I've been listening to YouTubes by Patrick McKeown, writer of The Oxygen Advantage. Wow! There’s so much information that this Friday Email is becoming part one of two posts! He’s really worth a listen! I've been listening to his Atomic Focus Breathing workshops part 1. He starts by saying: 'This is not about mindfulness. This is about going beyond it'.

As I write this I am wearing a bracelet for visiting the Lying in State. Mum had seen Churchill’s Lying in State so, as we came out of the Great Hall and looked back at the Palace of Westminster last night, I asked Mum for her impressions. She couldn’t remember being in there!

Norman Blair, a senior Yin Yoga teacher, (I’ve written about him before when he released his book) has weighed in to the cost-of-living-crisis debate with an article, Headbanging/Headstanding, about the earnings of yoga teachers. He gives his own accounts and it’s interesting!

This week I taught an impossible and phenomenal posture… for most bodies, for most energies, for most normal people, it’s an impossibility. Yogis, however, love a challenge! The posture is Visvamitrasana, named after sage Visvamitra who also liked a challenge.

Did you know that many yogis organise their practice around the lunar calendar? The phase of the moon tells them whether to practice or not practice. It is said that the energy of the moon is so powerful that we need to use our own energy accordingly and match the moon cycles.

Happy Monday! I keep meaning to get this housekeeping out of the way to save the distress of parking questions and fines when you come here for a yoga class. The Grove, this street, is a School Street which means that cars not belonging to residents can’t come into the street between 8.15am and 9.15am.

I’m making my way through The Yoga Manifesto by Nadia Gilani. I opened up this morning to the chapter ‘Where Hope Comes From’. She says: “It comes from having something to believe in. If you believe in it, it exists. It’s remembering that you’ve lived through enough to know that, as the poet Rilke wrote, ‘no feeling is final’.

I’m reviewing a book I mentioned in Yoga In The News last week… The Yoga Manifesto by Nadia Gilani. The name suggests a political party’s policy and strategy but it begins as s a yoga teacher’s autobiography. If you find yourself needing to read about an approach to yoga that comes from eating disorders, lack of self-confidence and addictive behaviours, this is your book. There are so many reasons to start a yoga practice; this is one of them.

How has yoga practice been for you? I've had loads of positivity in my yoga life since the mid-90s. I now listen to stories about Asian yogis being made to feel like strangers in the Indian practice and uncomfortable in classes. Not only that, people who don’t have ideal bodies and eye-watering flexibility are being made to feel unwelcome.

My lucky new studio is hoping to welcome you back to classes. Classes last week had a trickle of familiar faces and new yogis. Ceiling fans moved the air around and provided a little whirr sound for meditation aid! I was thrilled to have friends over for Mysore practice too; early start, percolated coffee after, ready for the day by 7.30am! The studio looks on to the garden and the tall tree was golden and green in the glow of the morning sun. I imagined that the tree was holding its face up to the light. Brightness floods the room and whitens the white walls and shines in every corner. It’s incredibly uplifting.