but how you eat it. As a path of sensual pleasure, Tantra emphasizes the natural sensuality of preparing and eating good food. Eating is also a ritual celebration of togetherness, which is communally expressed at mealtimes in Mediterranean and Eastern cultures. You can make any small meal into an occasion for expressing your love.
Sexiness is about paying attention to what your lover enjoys eating, and taking time and care in its purchase and preparation. Don’t forget the table setting, with candles and flowers, and do dress (or undress) for dinner.
Choose ingredients that stimulate your palate, balancing tastes so that different flavours complement each other. Consider the texture and visual qualities of the food, as well as the taste.
Serve your partner in an attentive manner, making sure that everything needed is available. There’s nothing sexier than an ardent waiter offering you tasty titbits.
If you want to use food as part of your lovemaking, a fun idea is to prepare soft foods that can be eaten off your lover’s body – avocados, bananas, strawberries and mangoes have the ideal consistency. Chocolate has aphrodisiac properties and can be melted, painted on and then licked off.
The yoga of tantra
Yoga postures encourage the release of any tension held around the hips, pelvis and shoulders. Yoga was used by Indian Tantrics to develop physical suppleness and breath control. The art of yoga is centred on your breathing, and your energy is centred, or grounded, down in your sacrum. Yogic breathing builds your energy in your pelvis and then directs it from your hips and upwards through your body.
Warm up
These warm-up exercises stretch and loosen the hips, pelvis and inner thighs. Begin by sitting comfortably on the floor with your legs crossed loosely and your back straight.
Concentrate on your breathing, directing your inbreaths into your abdomen. As you inhale through your mouth, relax your jaw. Relax your throat and open your lungs as the air moves down. Release your ribcage so that your lungs can open fully. Relax the muscles under your ribcage, opening the diaphragm and letting the air fill your belly. Keep your belly soft and relaxed.
As you breathe, release your lower back. Do this by moving your waist from side to side, letting the rhythm move upwards so that your upper back, shoulders and neck are gently undulating. Let your back uncoil, and keep moving your shoulders from side to side to release tension. Let your neck join in. Once your back feels more flexible, spend a little time releasing your neck. If you don’t suffer from neck pain, you can roll your head around your neck slowly and gently. Let it fall backwards as far as is comfortable.
Now lie on your back with your buttocks touching the wall and your legs straight up, resting on the wall. Settle your spine into the floor. When you are comfortable, let your legs slide open, and exhale as you hold the stretch. Slowly slide your legs together again as you inhale. Do this several times.
Sit comfortably upright, with your legs opened out in a ‘v’ shape. If you are practising with your partner and are quite flexible, you can sit on the floor facing each other with your feet touching. Bend forward for a few minutes, loosening up the muscles and tendons before reaching forward to hold your partner’s hands. Using the weight of your partner as a gentle counterbalance, let your upper bodies rotate in a circle together. Be very careful not to pull too hard and strain a muscle. If you are practising alone, bend forward and place your palms on the floor between your legs. Allow your body to rotate as you gently push against your hands.
Squat!
Practising squatting can give you more stamina during active lovemaking postures where the woman is on top. Squatting releases tension and opens out your pelvis, stretching the muscles around the hips.
Move into a standing position with your feet hipwidth apart. Keep your feet parallel as you bend your knees and sit on your haunches, moving into a squatting position. Your weight should be on your heels, with your buttocks hovering just above the floor; be careful not to strain the tendons in your ankles. Sit for several minutes at least, breathing into your lower abdomen. With each out-breath, focus on relaxing all the muscles around your hips and pelvis. Let your pelvis open more with each inhalation, and release even more tension with every exhalation.
Swing your hips
Stand up and place your hands on your hips. Circle your hips as if you were tracing a hoop, easing all your muscles as you move in a gradually wider circle. Inhale for half a circle, and exhale for the other half. Pause with each in-breath, just before you begin each half-circle.
Try describing a horizontal figure of eight with your hips.
Release your upper back
Repeat the squat position described above.
As your hips and ankles ease into the posture, relax the top half of your body, letting your head hang forward and your arms drop loosely between your knees. Let all the tension you are carrying around your shoulders and upper back drop away.
Release your shoulders
If your shoulders still feel tense, slowly bring your upper body into a standing position again. Then bring both arms behind your back, holding the palm of one hand in the other, with your arms straight. As you bend forward your arms will fall away from your body.
Remain in this position, bent over with clasped hands, relaxing the tension around your shoulders as you breathe.
Corpse pose
In yoga, the corpse is the traditional name for the relaxation pose used at the end or beginning of a sequence of postures. In lovemaking, the corpse posture is when the man lies underneath his partner.
Lie flat on your back on the floor, with arms relaxed by your side and your palms facing upwards. To lengthen your back and straighten your spine, start with your knees bent upward and focus on relaxing the small of your back, settling it into the floor. When your back is comfortable, lengthen your neck by drawing your chin more toward your chest.
With your next few breaths, straighten your legs along the floor, with your feet slightly apart.
Spend several minutes relaxing. Concentrate on the breath moving through your airways, filling your throat, sternum and ribcage, and releasing all the muscular tension as you breathe out.
Make a bridge
Remain lying down for the four final postures.
With your knees bent upward and your arms along your side, slowly lift up your hips as you breathe out, letting the breath go right down into the centre of your pelvis. With each out-breath unfurl your back, lifting it from the floor. Leave your neck extended and in contact with the floor, but lift up your back right up to your shoulders. With every out-breath, release any tension you can feel. Think that you are offering your body to the universe; your body is a bridge for your energy
