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.

Well! I want to ask you how you’d feel about a yoga retreat this September? We used to fly out to Kythera, Greece, on the second weekend of September which, this year, is Saturday 10th. A nice thing about this year is that the orchestra I used to play with will be there at the same time so we can add a blissful classical concert to our experience.

Happy 2022! How’s your Dry January or Veganury? How are the bones coping with the cold? How is the back handling more working from home? And how’s your energy when the evening starts in the mid-afternoon? I’m hoping I’ll see you in class. We have a friendly time and we iron out some crinkles.

Well! It’s the time of year to think about Christmas presents. I have a couple of different suggestions. Here we go:

This is a guest-written blog. Many of you know my dear friend Alain and, if you did his class at Eden Fitness Friday morning, you’ll have heard this at the end of the class: A Somatic Meditation on Friendship (Kindness).

James Nestor (I’ve written about him before) says we’ve lost the knowledge of how to breathe and you only have to look at the amount of people with chronic respiratory illnesses to know it’s true. He was on Virgin Radio this week (30, November, click here, wind forward to 2:52:30 – it’s a nice interview) reminding me, with his exquisite expertise about breath, that we do so much more in yoga practice than postures!

I was listening to Naga Munchetty on Radio 5 this week and her exploration of the QAnon phenomena in the yoga and wellness world. The interesting thing is that yoga has a history of being anti-establishment and anti-science. (Wind forward to 39:20). Listen to how conspiracy theories and wellness communities have always converged.

Last Sunday I was at a Kathina Robe Offering, a yearly ceremony, offering cloth from lay supporters to the clergy. Back in the Buddha’s day, disciples wore robes sewn from left-over cloth and rags taken from cemeteries or cremation grounds. Can you imagine how unhealthy and how unhygienic this would have been!