Ants In Your Pants Yin Yoga

Dear Yogis

Last weekend I did a class with top Yin teacher Norman Blair – and bought his book, Brightening Our Inner Skies. Many of the things he says about Yin Yoga can be applied to Ashtanga Yoga. Yoga is all about awareness and meditation, after all. For example, Norman says: “A Yin yoga practice with its emphasis on awareness can build bridges towards meditative practices. Meditation in postures develops confidence about and diminishes fear around meditating. In meditation, there can be glimpses of freedom from being so tightly bound to exhausting wheels of self: that maintaining of the sameness of identity, that maintaining or the masks of personality”.

All yoga is about this, the ‘stilling the fluctuations of the mind’. Norman says that mental distractions (fluctuations) can be put into four groups: Fantasising and being lost in daydreams; judging and commentary from our inner critic; planning and existing in the future; and ruminating like a cow chewing its cud, ‘stuck in a maze of memories, repetitively eating past events’.

We are naturally distracted; the mind dwells in a naturally distracted state. Before we discover yoga practice/meditation we are dwellers in distraction with no tools to disentangle ourselves. Norman tells us this: “Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist and an expert in brain disorders, talks about how the mind is full of ants (automatic negative thoughts). He suggests that we become aware of these ants and consciously question them; otherwise they will continue to multiply, thus constructing denser walls of self”.

Ants! Brilliant!

Yoga Retreat

There’s nothing like holding on to the summer warmed by Kytheran sun in September by joining our Magical Kapsali Yoga Retreat. If you’re considering coming, take a look at this example of flights.

Depart: Sunday 13th September – British Airways 06:40LHR, arriving 12:30ATH (£94 today)

Aegean Airlines - 16:10 from Athens, arrives 16:55 Kithira

Return: Saturday 19th September – British Airways 19:55ATH, arriving 21:45LHR (£175 today)

Aegean Airlines - 17:20 leaves Kithira, arrives 18:05 Athens. (€ 84.24 today)

Take a look at different combinations. Easyjet from might be a cheaper way of getting to Athens. And the other carrier from Athens to the island is Sky Express. You can do the whole journey on Aegean but the outgoing journey goes via Germany.

Training

Tonight I’m going to the first of three workshops: ‘Headstand to handstand’ with Anastasis Tzanis. Tonight’s theme is Alignment. In this video Anastasis talks about tonight’s inversions. Next month it will be backbending and March has transitions. All this is at at Triyoga Chelsea, 19:45 - 21:45. Come with me!

Home Studio

The later classes next week are booked up but the earlier classes have plenty of spaces. For those of you who have been coming for a while, please click here to write a small review.

Yoga in the News

Good News Network has: Boy Was Inspired to Become Youngest Yogi in US After Seeing How Yoga Healed Mom. At just 7 years old, this boy was inspired to become the youngest yoga teachers in the United States... Now 14 years old, Tabay Atkins teaches three classes a week and holds seven different yoga teacher certifications.

The Times has: The Story of Yoga by Alistair Shearer review — our flexible friend. “This is a tale of what happens when East and West meet, and about a shift from the sacred to the secular.” “The cultural historian Alistair Shearer argues that while we might have enthusiastically embraced yoga in the West, most of us don’t understand it.”

The Independent scolds: Why you should stop using Instagram for yoga: 'It has been reduced to a show’. The article rather marmishly tells us: ‘Priest is able to pose with her legs behind her head but only because her skeletal structure allows it. “If another person tries the same posture, a person whose hips are built quite differently than mine, well that’s a recipe for injury and disaster,” she adds. “Nobody on Instagram ever tells you not to try this at home, but maybe they should.”  (Did you need telling?)

Don’t forget the eclipse this evening, at its greatest point at 7.10pm! (The January full moon is called the 'Wolf Moon' because wolves howl more in the winter!)

The Yoga of Faliure

Dear Yogis

How’s the New Year Resolution going? Many people don’t like them because they are associated with failure. What a pity, especially as yoga postures teach us a lot about failure and trying again. Almost every posture is like this. There are some postures that feel like a failure for years, decades, and that’s the part of the practice that we learn the most from.

Many business leaders talk about the importance of hardship and failure in their eventual success. Anyone who has experienced tensions over Christmas might reflect that hardship creates self-analysis and we learn about who we are, where our inner strength lies, how we interact with others and how to try to bring balance, or at least employ tactics to bring peace. The consequences of not learning and improving are injurious. We injure ourselves.

There’s a climber called Conrad Anker who talks about climbing in a very yogi way! He says of climbing: ‘you're in a situation where all the consequences of making mistake are injury, so you have to focus on that. And that takes away the noise of day-to-day living in this oversubscribed society we are in, there at the moment. And that to me is my form of meditation’.

The best climbers fail to summit difficult mountains. Some die. Some try again. Anker says: “I have plenty of ‘no successes’ I could look back on, but I don’t want to live life in reverse.”. “We can avoid risk and we just sit on the sofa and watch TV and eat convenience food OR we harness risk. And by understanding that, we can see what risk allows us to do with human potential – both intellectual and physical standpoint – by pushing us out of our comfort zone and having to evaluate the cost benefit that each moment really opens up intellectual curiosity in a way that has allowed humans as a species to progress to the point where we are today.”

It isn’t so much the fear of dying but of not actually living’.

Yoga Retreat

Our Magical Yoga Retreat to the little paradise of Kapsali Bay will be on the third week of September – travel on Sunday the 13th September and back the following weekend. Let me know if you want to come and I’ll start booking rooms and transfers. (See our photo gallery from previous years.)

Training

This Sunday (5th) I’ll be doing ‘A Yin Yoga Workshop: Exploring Inner Landscapes with Norman Blair’ 13.30-16.40 at Indaba in Marylebone. Norman Blair is a top Yin yoga teacher; his teacher training courses for 2020 are already booked up with waiting lists! Fancy coming?

With a triumph of hope over experience I’ve booked three Friday evening inversion workshops with Anastasis Tzanis called ‘headstand to handstand’. The dates are Fri, 10 January (Alignment), Fri, 7 February (backbending) and Fri, 6 March (transitions) at Triyoga Chelsea, 19:45 - 21:45. Come with me! When that’s done it will almost be clocks forward time!

Home Studio

A really sweet thing this season has been the amount of people wanting yoga gift tokens for their partners for a birthday or Christmas present. See attached if you’re still short of a present. Anyway, we’re back to normal next week with classes. There’s plenty of availability; only one class is completely full. See attached for the week’s class availability. For those of you who have been coming for a while, please click here to write a small review.

Yoga in the News

The Telegraph has New Year, New Yoga — take Adam Husler's challenge to go deeper in these 'simple' yoga postures. It’s always time well spent to revisit the postures we think we know well. Goal-setting usually refers to the difficult postures but it’s worth looking at familiar postures for their subtleties.Home Studio

Yogi New Year Resolution 2020

Dear Yogis

Have you got your New Year’s Resolution ready? Yogis are brilliant at resolutions. In every yoga practice we try to be a better version of ourselves. This is truly our time of year.

Yogis have the Sanskrit word ‘Sankalpa’ to describe a resolve from the heart. It’s “an intention that forces your mental energies... towards a specific end”.  It is an aspiration pursued by setting a sincere intention. It’s really not about losing a couple of pounds or going to the gym. It doesn’t care if you give up chocolate. It’s about the authenticity of your life and what change you can make to get closer to your higher self. (Definition of the opposite might help: imagine lack of setting a goal or intention, living with an assortment of aims, confusion, aimlessness... and other terms that sound alarmingly like the higgledy piggledy of daily life.)

A Sankalpa is about creating the life you are meant to have. To find your Sankalpa, imagine the life that you aspire to live and then set your intention. Act as that person and pursue long-term interests rather than short-term, confused desires.

Yoga Retreat

OK. Hands up who resolves to come on our Magical Greek Yoga retreat next September – the third week in September! If you’re stuck for a resolution for New Year’s Eve, a Kapsali Retreat could be just the thing! Let me know. As before, we can get the early flight, 06.40, out from Heathrow on Sunday 13th September 2020 and catch the late flight, 19.55, back from Athens on Saturday 19th. See here. To get to the island, we hook up with the Olympic Airlines fights: 16.10 from Athens and 17.20 return on the Saturday. You could also ch

Home Studio

This coming Monday, the 30th, I’ve added another class at 4.00pm. The 6.00 and 7.30 classes are full. See attached for the week’s class availability. For those of you who have been coming for a while, please click here to write a small review.

I’m also covering a class at Eden at 11.30 on’ Thursday 2nd January 2020. I might wear this, a Christmas present.

Yoga in the News

Telegraph.co.uk has: Midlife Fitness Files: yoga expert Bridget Woods Kramer on fake vegans and the power of ayurveda. She says about her energy secret: “Fresh vegetable juice or standing on my head for 5-10 minutes. You can do it against a wall or get a special headstand stool online or just lie down with a bolster or cushions across your lower back and your legs up the wall.  Going upside down daily is invigorating and relaxing at once and, some say, anti-ageing”

With NY Resolution timing, Psychology Today gives us: The Practice and Habit of Happiness. ‘In short, breaking undesired habits and starting desired habits is hard and usually somewhat unpleasant. So, what if we replaced “discipline” with more “delight” and character development as a motivator?’ Read about how to change the neural pathways in your brain.

Perfecting Generosity

Dear Yogis

‘Twas the week before Christmas and the money raised at our charity class in Decathlon, £120.00, has already been transferred. We were told that the most urgent need is stocks of juices and croissants for the landings – for greeting refugees on the shore. My charity bucket in the studio has £40 more which will go towards postage of the mats. They will be distributed at Vial (the camp) as people use them to sleep on. Perhaps some will make it to the language and learning centre of yoga!

Decathlon staff and security were so sweet to us. They kept the entrance doors on the first floor closed so we wouldn’t be disturbed. They provided water and protein bars. They cordoned off a large space for us (11 yogis) and provided some mats from their example shelf. I’m still collecting spare mats and spare money and I’ll organise another class soon to kick us off on a good 2020 note.

We felt the spirit of the season; it was totally blessed! This really is a blessed time of year, all about the practice of generosity rather than concentrating on our own concerns and ambitions, plans and lists. In Buddhist practice the act of ‘giving’ is called ‘Dana’ and it is in the DNA of practitioners. You don’t go to a monastery or temple without taking your Dana, your offering. It’s as normal as taking shoes off, it’s ubiquitous and unremarkable but you can’t reach buddhahood without perfecting generosity.

So! Happy Christmas! Happy giving!

Home Studio

Classes have finished and I settle down for my long winter nap! My lucky Home Studio becomes a bedroom for guests and is back in service in its rightful role on Monday 30th. One of the classes on the 30th is already full so I’ve added another class at 4.00pm. Then there’s the Ashtanga classes of Thursday 2nd, nothing in between.  And then we’re off into the Roaring Twenties! See attached for class availability. For those of you who have been coming for a while, please click here to write a small review.

Christmas Presents

My final suggestion for a Christmas present is bags from a company called Mimicri. Their website says: ‘We upcycle broken refugee rubber boats into high quality bags. The idea for mimycri was born on the Greek island Chios where the co-founders – Vera and Nora – volunteered several times since 2015 welcoming people arriving at the shores. This experience motivated Vera and Nora to stay engaged and do something.’

Training

Tonight is the Charlie Merton workshop, Winter Solstice Yin Yoga + Gong Experience. If you’re looking for a Christmas present for a yogi, this is not a bad idea..

Yoga in the News

National Geographic has: Why our fast-paced society loves yoga. Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, a yoga instructor, Harvard neuroscientist, and expert on the science of yoga, says ‘ Stress plays a major role in many illnesses that kill us. It also drives unhealthy eating, poor sleep, alcohol and drug misuse, and other bad habits. “Modern medicine really sucks at preventing chronic disease’. Khalsa has investigated yoga for insomnia, PTSD, anxiety, and chronic stress, where he’s seen the most compelling evidence of yoga’s benefits.

Forbes has: Julia Roberts' “Eat, Pray, Love” Yoga Teacher Reveals Filming Secrets. ‘With Julia, I would incorporate many inversions and arm balances: Handstands, wall dog, Pincha Mayurasana (forearm stand), and Bakasana (crow). Powerful poses for a powerful woman. FYI: Actors have gruelling hours, so for several weeks of the film they were shooting through the night. She is a dedicated yogi, and we would practice at midnight!’

The Gift Of Giving

Dear Yogis

It’s gift-giving time. Have you got all your presents ready? Gift-giving has always been around; we practice something at Christmas that has happened since prehistoric times. Originally the gods got the goods. Gifts greased the wheels of barter. Rival tribes needed peace offerings. Father Christmas with his gifts is an old pagan idea about spirits who traversed the sky. Ancient Egyptians raised gift-giving to operatic levels – they even filled pyramids with gifts. Ancient Greeks are thought to have started the tradition of birthday gifts to ward off evil spirits and bring good wishes. We have so many occasions that we mark with some kind of offering... Valentines, Harvest Festival, Diwali, simply visiting someone’s home.

Giving is happily in our DNA. We are wired to give! Gifts cement tradition, spread joy, and strengthen social ties. This is a useful reflection if you have someone in your family that is... erm... not your favourite! This is your moment, your welcomed opportunity, to practice generosity! Give with all your heart!

Giving is good for the giver! There’s plenty of research to show that kindness and the act of giving releases endorphins, decreases stress levels, decreases depression and increases in a sense of happiness and purpose. The more you give, the more you become the kind of person who gives, the more you build up your kindness and compassion ‘muscle’ and the more good you do for yourself.

Charity Class

This Sunday. 15th, I’ll be teaching a charity class in Decathlon Ealing. Details are in Last week’s Frfiday Email, here. I would like donated, good quality, yoga mats to send to a charity that works with refugees in Chios, Greece. The Facebook event page is here. My website has a dedicated page here. Sign up here. Or just come along with your mat ready for 11.00. I’ll have charity buckets on the day to collect donations.

Home Studio

My lucky home studio has a variety of classes and people with a variety of reasons for coming. They bring friends, family or just come for the ‘Me Time’. This week I taught an Introduction to Yoga private class for a birthday surprise gift! What a joyful thing! Balloons, Bunting and Breathing. If you’re interested in a birthday session, pop me a line. In the meantime, there’s plenty of room next week. For those of you who have been coming for a while, please write a small review.

Christmas Presents

A couple more ideas here... For coffee lovers, two Home Studio yogis have a coffee business, 106 Coffee and they have a £21.00 Christmas gift pack offer. (Pattabhi Jois, said No Coffee No Prana!). Their pack includes100g samples of the following coffees: Portal da Serra from Brazil, Gitwe #832 from Rwanda, La Independencia #1 from El Salvador, and AA Maganjo from Kenya. And if you think a No Coffee No Prana T-shirt would help on the mat, here it is.

Yoga in the News

Bikram is back! The Telegraph has Yoga's dirty secret: how Bikram conned the world. An attendee at a Bikram camp said ‘’Bikram was almost a caricature of himself. He was constantly talking about what had happened to him, that he’d been wronged and that he was innocent. He was still giving his long lectures, saying that he should’ve been revered more than Jesus Christ because he’s helped more people. He sounded delusional.”

Science Daily has: Experts review evidence yoga is good for the brain. ‘The amygdala, a brain structure that contributes to emotional regulation, tends to be larger in yoga practitioners than in their peers who do not practice yoga.’

Charity Yoga Class: Accumulating And Transferring Merit

Dear Yogis

I want you to come to my charity yoga class next Sunday, 15th, at Decathlon Ealing so here’s how I’ll try persuade you – with the Buddhist theory of ‘transferring merit’. It’s central to Buddhist practice to be in the service of others by giving food (dana) keeping precepts (like the yoga precepts of Yamas and Niyamas), and through the practice of meditation, which is what yoga practice is. All this good work and moral endeavour is believed to accumulate merit. Buddhists love the idea of undertaking meritorious deeds and then accumulating and transferring merit. You do that by wishing for someone else to benefit from your good work.

Nice, eh! It’s a nice way to live; to always have giving and meditation as a regular occurrence in your diary. With that in mind, can I have your old, unwanted yoga mat?! It’s to send to an organisation called CESRT – the Chios Eastern Shore Response Team - a charity that receives refugees who land on the island of Chios after a precarious boat crossing from Turkey. After yogi friend Kay volunteered there and held a yoga class there, we decided to collect unwanted, donated yoga mats to send to them. We also need to raise the money for postage, hence the class.

The date of this class is highly significant. It's the birthday of legendary yoga teacher, Derek Ireland: Brighton-born, world traveller, charismatic teacher, yoga trailblazer who transplanted the practice of Ashtanga Yoga from India to Europe. December 15th would have been his 70th birthday and it is being celebrated in many parts of the world with fundraising yoga classes in his honour.

Decathlon in Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre will be hosting us. Decathlon has a great space upstairs; anyone can come, beginners, middle, advanced and people who want some yoga fun. Bring children and make a small donation for them on the day – I have charity buckets! Otherwise, you can sign up here on my website. Click the 'Book Now' button. Here’s the Facebook Event page. Please can you share it?

Training

Gorgeous Charlie Merton has a workshop coming up in Ealing on Friday 20th, Winter Solstice Yin Yoga + Gong Experience. If you’re looking for a Christmas present for a yogi, this is not a bad idea, even though it’s pre-Christmas. There’s an early bird price until December 13th. It’s my present to myself! Come with me!

Home Studio

We were flying on Wednesday evening with a workshop on Crow posture! If you have a posture request, I can be your DJ. There’s plenty of room next week. See attached for class availability. For those of you who have been coming for a while, please write a small review.

Christmas Presents

So, what suggestions so far? There’s the Foxhills Golf Course, Chertsey, one-day-and-one-night yoga retreat mentioned last week on Sunday 19 January, Warm Up For Winter with a 10% discount code – YOGARETREATTS. There’s Stephen Cope’s wonderful book The Great Work Of Your Life and Decathlon yoga mats. I’ll think of new ones for next week.Yoga in the News

The Telegraph has: How Hotpod became Europe's biggest yoga brand, and why top athletes love it. 'From the outside, the pod looks like an adult’s bouncy castle'... it is in fact 'Europe’s largest yoga brand; the second-largest in the world'. ‘The England rugby team have been Hotpodding for years – they took a pod to the World Cup in Japan, and captain Owen Farrell even has his own’. Hotpod yoga is good for midlifers and ‘those who practised hot yoga had a greater reduction in body fat percentage’

Business Insider has: I did yoga every day for a month, and I've never gotten so many compliments on my skin and posture. ‘Since I’d received so many comments on my complexion, I did some digging and found out that “yoga glow” is a real thing. Yoga can increase the blood flow to your face and contribute to less inflammation, meaning that it can help your skin appear more glowy and less bloated or puffy than usual.’

Ashtanga Is Not For Everyone

Dear Yogis 

During our magical Kythera retreat this year, my guru Valentina dropped the bombshell that the physical practice of Ashtanga is not for everyone. Well, I have to admit, I never suggested Ashtanga to my mother! My teacher David Swenson, a famous Ashtangi, says that it is our duty to teach anyone and everyone that comes to our classes and, if they have restrictions or disabilities, find a way to modify the Ashtanga practice to include them. His teacher, Pattabhi Jois, would say that yoga is not for lazy people; everyone else can try.

Valentina says very definitely that Ashtanga is not for everybody. It is an advanced practice and some people should be in a gentler class for a much more subtle practice. It made me think that Ashtangis spend years, decades, revisiting the same postures for a truer practice. Ashtanga is not like other studies; we don’t ‘qualify’ in the first weeks, months and years... or ever! But people are impatient, want to be advanced and want to join the connoisseurs’ club. It’s not at all like that but the gym doesn’t warn you that there will be highs and lows, many frustrations, you’ll be a ‘beginner’ for much longer than you might have expected, and then there’s the unexpected journey of the soul!

It doesn’t have to be Ashtanga! There are plenty of other reasons to practice (and teach) yoga...

Training

I’ve signed up for two days’ training with Ourmala to learn how to teach yoga to refugees (written about in the Evening Standard here.). The training is about significantly improving mental and physical health, reducing loneliness and enabling people to feel safer, more confident and take part in life more. Come with me! The training is held in Richmond on January 16th and 17th.  “You don’t need to be a yoga teacher or even a yoga practitioner to attend.”

And all of this is inspired by my yogi friend who taught refugees in Chios, Greece, recently. Put 11.00am on Sunday December 15th in your diary. We’re teaching a charity yoga class to raise money to send yoga mats to the organisation my friend volunteered with, Chios Eastern Shore ResponseTeam. Decathlon, Ealing, has kindly donated our venue for the class. You can sign up here by clicking the Book Now button. Open to all. Bring children! You can make a little donation on the day for little ones! We want to collect your unwanted yoga mats to send to the organisation. Monday raised is for shipping costs and any left-over, to donate to their work.

Home Studio

Plenty of room next week apart from Wednesday’s class which is the popular evening. The Thursday 6.00 class is popular too, for people who want to come straight from work . See attached for class availability. For those of you who have been coming for a while, please write a small review.

Christmas Presents

What about a day yoga retreat? I spent a Sunday recently on a press trip at Foxhills golf course for a one day yoga retreat. The next one is on Sunday 19 January, Warm Up For Winter, for £190 and I have a discount code - YOGARETREATTS - for a 10% discount

• 9am-9.30am – Arrival/welcome

• 9.30am-11am – Morning yoga practice (dynamic)

• 11.30am-12.30pm – Nutrition talk

• 12.30-2pm – Lunch/explore the resort

• 2.30pm-4pm – Afternoon practice (restorative)

• 4pm-8pm – Use of the spa facilities

• Cost of dinner not included in the package

• Overnight stay

• Check out 11 am

The Address is Stonehill Rd, Ottershaw, Lyne, Chertsey KT16 0EL. It’s a really nice experience!

Yoga in the News

The Evening Standard has:  2 energising morning yoga sequences to wake you up for the day.  It’s a nice little example for absolute, total beginners. The sequences couldn’t be shorter.

Here's a good question from the HuffPost: What's The Difference Between A Cheap Yoga Mat And An Expensive One? Read about mats that have cult following, mats that knees love, sticky or slippy, thinner or cushioned, eco-friendly or landfill planet-killers.

Teaching Yoga To Refugees

Dear Yogis 

A dear yogi friend recently volunteered on the Greek Island of Chios to help with the refugees that land on their flimsy craft with their worthless life jackets and drenched clothes. After a couple of weeks my friend was asked to teach a beginners’ yoga class. Here’s what she said:

Oh my goodness I was so concerned beforehand and it went really well! We started by going through the language I was going to use with help of the Language Centre - body parts, stretch, extend, etc. I planned an animal theme to the class, found pictures of the different animals, projected them onto a white board and then I demonstrated the poses. I got 8 guys - no women unfortunately.

Then we went outside and more joined. I got a nice playlist and we did a flow. I got to a point where I thought they might have had enough but they wanted more so I improvised! One much older guy who walks with a crutch even joined in. They could nearly all do crow!

I ended with a long Savasana to a lovely track and talked them through a relaxation. They reckon I should train to be a teacher.

My friend and I have hatched a plan: to put on a fundraising class to send yoga mats to Chios. Ealing’s newly opened Decathlon has already agreed to host the class on Sunday December 15th, time TBA. We would need to collect donated mats and collect money to pay the postage. It would be a donation class, suggested donation £10. More details anon.

This date coincides nicely with an event of Kristina Karitinou Ireland – a Celebration of Derek´s Ireland’s life. He would have been 70 and Kristina has asked us to celebrate his life, his enduring example and inspiration on December 15th. Derek raised the level of teaching yoga and made the practice more accessible and widespread. What could be more of an example of this accessibility than teaching refugees to lift their spirits?

Home Studio

There’s a lot of space next week. Come for a stretch on Mondays and Tuesdays and give evening Ashtanga a go on Wednesdays and Thursdays. We can make it a Yin Ashtanga class (!) if the day has taken your energy! Book early. See attached for class availability. For those of you who have been coming for a while, please write a small review.

Training

I’m teaching Ashtanga at Virgin Chelsea tomorrow morning (Saturday 23rd) at 10.30-11.30, covering for Mark Colleano. Come along if you’re a member of Virgin.

By the way, my guru David Swenson is in the country at the moment and teaching in Triyoga Camden. Take a look at his workshops. He’s an incredibly inspirational teacher.

Yoga in the News

The Guardian has: He got away with it': how the founder of Bikram yoga built an empire on abuse. Netflix released a new documentary about Bikram which ‘ visually synthesizes decades of archival footage with first-person testimony and filmed court depositions into a devastating portrait of an abusive narcissist protected from consequences by his own inflated cult of personality, wealth and professional power within the niche world of hot yoga.’

Chiang Rai Times has: How Can Yoga and Meditation Change Your Brain? Paragraphs on how meditation changes the attention span, reduces anxiety, increases information processing, reduces pain signals, increases brain folds, and boosts the volume of grey matter.

You Will Know Your Path

Dear Yogis 

It’s the season of mists and mellowness and I find myself making a decision this week that I really didn’t want to or expect to make. A summer of dreaming came to an end and I let go. Endings are really beginnings and I found great support in a book I only mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Stephen Cope’s The Great Work Of Your Life. This next passage is about making a decision to leap forward and even though I didn’t in this instance, I know my real leap forward and a more vivid dream is coming:

“Concerning all acts of initiative, and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself then providence moves in too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man would have dreamt would come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s concepts: “Whatever you do, or dream you can do, Begin It, Boldness has genius, power and magic in it’”.

Cope’s book is about finding your calling which will literally call you and pull you. For me, the pull wasn't strong and summer's dream wasn't right.  Cope says: “When difficulties arise, see them as your dharma. Your dharma is the work that is called forth from you at this moment. And like everything in this impermanent world, the work of the moment can change on a dime”.

Home Studio

I have to say, when I moved back home to Ealing and started my little studio, providence moved in too. It’s my favourite thing, my lucky space, it’s where the nicest people in Ealing gather and it has joy in its fabric. Many people have commented that they feel a special vibe in the studio. Of course, it’s what they bring!  Come and see! The added Ashtanga class on Thursday at 6.00pm was full so I’ll keep it on the timetable. See attached for class availability.

Christmas Presents

Stephen Cope’s book is perfect, I think, for a teenager taking a great step forward to A Levels or university and anyone who likes a contemplative read.. If you have contemplated buying a yoga mat for someone, I have two Decathlon mats in my studio for you to try. Their top-of-the-range one is £39.99 and lovely and grippy, 4mm in thickness, quite narrow and liked in my small sample group. Some don’t like the texture, though. The next one, £29.99, is smooth, thinner (3mm), wider, nice and grippy and nicely designed, with inspiring writing down the middle. They have a thicker one like this which is 5mm for £39.99. When I think of other suggestions I’ll let you know.

Yoga in the News

The Sydney Morning Herald has:  As Insta posers get injured, have we finally reached 'peak yoga'? Interesting ending... “After all, people are injuring themselves generally trying to get the perfect Instagram shot and I've heard of plenty of other fitness professionals snapping tendons and generally hurting themselves as they try to out-do one-another for social media.”

The New York Times has: How Did I Get That Yoga Story? You Really Had to Be There. This is about ‘adjustments’ in yoga classes and how teachers intervene, hands on, in a student’s practice, to bring out the best posture. Take a look at the video in the article and... try to pick your jaw off the floor.

Rolfing For A Wonky Body

Dear Yogis 

I have a therapy to recommend to you: Rolfing. I first heard it recommended by David Williams - he who is credited with introducing Ashtanga to America in the 70s. Dr Ida Rolf Invented the therapy, a ten-step system to manipulate soft tissue and correct structural imbalances... and I have so many!

My friend and Eden Fitness Ashtanga teacher Alain Zakeossian is a certified ‘Rolfer’, and so my learning curve came from his expertise. My right shoulder rolls forward, possibly due to many years of violin playing and my left is bigger, possibly due to bowing. My torso turns slightly to the right which is why I look odd in shoulder stand! My arms were held like semi-circles beside my torso, like an puny body builder! My insteps are unequal and right leg turns out from the hip. That’s the short list!

I found this interesting, about breathing: if the torso is hyper extended, like a ballet dancer with a pronounced lifted chest, you’ll never take a full exhalation. The opposite is the case with people who are hunched forward with a squashed chest; they’ll never achieve a full inhalation.

The treatment itself is really such a new experience. A few times on the treatment table I felt so deeply relaxed it was like being awake and asleep at the same time. It’s more of a learning experience than any massage or visit to the physio. It’s empowering. Take a look at Alain’s website: rolfinginlondon.com.  Ida Rolf said: "This is the gospel of Rolfing: When the body gets working appropriately, the force of gravity can flow through. Then, spontaneously, the body heals itself."

Home Studio

Next Thursday I’m reintroducing the 6.00 Ashtanga-based classes. I’ll add it to the timetable till the end of November and see what the demand is. There’s a few spaces left in the usual classes next week and all but one of the new Thursday class to fill up. See attached for class availability.

Training

Yoga Evolved in Lambeth has a whole day of yoga in a nightclub tomorrow, from 10.30-19.00 for £30. It’s a Yoga and Fitness Festival. The day includes: QiGong, an Inversion Workshop, Power Yoga, and Gin Yin.

Yoga in the News

Reuters has:  Warrior pose: Sierra Leone's soldiers heal trauma with yoga. “Yoga is not about the past, but about living in the present moment,” Musa said. “You have to leave everything on the mat. Ebola, the war, all those things have passed, and through yoga we are learning to let them go.”

I can’t tell you how many people sent me this from the BBC: Yoga teachers 'risking serious hip problems'. Mr Matthews, a specialist hip and knee physiotherapist and member of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, says he sees four to five yoga teachers a month.

The Telegraph has: Yoga has become dangerously competitive – the very thing it shouldn’t be. I like the way this starts: ‘I had been going to yoga classes for over 10 years before I did my first headstand. It took me a further five until I am where I am today; completely at home balancing with my feet directly above my head.’