Finding your inner calm

Dear Yogis,

This week I met a homeless man whose mother taught him Hatha Yoga as a child. He had an aura of calm. He was soft-spoken. He sat on the pavement with a hat for money and a Frederick Forsyth book - he said it’s easy to read. He said in his soft voice that he was frustrated to see people going to work and he wasn’t. If I ever hit hard times, I wonder if I’ll retain any calm at all. I put in a call to The Connection at St Martin’s to see if I can organise yoga sessions for the homeless there. By coincidence I found this article in the Huffington Post:  Yoga: How We Serve Those in Homeless Shelters. 

Free Yoga

Triyoga suggests that you ‘Bring a Dad for Free' to celebrate father’s day from June 13th to 19th.  The definition of ‘a dad’ is ‘your own dad, husband, granddad, a friend - simply anyone who is a dad’. Not bad, eh! 

Workshops

My guru, Valentina, is hosting an Alignment and Adjustment workshop this weekend at Coco Club in Hammersmith tomorrow, Saturday, at 2.00-5.00pm for £25. It’s suitable for teachers and students. You can book here.

When I do workshops I always look for the biggest names in the world of yoga. This is because I made a huge mistake and spent a lot of money (£thousands!) on a terrible course a few years ago. Since then, I want to know the lineage of teachers I spend significant time with. If you’re interested in the original teachers in the West, you can hardly do better than Doug Swenson who is visiting these shores this Autumn. He has been practising yoga since 1969. He hails from very conservative south Texas and in the early days neighbours called the police when he and his brother were spotted practicing yoga.

A wonderful teacher friend of mine is hosting Doug at her studio in Cambridge for a weekend from Friday 30th September to Sunday 2nd October. His ‘poetic flow’, wholistic style may appeal to you, especially if you practice Tai Chi. Doug teaches a balance between both hard and soft styles of yoga practice. The cost of the weekend is £150. More information here.

Home Studio

More loveliness in my Home Studio this week. People come with their back pain, sciatica, reservations about being new to yoga, fears of not being flexible enough, fears of going upside-down... but they come anyway! I admire you all so much. Next week is pretty booked up but there are still spaces left on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, not Monday!

Survey

Thank you for your responses to my very light-hearted survey for a Top Ten list of How to Please your Yoga Teacher! I’m compiling it for International Yoga Day. Thank you to the yogi who said: ‘Make sure your teacher is watching when you do a clever posture (in this case, headstand with piked legs at a 90 degree angle). And thank you to the yogi who contributed: ‘Identify your right and left correctly! Failing that, get a GPS equipped mat.’ Send suggestions if you have a contribution that is fun and entertaining, intelligible to non yogis, short... and broadcastable!