Stretch Your Muscles And Your Personality

Dear Yogis

Did you know that muscles have a ‘stretch response’? They are suspicious of stretching which is the body's way of guarding against injury. Specialised cells send panicking neural signals screaming to the spine. The spine sends back an immediate message to protect and contract. No need to consult the brain!

We have to override this automatic response with a shift to the parasympathetic nervous system to relax the body. This is why we focus on the breath so constantly in yoga class. Calming music, a warmth room, soft lighting, incense and candles... muscles are a sucker for all that stuff!

There are other mindboggling factors at play. Connective tissue responds to how you are feeling; happy, sad, aggressive, positive, negative, and so on. Also, your muscles might not like the yoga teacher if they are aloof or critical. Muscles like a teacher who is complimentary, warm and encouraging! Just like a child!

That’s not all, the connective tissue also responds to all your experiences to date! It’s not just how you feel on the day but everything that makes the person you are... aggressive or kind, complaining or accepting, morose or sunny. If you are aggressive, fast and without love, you are more likely to micro-tear and add injury. Interesting, eh! Our moods and gestures become habits, habits become structure.

Retreat

The end of the early bird offer for the retreat (1st June); more and more people are showing an interest in coming. Last year a few people were concerned about their dietary needs. This year, Porto Delfino, the home of our retreat, has a new chef, Georgos, who will cater vegetarian, vegan, gluten free. Of course, there are the tavernas which all have vegetarian and some vegan. You’ll be well looked after! Have a look at the photo gallery of all the retreats.

Home Studio

Classes really filled up last week... then emptied out! Please make sure you give 24 hours notice to move a class and please let me know as soon as you can if you can’t come – email or text. You can see class availability on my website (which I update often). The latest availability is actually not too  much because it’s bank holiday Monday. I’v added at 6.00pm class on Thursday.

Training

New Yoga Studio Opening! All day tomorrow is the Grand Opening of Healthy Wealthy, 3 Brecknock Road, N7 OBL. There’s an evening Guided Meditation followed by Kirtan and a meal from the Healthy Wealthy Vegan Restaurant. You have to book.

Tomorrow afternoon, 2.30-4.30, I’m going to Sangye (used to be the Jivamukti Centre) for an inversions workshop with Doug Whittaker. We will ‘explore preparatory sequences as well as modifications on how to safely, and mindfully, approach inversions’.

I’m teaching at Virgin Active Chelsea tomorrow, 25th, at 10.30-11.30 and at Virgin Active Fulham Pools on Sunday, 26th, at 11.00-12.15. Also, I’m covering Alain’s 90 minute Ashtanga Primary Series class at Eden this Wednesdays at 2.00 for the last time.

I’ve been asked what would be a good yoga present to give a friend. Anything involving Charlie Merton and her delicious Gong Bath would be a lovely present. She holds Gong Baths at The Gerkin! What about a yoga weekend like Soul Circus or Wanderlust 108? Others here, including Gwyneth Paltrow’s £1,000 one-day event! Here’s what I did last weekend, present for myself! Yuuga Kemistri two-hour vegan cooking lesson! It’s in a community centre so this is not birthday present territory but I would do it again in a heartbeat. Another great present... Our Magical Kythera Yoga Retreat!

Yoga in the news

The Metro has: How learning laughter yoga changed my life. ‘Simulated laughter can be just as good for your wellbeing as the real thing...The mind will take cues from the body and it triggers the brain to think it’s happier, creating more deep breathing and the release of happy chemicals (endorphins) in the brain’

Good Times Yoga Reference Points

Dear Yogis

Last weekend I was in Kapsali, Kythera, the place of my heart, on a weekend retreat with Kristina Karitinou Ireland. I took part in her Kythera weekend retreat last year too. PLEASE come with me next year! It’s a lovely weekend of Led and Mysore classes finishing up with a talk which is followed by Zazen Meditation.

Kristina talked about the ‘reference points’ we create while we practice yoga. During our practice, the body is supposed to feel happiness. Every moment is supposed to feel beneficial, even when we come to a difficult posture. As we practice, we create, mark and build those feel-good reference points. They give us strength. Kristina said that: “When it feels good I take that feeling into my home, into my day... I take it with me. It’s like receiving a beautiful kiss..., it's a reference point”.

Reference points are not just from yoga practice: we also get good feelings with friends, with nature, with nutrition, with the arts. It is our nature to want to feel good and to repeat whatever activity gives us happiness, energy and strength. “Hopefully these reference points are going to help us to get us through difficult situations, like Odysseus going through the Sirens, getting us through in the best possible way”.

I quite like this view of yoga’s benefits!

Retreat

Come with me in September! Practice yoga in The Land of The Gods. Collect memories and lay down reference points that will sustain you through challenging times. Porto Delfino, the home of our retreat, is becoming an exciting place for Ashtanga yoga. Already this year the hotel has hosted retreats by Baptiste Marceau, (student of David Williams, Danny Paradise, and Sri K Pattabhi Jois) Kristina Karitinou-Ireland, (qualified as an Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga teacher by her late husband Derek Ireland and authorized by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois) and, this very weekend, Lucy Crawford, (started practicing yoga in 1992 with Derek Ireland and Radha Warrell in London)... Then it’s us in September! We’re part of this extraordinary list. If the planets align and the timing is right, Kristina will be our guest teacher this year.

Home Studio

This is what I’ve been playing in class recently which gets a lot of reaction: Indian Flute Meditation Music. Also this, which might make you vibrate...: Tibetan Singing Bowls. There aren’t too many spaces left next week – you might have to book for the following week! You can see class availability on my website (which I update often). The latest availability is attached to this email.

Training

Tonight (19:45 - 21:45) I’m going to Charlie Merton’s Yin Yoga and Gong Workshop at Triyoga Ealing with yoga chums! Charlie promises to shift our Spring into Summer; to transport us from the season relating to the liver to the season relating to the heart. This sounds promising! There will be a one-hour soundscape using 4 gongs and Tibetan Singing Bowls Come with me!

The Cocoon Academy wrote to me to ask me to tell you about their free 60 minute guided meditation sessions.  I am very happy to pass this on. Their next offering is on Saturday May 25th at 10:00 - 11:00am at On Route in South Ealing. Everyone is welcome. Free!

Yoga in the news

This is a lovely BBC TV News piece: Pilates inventor honoured with giant class at Manx WW1 internment camp. Joseph Pilates was detained at the Knockaloe camp on the Isle of Man. During his three and a half years internment he refined his system of exercise. ‘During his time in the camp it is believed the young Pilates worked in the camp's hospitals and was highly respected. He spent his time developing a comprehensive system of physical exercise which he called "Contrology".’

The Hindu tells us that Mysuru gearing up for another world record in yoga. It’s to celebrate International Yoga Day on June 21st with the largest yoga demonstration or lesson at a single venue.

Undo Habitual Actions

Dear Yogis

I’m studying Yoga for athletes again this weekend with Sarah Ramsden and on our reading list is Sarah Keys’ book ‘Body in Action’. It’s good to get back to the muscle and bone of yoga before I disappear too far into the myth of Shiva and Shakti; the melding of pure consciousness and infinite creativity which inspires a Luna quality in our yoga practice of the openness and compassion that Shiva represents... (stops for breath!) Ty Landrum’s storytelling from last week was powerful!

Back on dry land, Sarah Key’s says: “The superiority of yoga is that it undoes our complex and often-used patterns of movement. None of the postures reinforces habitual actions and all of them reclaim forgotten territory.

“Yoga does take time and effort. Sometimes it is agony just to hold a stretch for a matter of seconds. But this is what it is all about. The harder you find the stretch, the more you need it. In time, all your soft tissues will loosen—even blood vessels and nerves—as the body is reintroduced to its extremes. Elasticity is restored and so is streamlined, smooth-gliding function. The stretches pull the tissues and create a much more vigorous blood supply. Blood rushes to mop up after the unexpected demands on flexibility and the circulation through the tissues changes from torpor to a flush. The skeleton is cleansed and rejuvenated.

“That leads me to the final plus of the gentle art of yoga: the staggeringly rich variety in the choice of stretches. You can start off with the most modest, disarmingly gentle stuff, where you really find it hard to believe anything is happening at all, and eventually progress to the nigh impossible”.

Phew!

RETREAT

My retreat poster looks pretty good, I think, on workplace notice boards. I’d be grateful if you could pin it up if you have such a board. Here it is on my Downloads page.

Here’s a very sweet island review: Little Secret worth sharing in Greek Island of Kythera.

“You can still see donkeys and old ladies in black with headscarves. Religious festivals are held in caves and they make their own wine, ouzo and olive oil”. “This archaeological treasure island is the site of the largest ancient shipwreck ever discovered, described as “the Titanic of the ancient world”. “A tiny sister island off Kythera, known as Antikythera, is where the Antikythera mechanism – an ancient computing device described as the world’s first computer – was discovered”.

Details of the retreat are on my website. I’ll be there next weekend for the Ashtanga Yoga workshop with Kristina Karitinou Ireland. It’s not too late to buy flights and come with me. The Seminar will be held at our Kytheran home, Porto Delfino! (I’m going on Easyjet and Olympic.)

Home Studio

I cancelled yesterday’s evening Ashtanga class because of the fear of an oncoming cold which I thing I’ve battered back into the ground with copious amounts of Sri Lankan Samahan! (Please don’t come to class with a cold!) I’ve added a 6.00 Ashtanga class next Thursday to make up for it as next week’s classes are fairly full. I;m not here on Monday 13th so, if it’s popular, I’ll do the same the following week. You can see class availability on my website (which I update often). The latest availability is attached to this email.

Yoga in the News

NDTV has: From Diabetes To Thyroid, This Yoga Asana Has Numerous Health Benefits. Here are some they say will make you fall in love with the Shoulder Stand, Sarvangasana. ( "Sarvanga" means "all body parts") : improves digestion; prevents constipation; cures sexual disorders; helps have restful sleep at night and get rid of dark circles.  

This is an interesting article from Egyptian Streets:  ‘What Is So Significant About Mohamed Salah's Yoga Poses?’ “I am a yoga man!” said Salah. The paper compares yoga poses and movements of Muslim Prayer. Both systems have postures to take focus inwards, activate the heart, and find a ‘spiritual connection with the universe’.