined practice and simply observes that something within and around him has changed.
Perhaps they meet at the same place.
Spring doesn’t necessarily require us to reinvent our yoga. It might invite more movement or creativity. It might bring clarity. It might make us want to practise outside, breathe differently or explore something new. Or nothing about the practice itself may change.
What changes is the quality of attention we bring to it.
The days lengthen. Energy returns. Something begins to open.
And, as Alessia reminds us, we don’t have to pull at the petals.