Complete

Vinyasa Meets Nidra: Creating a complete practice

You know that moment at the end of class, when you finally lower down into savasana and, for several minutes, nothing is required of you? If you're a dedicated vinyasa practitioner, that might be the only taste you've ever had of yoga nidra. Often this ending of practice is treated as an afterthought before everyone grabs their mats and heads out the door.

Here's the thing: that liminal, drifting state deserves a lot more than a passing moment. It's a complete practice in its own right, and it's time vinyasa practitioners gave it a real seat at the table.

Wait, What Actually Is Yoga Nidra?

"Yogic sleep" is the literal translation, but it's a little misleading. You're not trying to fall asleep. You're aiming for something more precise: a state where your body relaxes as deeply as it does in sleep, while a thin thread of awareness stays lit the whole time.

You lie down, usually in savasana, and a teacher guides you through a structured sequence: settling the body, scanning awareness through different body parts, following the breath, noticing sensation, working with imagery, and often planting a short, positive intention. What makes it different from a nap or a generic guided relaxation is that edge of awareness.  You're riding the boundary between waking and sleeping without fully tipping into either one.

Why This Matters If You're a Vinyasa Person

Here's a little secret: you're already doing nidra-like work in savasana at the end of every single class. You just don't know it. Your nervous system is trying to downshift into that same parasympathetic territory, it's just not getting nearly enough time or structure to actually arrive there.

Vinyasa activates your sympathetic nervous system. You're working, adjusting, holding, building heat. Yoga nidra is the deliberate counterbalance.  It guides your body into deep rest on purpose, instead of hoping it happens naturally in the 5-10 minutes before everyone starts rolling up their mats.

It also reaches places asana typically can't. Postures work mostly with the physical and energetic body. Yoga nidra moves into the mental, intuitive, and even the intention-setting layers, a way to work with thought patterns, emotion, and a sense of purpose that movement alone doesn't directly touch.

My Own Path to Nidra

I'll be honest, this practice didn't start with teacher training, it started with burnout. A few years back I was worn down from a job that had nothing to do with yoga, and yoga nidra was one of the few things that helped me come back to myself.

In 2024 I studied with the Yoga Nidra Network under Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, fully intending to start teaching it. Then life got busy, and the training sat there, unused.

What brought me back was someone else's practice. My fellow Sellwood Yoga instructor Nicole Rush teaches a monthly session called The Monthly Reset, weaving together yin, nidra, and crystal sound bowls, one of the most restorative 90 minutes you can spend on a mat. (Go. Seriously.) Taking her class didn't just reset me that day, it reminded me how much I love teaching nidra in the first place.

That reconnection followed me into this summer's retreats in the Dolomites and Scotland, where my co-teacher Savonn and I taught a combo class every day: thirty minutes of stretch from her, thirty minutes of nidra from me. The surprise? The self-described vinyasa junkies fell hardest for the nidra. More than a few asked how to get more of it back home.

That's why this extended practice is showing up on the Sellwood Yoga workshop calendar in October and December.

Vinyasa Flow to Yoga Nidra - 90 Minute Practice

What to Expect

The Vinyasa (45 minutes): An all-levels flow, built so you can modify as needed and meet your body exactly where it's at that day. No two practices need to look the same.

The Nidra (45 minutes): You'll lie down and be guided through breathwork, a slow body scan, spoken imagery, and into that liminal "yogic sleep" state,  awake enough to witness it, relaxed enough to feel like you actually rested.

You don't have to choose between effort and rest. They were never meant to be separate anyway. Come flow, then come lie down and actually finish the practice.

Join me Sunday, October 18, 4:30-6:00pm and again (or for the first time) on Sunday, December 6, 4:30-6:00pm.

Not into Vinyasa?  Go to Sellwood Yoga’s workshop page to sign up for Nicole Rush’s The Monthly Reset (Yin, Nidra and Crystal Sound Bowls) offered the first Thursday of every month, 7:00-8:30pm.  You won’t regret it!