Guru ABBA

Dear Yogis

I don’t know if you have heard but there’s a scandal in the Ashtanga world. It rides on the back of the #MeToo movement and it turns out that Pattabhi Jois, ‘Guruji,’ ‘father of Ashtanga’, touched women inappropriately. He died in 2009 but there is a call for the grandson, Sharath, inheritor of Pattabhi Jois’ institute, to make a statement of apology. He hasn’t said anything about that but he has deleted many senior teachers, some taught by his grandfather, from the list of authorised teachers. Being on the list is a big deal - I read recently that training and the institute is to an Ashtangi what MIT is to an aspiring engineer! Ashtangi feelings are aflame.

Shouldn’t we, anyone who is hurt, look to text for guidance? Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras tell us to ‘still the fluctuations of the mind’. Minds are very unstilled, so that didn’t help! The lesson of the Bhagavad Gita is a call to action and devotion... it doesn’t help! There’s too much activity on social media and devotion has been severely tested.

This fairly ancient text might help! I had to laugh when I heard this on radio by Guru ABBA!:

‘Like a roller in the ocean, life is motion, move on.
Like the wind that’s always blowing, life is flowing, move on.
Like the sunrise in the morning, life is dawning, move on...’

When the student is ready, the guru appears!

Greek Yoga Retreat

If you are signed up for the first retreat, please look into securing your flights soon. The second retreatees found that BA cancelled the early morning flight on Sunday 16th September and the next morning flight doesn’t give the Minimum Connection Time at Athens Airport. Everybody is stopping in Athens for a night or two. Get in touch if you have any questions.

Home Studio

More new yogis at my lucky Home Studio. I wonder if the opening of Triyoga swept in new yoga excitement in Ealing. Who knew Ealing, Queen of the Suburbs, would have royal standing in the World of yoga! Every week more new yogis are seeking out a class: people are new to yoga, returning after years or just looking for a new place to practice. It’s lovely!  There are plenty of places next week. See what’s available here. Book here.

Training

Tomorrow, Saturday 24th, I am signed up for The koshas: 5 Spiralling Layers of Being with Zephyr Wildman in Triyoga Ealing. It’s at 14:00 - 16:30 so there’s no clash with Mark Colleano’s Ashtanga class at 18.30. Come with me!

Yoga in the News

The New York Times, no less, has an article called ‘So, You Say You Want to Do the Splits?‘. Never give up on the dream says the yoga teacher-author of ‘Even the Stiffest People Can Do the Splits: A Four-Week Stretching Plan to Achieve Amazing Health’. It’s a very readable review. The bulk of the book is “a short story; ‘How Are You Going to Achieve Anything If You Can’t Even Do the Splits?’ about two shame-ridden employees of a corporation in Japan who discover the joys and benisons of shake yoga”.

Cold is coming! Stay warm!

Yoga! Not Philosophy!

Dear Yogis

I have a little four-hour, once-a-week job at Triyoga Ealing on Sunday afternoons. I potter around cleaning up, refilling water bottles, replacing incense sticks, preparing studios and helping yogis and teachers. It’s a lovely job in a peaceful place so, quite by contrast, I heard a frustrated yogi coming out of a class announcing: ‘Don’t give me philosophy! Just give me yoga’. Hmmmm. Well, I’m not so sure I was very different back in the day.

It's possible to be a yoga practitioner without ever touching yoga postures. The inverse is also true - you can practice yoga without an interest in the ‘mind stuff’... but why not get a personal trainer and work the body that way? The physical results are quicker and there’s absolutely no philosophy.

But you’re drawn to yoga! You don’t need to acknowledge it but you’re meditating for the length of the class. However dynamic the class is, breath-focus means that calm is encouraged in the mind. The definition of yoga from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is to still the fluctuations of the mind. If you know nothing more about yoga philosophy than that, it’s enough! The waves are not separate from the sea. The shapes we make are not separate from yoga tradition.

Home Studio

My lucky Home Studio has welcomed a lot of new yogis recently. It’s such an honour to introduce new yogis or rekindle the enthusiasm of lapsed yogis.  There are plenty of places to book for next week,  

Greek Yoga Retreat

I bought my tickets for London - Athens - Kythera and I have a couple of observations. The first is to watch the baggage restrictions between BA and Aegean and Sky Express. I got the first flight out of Heathrow which leaves an enormous amount of time at Athens airport so the second observation is that there’s time for a leisurely meal in the hotel opposite the airport. The same on the way back with the late flight from Athens to London. All details are on my website including suggested flights. If you want help with booking, call or email Eleanor Docarragal, at the Flight Centre: eleanor.docarragal@flightcentre.co.uk and her number is 0208 840 9179.

Training

Tomorrow I’m off to Winchester for the Day Christensen workshops. If you’re in the area, I hope to see you there.

Yoga in the News

On the Simon Mayo Radio 2 show yesterday Simon discussed the diaphragm with a clip from actor Martin Shaw and then with guest Christen Linklater, a voice coach. (Wind forward to approx 17 minutes into the programme). She explains that it’s the primary breathing muscle and closely related to the emotional nerve centre - your solar plexus. She mentions that when people ‘hold the stomach’ it makes the breath go into the upper lungs and is ‘restricted’. (In Ashtanga, the instruction is to hold the ’Uddiyana Bandha’ or squeeze the lower abdominal muscles in for exactly this reason – David Keil anatomy here if you’re interested.) She ends with the importance of sighing! It’s a nice listen.

Offering Your Practice

Dear Yogis

Have you ever heard a teacher say at the beginning of class ‘offer up your practice‘? Stewart Gilchrist says at the beginning of his classes something like this: ‘Offer up your practice to God. If that doesn’t suit you, devote your practice to the universe. If that doesn’t chime with you, offer your practice to someone you know”. With this ‘offering’ we try to take any selfishness out of our practice. It’s another way to free the mind.

In the Buddhist tradition it’s common to find ceremonies taking place to offer merit to departed ones or to people in need of support but if you’re not brought up with devotional ideas then it might be hard to get your head around. I found this on the notice board of the London Buddhist Vihara on how to make an offering: ‘As you make an offering, allow joy to arise in your heart; make your mind calm and contented; focus and fill your mind with the act of offering; and you will develop a heart of boundless loving kindness’. Nice, eh! Try that when you’re invited to offer up your practice.

One Of Us

I love it when someone we practice with has a big event or a great achievement. Professional boxer Hamid Sediqi has a fight on March 3rd in Bethnal Green. He’s a total inspiration. See attachment.

Greek Yoga Retreat

There are plenty of places in the retreat for all levels, Sunday September 9th to 16th. All details are on my website including suggested flights. Get in touch if you have any questions.

Home Studio

There are plenty of places to book for next week, especially on Monday and Thursday. It’s a cashless studio now – bookings and payments are online to ease the problem of no-shows. I still have a WhatsApp group, however, if last-minute places come up. Let me know if you want to be added.

Training

Tomorrow I’ll be doing Chakrabatics with Stewart Gilchrist at Indaba. Come with me. If you want to stay in the warmth of your home, here’s a You Tube of the led primary series with Manju Pattabhi Jois. The whole thing is completed in an hour. The film cuts out before the final two postures, Padmasana (lotus for 10 breaths) and Utplutih (lifted lotus for 10 breaths). By that time you might have been in Savasana for half an hour so don’t worry too much about it!

Yoga in the News

The Telegraph tells us that: New on the menu: Waitrose makes space for evening yoga classes. Lucky you if you’re in Newbury, Basingstoke or Banbury. Classes are £7. Apparently shoppers are spending money on events rather than things and so Waitrose is experimenting with yoga and in-store consultations with nutritionists.

Refinery 29 tells us: I Went To Meghan Markle's Favourite Yoga Class & Here's What Happened. It’s at Y7 Yoga, a hip-hop yoga studio with a cult following in LA and New York. It sounds like fun and I wouldn’t mind going!

The Poses of Sisyphus

Dear Yogis

I wonder if your approach to yoga poses changes as much as mine does. My every posture is like a postcard from the past; a chronicle of the journey from impossible or inelegant to not-too-bad. Warrior 2 always reminds me of my original bottom-protruding inelegance. Until I found any height, Hand to Big Toe Posture (B) was five breaths of plummeting dignity. And what about the sheer persecution of hamstring stretches! Shoulder Stand deserves an ‘it’s complicated’ status on Facebook. After years of struggle I found to my surprise and delight the holy grail of surrender and stillness. Things changed after I was in a Hit & Run. Shoulder Stand was as broken as my bike and the uphill climb started again. It’s my Sisyphus pose along with Halasana which is a whole world of frustration.

In a ‘level 2’ class this week the teacher offered various options for poses – as most teachers do – so I did Shoulder Stand against the wall keeping my feet on the wall. Ahhhhh, glory! That’s where the posture is! Another one is Bound Marichyasana C. Why am I struggling to bind when the posture (twisting the spine, calming the mind) happens when I don’t! Ambition o’vaults itself; postures get lost. I’m entering my third decade of yoga and I think light bulbs are only just going on.

Greek Yoga Retreat

There are plenty of places in the retreat for all levels, Sunday September 9th to 16th. All details are on my website including suggested flights. The second retreat is full.

Home Studio

There are plenty of places to book for next week in the Ashtanga-based classes of Wednesday and Thursday. It’s a delight to welcome new people to my joyful Home Studio. The stretchy classes are popular and packed so it’s probably time to add another class. If a Tuesday 6.00pm class suits you, let me know.

Training

Join me in one of these! Next Saturday February 10th, I’ve signed up for Chakrabatics with Stewart Gilchrist at Indaba. The following weekend I’m in Winchester at the Day Christensen workshops. A long way in advance, in April, I’ve signed up for Eddie Stern workshops in Brixton and in May, when summer will be well on the way, I’ve signed up for Kino MacGregor’s workshops. One I haven’t booked yet but looks thoroughly appealing is on February 24th – a workshop in Ealing Triyoga with Zephyr Wildman on the koshas.

Yoga in the News

Frankie McCoy wrote in the Evening Standard about how bad posture, specifically the spine, is at the root of so much of what makes s feel bad. I couldn’t find it online so it is attached. A really good read. (Grateful to Emma Leahy for sending it to me.)

This is an ‘article’ about Yoga for Energy from Inside Time, The National Newspaper for Prisoners and Detainees. It’s not so much an article than a chart of postures. Pretty useful!

If you like podcasts, I’ve been listening to Fit & Fearless on Radio 5 Live. The presenters, Tally, Zanna and Vic, are not so easy on the ear but they are very inspiring and their tips are brilliant. They are completely positive and encouraging about their experiences, mistakes and  successes and, mostly, about lifting weights.