How Many Yogis Fit On One Mat?

Dear Yogis

I’m reading a book called Functional Anatomy of Yoga! Can you imagine! Thankfully, David Keil, the author, has a refreshing take on the subject. In describing the complexity of teaching yoga to countless types of body, mentality and emotion, he says that we show up on the mat with: our physical body, our genetic history, our Learned (copied) Parental Behavior, our ways-of-being and patterns-of-thought, our activities history from the sports we do (or don’t do!), our injury history, our nutritional history, our mental and emotional history, and, since this is yoga, our Karma and impressions from past lives. All of this arrives on the mat with us. Blimey!

Teachers see these things. It’s easy to spot someone back from holiday all healthy and happy. They hold their face up to the world like a sunflower. On the other hand, a yogi going through a stressful time might barely hear the instructions and stare into the mid-distance. Some yogis show the child that they were decades ago – a playful child or a heavily controlled child. The confidence that comes from being truly loved is beautiful to see. Lack of belief in oneself is in the posture. Depression makes it hard to look up. Constantly fighting with life is in the tension in the jaw. I’ve yet to spot a past life imprint. David Keil says that the point is “to see beyond the body” and see the whole person.

Movement is a way for us to know ourselves. Yoga can be a way to undo negative patterns and encourage positive and healing patterns. On the other hand, yoga can be the place where we ingrain damaging emotions and experiences. David Keil says of yoga practice: “Does it not bring up issues of our own determination? Doesn’t it reveal our negative or positive thought patterns? Can’t it even help us overcome the negative ones? The impact that regular physical practice has on the mind is huge”.

Home Studio

New Year new yogis are still making their way here; the 2019 fizz is still fizzing! There’s plenty of space next week – for now! You can see class availability on this website (which I update often).

Training

There’s so much going on this weekend. First and foremost, my treasured teacher David Swenson IS IN EALING tomorrow, 23rd. The 9.45am class is his FUNdamentals workshop and,  in the afternoon at 2.15, is his Breath, Bandhas and Pranayama workshop. I can’t believe that I’ll miss it but I urge you to go. (I’m at Triyoga in Soho for Sarah Ramsden’s for Teaching Yoga in Sport.)

Also this weekend, Sri Dharma Mittra is here with ‘A Celebration of Yoga, Teaching and Liberation’ hosted by Indaba Studio and using Lords Cricket Ground. He’s a legend.

Yoga in the news

Time Out tells us that You can do yoga under a giant indoor moon at the Natural History Museum this summer. It’s a class that ‘promises to eclipse other classes! There’s full moon Kundalini yoga and gong bath (£26) on June 17, or the new moon yoga Nidra with a crystal sound bath (£26) on June 3.

The New Indian Express says UK's NHS to incorporate ayurveda, yoga soon. The article says that the NHS has begun consultations to prepare a roadmap to incorporate Ayurveda and yoga into the system and has a 10-year plan to promote traditional medicines. Conservative Party MP Bob Blackman, co-chair of the of the parliamentary group in charge of Indian traditional sciences, was in Kochi this week. 

Valentine's Boxing Day

Dear Yogis

It’s Valentine’s Boxing Day so I feel compelled to continue the love theme in the hope you’ll take your Cupid heart into the weekend… and on and on! For inspiration, I turned to the teacher whose only theme is love and joy, not precise postures, breath exercises, meditation, austerity or any kind of seriousness! My adored teacher David Sye teaches people to have fun. That’s what the practice is meant to do, he says. If you’re not a more loving, kind person because of the practice, you’re doing it wrong.

His teacher, Clara Buck, demanded that he practice yoga to be a better human being, not a better yogi. She said: the level of love and kindness and adventure we give ourselves is the level at which the body is going to give back. ‘Unless you love this body it will kick you out’. It’s ok in your 30s, 40s and 50s but when you start hitting your 60s and 70s then you see what you’ve laid down in your body. If it’s cruelty, it will bite you back.

She taught him to trust love because it’s the one thing that ‘turns the mundane into the miraculous and then the miraculous becomes continuous’.

Greek Retreat

After February’s Valentine fizz comes Spring’s Hayfever season and then, after we’ve used up all the tissues, it’s Kythera retreat time where sore, city noses can breathe in Kapsali’s clean and healing air! I think there’s a bit of travel uncertainty, so I’ll just hold one retreat, the Ashtanga retreat, in the second half of September and find a UK venue for a more general retreat. If you haven’t done so already let me know if you’d like to come to Kapsali. Then I’ll write to all of you separately.

Home Studio

Last weekend my lucky Home Studio hosted Andy Gill and his all-day Teacher Development Group workshop. It was the kind of training and support a teacher thirsts for: new approaches to postures and adjustments, discussions about the role of a teacher, how to support students while setting boundaries and how to manage teacher/student relationships. Then, on sunny Monday morning, another Home Studio yogi baby was born. Welcome to Kit, whose spectacular mother I taught through the pregnancy and whose brother was the first Good Times Yoga baby! And, finally, red roses shone their special magic on the Valentine’s class where we explored some of Any Gill’s postures. Bring your magic next week! There’s plenty of space. You can see class availability on my website (which I update often). The latest availability is attached to this email.

Training

Tonight I’m going to Charlie Merton’s ‘ mantra, mudra, pranayama, asana, meditation and nada yoga (the yoga of sound)’ at Triyoga Ealing. I feel like a Gong bath! Come with me!

 Yoga in the news

The Evening Standard has: Why hitting the yoga studio will help you lift weights better. ‘“It’s all about making sure the joints are protected and balanced,” says Dyl Salamon, the man behind Gymbox’s Yoga for Lifting class.’ (Gymbox is opening in Ealing and we need to give this a go!) Salamon says: “If you’re constantly fighting against stiffness or injury, you’ll never achieve your maximum potential” and “to feel truly strong, he says, you should aim to hit the yoga studio twice a week — at least”.

The Courier tells us: Want to improve your golf game? It’s time to take up yoga.  The paper tells us why they are such good candidates for (proper) yoga: ‘A common issue with golfers when it comes to training is the fear that they can’t become stronger as they’ll lose flexibility’ which will affect their golf swing. Yoga is about both incredible strength and amazing flexibility!

Wrist Yoga For A Distal Radius Fracture

Dear Yogis

Having a fractured wrist has been my great teacher since December 1st! Whenever a set-back comes along, it shines a new light on postures and gives me added knowledge to pass on to injured souls in classes. In any case, at some point your wrists may need some attention. Keyboard warriors and people who use their hands in their job or sport (cyclists) may have short and tight wrist flexors. Chaturanga, Upward Facing Dog and other weight-bearing postures need flexibility in the wrist – a 90 degree extension. This is problematic!

The posture revelation for me and my ‘intra-articular minimally displaced distal radius fracture’ (!) was in Padangusthasana and Padahastasana. Those are the forward fold postures where you start with holding your big toes and end up with the whole of your hand under the foot with toes up to the wrists. Who knew these postures could be something more than Total Hamstring Torture?

In the first one, Padangustasana, you grab hold of your big toes and PULL, despite the hamstrings begging for mercy! That’s a wrist stretch. For people with wrist pain or Carpal Tunnel, traction of the wrist might correspond to an exercise your physio has given you. (Here is wrist traction cleverly using a belt).

In the second of this pair of postures, Padahastasana, the hands and wrists get a counter-posture for the Chaturanga wrist work of the Sun Salutations. This posture has wrist stretch/traction, massage via the toes on the wrists, and stimulation of the meridians (I’m told) or hand reflexology. To get the full benefit to the wrist, let the hands totally disappear under the foot. Bend the knees if you must.

Finally, this wonderful article by David Keil  looking at postures associated with wrist pain concludes that a hand and forearm ice bath will do the trick and rid you of wrist pain. Have a go! (I also bought a Power Web for strengthening. See attachment.)

Greek Retreat

Soothing Kapsali awaits but before I firm up details of this year’s retreat please let me know if you’d like to come for the first week’s Yoga For All Levels retreat. I’m not sure if there is demand. The second week’s Ashtanga Retreat has had a lot of interest; the massive pull factor is our mission impossible teacher Lisa Maarit Lischak. I plan to choose the second and third week of September again. Have a look at last week’s email if you want to see an example of flights. Many returners sign up yearly but if you haven’t been before, “Kythera is a truly divine, special place”, said one yogi last year. Last year there was a particular magic when we did evening candle-lit Yin Yoga so I’ll add more of that this year.

Home Studio

Next week in my lucky Home Study is a magic week. It starts with my 7th anniversary of teaching and ends (Thursday) with Valentine’s Day. What could be better? There’s plenty of space. You can see class availability on my website (which I update often).

Yoga in the news

The Daily Mail tells us that: Yoga could help millions of arthritis patients. A study of 72 sufferers, published in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, ‘found the ancient exercise slashes inflammation and reduces pain in the joints of sufferers after just eight weeks’. The paper says that ‘Scientists are currently unsure as to the exact cause of rheumatoid arthritis, but smoking, eating lots of red meat and coffee drinkers are at higher risk’.

Why Do Breath Work?

Dear Yogis

Welcome to snow-covered Friday! Come to class and warm up! And, while you’re moving through your shapes and stances, have you ever wondered at the health and medical claims of yoga teachers? If you’re interested in finding out how science backs up what we do on the mat in meditation and posture work, that Qigong and Meditation workshop is coming around again! Let me give you a taster of the science Dr Anthony Soyer took us through around which, he said, we could build our practice.

“Why breath work?”, he asked. This teaches us to gain resilience under stress. He introduced us to the Hormesis Principle which says something like What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger! (We do this in yoga. We learn impossible postures and, in the beginning, have difficulty breathing. With practice we can do the same posture with calm breathing!). This approach strengthens the breath, the heart and the nervous system. We gain resilience to prepare for when we get stressed in a very big way.

“Why do we breathe through the nose?”, he asked. Doctors found that instead of giving oxygen to patients through the mouth, nose respiration oxygenates the body 15% better. This is to do with the vibrations in the sinuses when air passes through. It produces nitric oxide which opens up the arteries in your brain. Nasal breathing inflates the lower lung, reduces the heart rate and blood pressure. Yogis discovered that you can do exactly this with humming breath and chanting.

Dr Soyer told us about Professor Konstantin Buteyko who studied breath work for therapy with a sample of a quarter of a million people over the last 30 years. We tried the Buteyko method of checking the health of our biochemistry! With a very specific set-up, we timed how long we could hold our breath – the Body Oxygen Level Test. Depending on how long you last, you can tell if you’re either already in hospital, have some health issues or have the resilience, endurance and the ability to keep infection away that Buteyko admired in yogis!

Finally, for this Friday Email, Dr Soyer discussed Heart Rate Variability, what he called ‘hard-core science’! When disease starts to appear, the top and bottom measurements of the HRV flatten. HRV can apparently predict illness ten years before it happens.

There was so much more! He talked about carbon dioxide levels, reduced blood calcium, cleaning up the arteries, decalcifying the pineal, melatonin in the brain… Go and blow your mind! The workshop is on at Indaba in Marylebone – a lovely studio – on  1st March from 2 – 5pm.

Greek Retreat

I’m beginning to plan this year’s September retreats and looking into flights. If you’d like to come to the Land of the Gods and to our corner of heaven in Kapsali, take a look at this example of flights. As usual I’m picking the second and third week of September. You need two carriers. The first retreat: Saturday 14th to Saturday 12st. The 06:55 flight from Heathrow arrives Athens 12:40. The return to London from Athens the following Saturday is at 19.55 to arrive in Heathrow 21.45. In-between you have Sky Express to get to the island: To get to Kythera it’s 15:00 from Athens and to get back to Athens from Kythera it’s 16:10, arriving at 17.00 in time for the London flight. The second week follows the same pattern. If that looks ok to you, let me know and I’ll start pinning it all down.

Home Studio

There’s plenty of space next week. You can see class availability on my website (which I update often).

Yoga in the news

Steve Wright on Radio 2 interviewed Haemin Sunim, Buddhist monk and author of The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down; How to Be Calm In A Busy World. He has 1.2 million followers on social media. He’s the Monk of the Moment! (The present moment!) He tells us to connect to the body and the breath and also to the people around us to have a happier life! It’s a lovely interview with lovely quotes from the book.

The Mirror tells us: UK airport launches pre-flight yoga classes to help passengers de-stress. Stanstead has pop-up yoga classes for what the paper calls ‘nervous flyers’. Sadly, they are only scheduled from Tuesday 5th to Thursday 7th.