Om Yoga Show 2018 Review

Dear Yogis

What can I tell you about last weekend’s Yoga Show: eating lots of free chocolate, coveting expensive yoga leggings, taking random classes, having treatments (some dodgy!), entering competitions to win luxury retreats. There were more companies advertising retreats than you can shake an incense stick at and endless supplies of turmeric lattes. I spent lavishly, as was predestined!

By far the most impressive teacher of the weekend was with 19-year-old Robin who qualified when she was 16. You can’t believe how assured and knowledgeable she is and how wonderful it is to learn from her. Her mission is to teach teens (based in the Gloucestershire area) and her website says that she is a youth ambassador for ‘Teen Yoga’ and for the British Wheel of Yoga, she speaks at conferences, and she works with the Medical College of London and is part of an All Part-Parliamentary Group (APPG) for yoga in education. I hadn’t achieved anything at that age!

The other thing of note was this app called YogaLingo. If you want to learn the Sanskrit names of the postures or if you are training to be a teacher, it’s really fun. (In the beautifully designed quiz I won third prize. My yoga brother, Ankur, won first!) It’s only available on Apple at the moment; a free version and a £4.99 version and its great company on public transport.

Home Studio

We’re coming into the season of colds. Please be mindful of others if you’re sniffling… and please skip the class. I caught a yogi’s cold this week and had to cancel some evening classes. Now might be a good time to remind you of Samahan, an Ayurvedic ‘tea’ which definitely helps lessen the impact. I’ll be up and running next week. Come to class. You can see what’s available on my website.

Training

My wonderful teacher Valentina Candiani is holding her second 40hrs Aerial Yoga Teacher Training on the 8th-9th and 15th-16th December. It’s the only Aerial Yoga Teacher training in the UK dedicated to qualified Yoga Teachers and is a registered Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Program. I was Valentina’s guinea pig a long time ago when she trained in Aerial Yoga and I’m signing up to this. Come with me!

Eden Yogis, don’t forget Alain’s new Ashtanga classes: Monday 8.20-9.20 and Wednesday 2.00-3.30.

Yoga in the news

So many yogis mention to me they practice yoga with Adriene on You Tube. So many! Here’s The Telegraph with How the online yoga world fell in love with Adriene Mishler. She’s on European tour like a rock chick and in London she has taught over 2,400, more than even Kino Macgregor! Here’s how far she’s come: ‘She might now have a sponsorship deal with Adidas, but for a long time she owned just three pairs of yoga pants’. That’s heartbreaking!

Competing with the Telegraph’s recommendations of yoga mats, the Guardian pitches in with: From yin to iyengar: a yoga glossary. It’s nice run-through of the major styles of yoga to fill column inches.

Clocks go back on Sunday! Enjoy your lie-in.

Mindfulness, Meditation, Gratitude

Dear Yogis

Last weekend I was teaching yoga in the beautiful Sharpham Trust house, Totnes, with Deborah Smith on her Complete Wellbeing Retreat. It was a whole weekend based on mindfulness… a very yogic word but did you know there’s a definition? Jon Kabat-Zinn who was the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in the 1970s, took the idea from the spiritual sphere into a secular setting and gave mindfulness this definition: doing something on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.

This is how we practice in a yoga class: we stand at the front of the mat and (knowingly or unknowingly) set an intention; maybe to practice with focus or kindness or with vitality. We enter the zone! When we bring the attention to the breath we tune in to the present moment. And we should try to practice without judgment but I can see how difficult this is; sometimes we have a good practice, sometimes it isn’t so good but there seems to be so much need to ‘achieve’ in a yoga class. Let it go; that’s not the point. Accept and celebrate your practice as it is.

Gratitude will help with this; it’s another definition we looked at over the weekend: “a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness and appreciation for life”. Bring that into your yoga practice too; set your intention to practice with gratitude. Gratitude has been studied since the 1970s and it is shown that people with a grateful outlook feel happier and are more energetic, hopeful, optimistic, positive and are more satisfied with their lives. Gratitude neutralises negative emotions and reduces physical ailments such as headaches.

Meditation was a major part of the weekend. Here is Deborah’s website page with You Tubes on meditation from 2 minutes to 20 minutes plus a compassion meditation. I really recommend starting with the first offering on the page – a four-minute Ted Talk on stress and how it changes the structure of the brain.

Home Studio

Final call for anyone interested in the Thursday 6.00pm Ashtanga-based class. It doesn’t seem to be a time that suits anyone but let me know if I’m wrong and I’ll keep it on the little timetable. You can see what’s available on my website.

Training

It’s that time of year again, the Om Yoga Show at Alexandra Palace. I love it! It’s the cattle market of the yoga world. I’ve paid up for Yoga Cross Training with Adam Husler tonight, Friday, at 16.45; Deeper & Higher Backbends with Craig Blake (Iyengar Yoga) on Sunday at 10.30; and OF COURSE, The Infamous Yogabeats Revolution with David Sye on Sunday at 14.00. That’s my birthday present to myself!

Sarah Ramsden, the yogi who teaches footballers, sportspeople and other inflexibles will be there and holding these free 30-minute classes: Friday 16:45 in the ‘Tea India’ area; Saturday 12:00 in the Pukka area and Sunday 11:15 in the Hero Open area.

Yoga in the news

The Scotsman has a fun article called: Yoga makes me feel the way I want to be on my deathbed. “For many of us, the thought of yoga turns our stomachs. It’s all just flower power and ringing bells, while sitting in a knee-crushing pose with our eyes closed humming “Ommmm”… But forget all that clap-trap and myth. Yoga is far from this mystical “marketeered” picture and a lot more like you and me – ordinary people with muffin tops and bingo wings. Not to mention the odd varicose vein and beer belly. And not a lotus pose in sight”.

Blessed Are The Stiff

Dear Yogis

Summer wine gives way to Sober October and I’m a year older and very definitely a year wiser having studied with Ryan Giggs’ yoga teacher Sarah Ramsden. Her day-long workshop last weekend was called: short, stiff & tight: how to work effectively with really inflexible people. This, she says, refers to most of the population. “The miracle of ballet is that it is able to distort the body so much”… and Ashtanga, she adds, is not based on human design!

If you think you have short or tight or restricted muscles, here are some definitions for you. ‘Short' means the actual measurement of the muscle is short when compared to the bone it covers. This means the joint it operates won't go through its full range of motion. On the other hand, the terms 'stiff' or 'tight' or ‘restricted’ are expressions of feeling but might not refer to an anatomically short muscle. 'Tense' refers to the muscle being slightly contracted in its ‘resting state’ which might be because of stress.

So why do we get restricted? Routines, repetitive sports, bulking up, sedentary lifestyle… you know the kind of thing! Injury is another reason; repair tissue sets down around the injury and weakens muscle around it. There is also a genetic possibility; some people have more fibrous muscle, some more elastic and malleable muscle. And don’t forget the modern disease of stress. Constant stress releases all the wrong hormones, restricts blood flow to muscles, decreases oxygen, lets waste build up and results in muscle tension.

Her advice to teachers and practitioners is to look to the ancients for inspiration. “Teachers who went before like Pattabhi Jois were revolutionary and radical and dragged yoga up from the Tantric vagabonds and tricksters to clean it up for a new India. Like them, question, change, adapt and make it useful”.

Home Studio

Classes are starting to book up in advance up to the week before Christmas! Can you believe it! Anyway, there’re loads of spaces left and the 6.00 classes are back. It’s cold outside but we can still create a Bikram studio with our six mats and our Ujjayi breathing! You can see what’s available on my website.

Training at Eden

Really lovely news from Eden Fitness in Ealing. Incredible teacher Alain Zak is joining the yoga teaching team. You may have experienced his wonderful classes in my Home Studio, at Yoga West in Acton or at Eden. Alain is a student of John Scott who, in turn, was a direct student of Pattabhi Jois. Alain’s classes include the traditional Vinyasa count, vigorous practice and meditative focus on breathing and alignment. He is also influenced by Tibetan Heart Yoga and Buddhist meditation. Eden is giving him two classes starting Monday 22nd October: Mondays at 8.20-9.20am and he is taking over my Wednesday class which will be starting at 2.00pm from now on – not 2.30 – and finish at 3.30!  A wonderful 90 minute class! You won’t find that anywhere else in this area. I will see you there.

Yoga in the news

This is a nicely written article: How yoga is changing to meet contemporary needs from The Centre Daily in Pennsylvania. The first example given is that no one discusses renouncing existence as part of their approach to yoga! Errrm, no, not really! Other examples of how the focus of yoga has changed: yogis generally don’t prioritise meditation over physical practice, and the guru-student model has given way to the studio-student model.

This is a sweet read from the Huffington Post: ‘What My Yoga Teacher Taught Me About Improving My Life’. As you would expect, yogis never talk about the physical results but the life-changing effects. Here’s a helpful article from The Standard with suggestions for people observing Sober October. Yoga is there, of course: Disco Yoga every Tuesday at the Trapeze bar, Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3HX for yoga under a glitter ball.

Have a glittering weekend

Conducting Reiki Waves

Dear Yogis

I had an introduction to Reiki energy healing this week… an ‘initiation’ or ‘attunement’. It was fascinating! A Home Studio yogi who is a Reiki Master guided me along this path which is rather esoteric and other worldly. Attunement is like being tuned in as you would tune in a radio to pick up radio waves. Here’s what happened.

First, I practiced long Ujjayi breathing. I was told to breath in love and exhale gratitude. I found my images and motivations easily: the silver moon over Kapsali Bay is my place of love (easy to breathe in), and my gratitude is towards my endlessly gorgeous mother (easy to have glowing gratitude). Then I was told to send down roots deep into the earth. I thought of the reading I gave at a wedding recently: ‘Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.’

AND THEN IT HAPPENED! My head filled up with… a feeling like marshmallow! It felt huge and round and warm and gently throbbing. Then my arms and hands felt big and warm. Then the right side of my intestines woke up and had a little throb. Then I swayed to my right and then back again. Then my left arm and hand seemed to get bigger and warmer and the left middle finger had a diamond glow at the tip. Then I had gentle pulsing in my head which made me nod rhythmically a tiny bit. Then the lower intestines heated up briefly. All of this took half an hour or so. It was intriguing, but I did feel that my hands with all their warmth could heal. I turned my hands down to cup my knees and send them some love. I’m told I should practice on plants!

Kapsali Retreat 2019

I’ve been checking flights to Kythera for the school half term of Monday 27th to Friday 31st May next year. I found that the journey there (leave Saturday 25th arrive Sunday 26th) needs an overnight stay in Athens. Sofitel hotel at Athens airport is not too expensive if sharing. Happily, it’s possible to return from Kythera on June 1st straight through from Kythera to London on Aegean. If you’re interested in an All Levels retreat let me know and I’ll start the arrangements. If that’s too soon for you, I’ll look at September dates as soon as flight timetables are available.

Home Studio

More joy in my Home Studio this week; more fun, more new yogis and more incredible one-to-one sessions. One yogi said her ph. level changed after our first class. Yes! Ujjayi breathing raises the carbon dioxide level in the blood which nudges the pH level back to a less alkaline state. Yet another benefit of the breathing practice. Come to class! Loads of spaces left and the 6.00 classes are back. You can see what’s available by clicking here.

Training

This weekend I’m training at Triyoga Soho: Yoga for Athletes with Sarah Ramsden. Tonight’s session is mind mastery for enhanced performance and tomorrow, all day of course, is short, stiff & tight: how to work effectively with really inflexible people. Come with me if you relate to that!

Yoga in the news

The Irish Sunday Independent has: ‘Meet President Michael D Higgins' yoga teacher. The Yogi who is helping the President unwind’. The Irish President has had the same yoga teacher for a decade, ‘dashing’ Michael Ryan. Ryan says: "We do a lot of slow and steady movements and a lot of our work focuses on breathing through the movements. We also usually do a few standing poses, back poses and a lot of twists and positions that uncoil the spine. We target the areas of joint mobility and his back and his core." I wish more presidents were like that!

Wishing you a marsh mellow weekend.