Free yoga to raise money for charity!
We are delighted that we had another successful Open Day with the other independent yoga studios in Bristol as part of the Bristol Yoga Trail. Together we all raised a whopping £943.59 for charity, all going directly to OTR (Off the Record) supporting young people's mental health. Each £10 raised equals a counselling session for a young person and we are so pleased to be able to support such a good and worthwhile cause. Thanks to everyone who came along to our free yoga classes. From the 8:30am Saturday morning yoga class, to the pregnancy yoga and the viniyoga classes, everyone seemed to have a lovely day and we certainly enjoyed meeting so many new faces and beginners to yoga. Gloucester Road in Bishopston was buzzing and the balloons from our studio and Yogawest next door made a gloomy day into something quite delightful. Don't forget to use your discount vouchers and come back and visit us again soon! x
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Come and join us on Saturday 13th Oct We are delighted to be taking part in this years Bristol Yoga Trail again and open our doors for a day of free yoga classes. Come to one or more classes and bring your friends! Everyone is welcome, newcomers and old friends alike and your support will be most welcome. It is a wonderful day to share what we do, offer free classes to our regulars, and welcome beginners and newcomers to try out what we do. We are also raising money for Off The Record, a local mental health charity supporting young people's mental health. TIMETABLE OF FREE YOGA CLASSES
8:30 - 9:30am - Viniyoga, with Vivien 10:00 - 11:00am - Birth Preparation Yoga, with Vivien 11:30 - 12:30pm - Pregnancy yoga (13+ weeks), with Vivien 13:15 - 14:15 - Introduction to Viniyoga, with Clara 14:30 - 15:30 - Beginners Yoga, with Travis 15:45 - 16:45 - Viniyoga, with Clara All classes are drop-in and are open to all levels of experience and fitness including beginners (there are often many beginners along at these open days so a great time to try it out). Arrive at least 10 minutes early to get your space. Mats and blocks provided along with refreshments and a chance to chat with the teachers. Hope to see you there! x Recently, on BBC Radio Bristol's 'Clueless' program, we were invited to be their special 'mystery' destination for their clue-led treasure hunt. Through a series of cryptic clues, callers had to ring in to the program and help find the location of the mystery place - US! All clues led to Bristol YogaSpace and once we were found I chatted with the show presenters where we laugh about the difficulties of starting out with yoga. Take a listen. We talk about breath-centred yoga practice which we specialise in at Bristol YogaSpace. It is always interesting to hear about someone's first experience of yoga like the presenter in the radio chat who felt like she might never go back. She found her first class too challenging -- so for a long-term and sustainable practice, it probably isn't a good starting point. You want to have a good experience, feel engaged in what you are doing, revitalised by a positive experience, but not so challenged that you might not continue. There is always a good starting place, and in yoga, there is always something you can do, now matter what your age or physical ability. This starting point will be different for each of us depending on our lifestyle and constitution A group class typically starts with body movements and breathwork but if your body isn't well or strong, then other starting points might be a better route for your yoga practice. But hopefully the presenter will find a class that she finds enjoyable and engaging, and something she can't wait to do again. Maybe you first tried it through a YouTube video or DVD (my first experience was through a video cassette!). Or perhaps you tried a yoga class, or had a more meditative yoga experience, perhaps a podcast or guided audio practice. There are so many ways to first experience yoga. Don't be disheartened if you try it and it doesn't feel right. Each teacher will teach what they found helpful and important so finding a teacher you feel comfortable with and aligned too, who can support you through the initial stages of your developing yoga skills will help you get the most benefit from yoga. Please do get in touch if we can help you get started, whether in a group class or with private lessons to discover and develop your journey with yoga. Hot yoga is really popular as an alternative to regular temperature yoga classes. Hot yoga is a studio-based yoga practice in a super-heated room (42 degrees celcius - imagine Egypt in the summer then pour in extra humidity) where the aim is to work through a physical yoga practice and sweat a ton, then lie down and bask in the heat as you recover from the effort. It's intense and many people love it. Why super heat a yoga class?The claims about benefits of hot yoga practice are many: - Detoxes the body - Sweating is good for you - Improved flexibility ... and so on. The science may not back this up, but those who love it feel the results and swear by it. Those who don't love it, probably never go back. I fall into the latter camp and find the claims to be subjective but if it benefits you and you enjoy it, then keep doing it. As with all physical yoga practices, be cautious not to over stretch and be particularly careful with your joints, that they stay within a safe and comfortable range of motion. I have had many injured hot yoga practitioners come with knee, elbow and shoulder injuries from hot yoga classes so go carefully. Sometimes when the heat is on and the practice is intense, it is hard to listen to the inner voice advising you to ease off. Hot yoga can get competitive and that makes it harder to draw back from a pose when necessary. So applying your own sensible body-awareness skills to your practice is paramount when the heat intensity is turned up. Is it more beneficial than not-hot yoga?I'm biased, as I've been practicing yoga for 20 years and find an ambient room or even a cool space a wonderful way to practice. I can engage fully in my yoga practice when I'm able to turn the attention inwards rather than feeling overly hot or sweaty. I tend to heat up during my practice anyway, even if just taking a breathing (pranayama) practice. I recently came across an interesting thesis which undertook a study comparing hot yoga practitioners alongside regular temperature Hatha yoga practitioners. The aim was to measure the effects of yoga practice on physiological and psychological fitness in young men and women over an 8-week period. Health metrics that were monitored include BMI, blood pressure, flexibility, peak oxygen consumption, back depression, anxiety and depression metrics. Hot yoga participants worked at a significantly higher cardiovascular intensity and spent more time at a higher heart rate throughout the classes. But even with this, over the 8-week period, both hot yoga and Hatha yoga groups saw the same improvements in body composition and flexibility and also in anxiety and depression scores. So the outcome observations suggest that there are real, significant health benefits to engaging in both forms of yoga practice but there was no final measure on any additional psychological or physiological benefits gained by hot yoga training. So by all means, do hot yoga practice if you love it and feel no ill effects from it, but from what we can tell, the health benefits are not greater doing it in a hot and sweaty room. Another article to read more on this can be found here > Home yoga practice?I'm a big advocate of home yoga practice. Little and often can often bring about the most benefit - it is free to everyone and has an intimacy to it that you rarely get in the classroom. Ask any of my students who get a free home yoga practice handout at the end of each term to go and try at home. So learning your yoga practice skills in a group class or with personal yoga tuition and then starting to apply those skills in your home practice is a wonderful way to practice yoga. I've written about home yoga practice before here. One of the limiting factors to hot yoga practice is that you have to go to the studio regularly to do this, and the costs add up. (Don't get me started on Mr Bikram, the hot yoga business mogul and his exuberant love of money and Rolls Royces - as a business model he turned hot yoga into a money spinner). Of course the communities that develop around group classes are wonderful and valuable, but the tie in to the studio and the costs involved can become problematic. What about subtlety in yoga practice?Beyond the intense physicality of the hot yoga class, also remember there is an inner essence to yoga practice. The internal connection through body, breath and mental focusing that go beyond the measurable health metrics outlined in the comparative study. I'm not sure the subtlety of my pranayama or meditation practice would be possible in an intensely heated environment yet the crown of my yoga practice can often be found here (thus my bias to comfortable temperature practice). My inner meditative focus might be externally drawn to feeling overly hot or to the physical sensations of sweating. But I get that some folks need the intensity of a very physical practice to keep them focused out of their busy minds.
I guess my final thought is that usually any yoga practice is better than no practice - so ultimately do whatever is likely to motivate you and do what you you will enjoy. Thanks to Kalin Shephert Gawinski for sharing the abstract to their study from 2012. Breathing well in yoga can seem tricky As a beginner to yoga, it can seem difficult to keep the focus on the breath. It is common to find that you’ve been holding your breath and straining in some postures. Arms and legs are just about doing what the teacher has invited you to do - but your breath, well who knows? This is particularly noticeable in a fast-paced or deeply strenuous class where the body is most dominant and anything else gets left behind as you work your way through the class. So what if my breath isn't great?Day to day we typically breath 12-15 breaths per minute. The rate, depth and quality of it can help adjust our levels of anxiety and stress, our immune system effectiveness and many more physical and mental health markers. Yoga offers profound teachings in the breath if we choose to listen that can support our health, wellbeing and awareness in our day to day lives. Familiarity helps to develop our breath focusGradually, with familiarity of a regular yoga practice, we can start to remember to breathe with a flowing and calmer breath. And eventually the breath and movements start to link together more. From here we can start to take that further still and refine into a more advanced yoga practice. Once you feel you are able to link the breath and movements together, then the power of the breath can really start to be harnessed and the refinement and quality of our yoga practice can bloom. Our nervous system will feel immense benefit from working skilfully with breath centring and we can move beyond the endorphin highs of vigorous and strenuous yoga practice and move towards maturing our yoga practice. The breath powers our yoga practiceSounds obvious, of course we need to breath to power everything that we do or we’ll collapse in a heap. But it is easy to forget about the quality of our breath when distracted or physically strained. What if you eased back from the strain and found a spaciousness in the breath to develop the power of your yoga practice instead? What would that feel like? What could it do to your yoga practice? What if we found our physical alignment from our breath?We often listen to the technical instruction from the yoga teacher: move your foot here, rotate your hip there, etc... Breath-centred practice can support us to more naturally open and expand your body into a posture, rather than teaching instruction being the main driver. Explore how your breath can position you into a natural alignment from within that is unique to your body structure and your deepening breath. Starting out with breath-centred yoga practiceThe classes at Bristol YogaSpace work with a deeply breath-centred approach to yoga. Rather than simply coordinating with our breath, which is common in many Vinyasa, Flow or Ashtanga yoga practices, we centre ourselves in the breath more deeply and use it to power the practice and direct the postures and focus.
When I started out some 20 years ago I practiced Ashtanga yoga, a vigourous and strong yoga practice, then Iyengar yoga which is technical and detailed in its formal postures. But I eventually discovered a truly breath-centred approach in Viniyoga and practice was transformed for me. Perhaps ask your teacher more about the breath when you feel ready or curious or come along to a Viniyoga class which specialises in breath-centred yoga practice, or a yoga workshop to support you to develop more breath centring in your yoga practice. Enjoy your yoga practice. “Without breath, it isn’t yoga – it is like a river without water” Krishnamacharya
Regular yoga practice is keyA weekly yoga class is great, but it is really a minimum to gain benefit from yoga practice. Regular practice enables the body, breath and mind to become familiar with the practices of yoga, the environment, the teacher, your body, your own practice and patterns that you bring to it, and the way your moves (or doesn't!) and responds to the yoga asana and to the yoga breathing. Once you have developed that level of familiarity with practice, the breath can become more central and more in focus, and the benefits for the body, mind, nervous system etc. can really start to develop. Find a yoga teacher to help you get startedIf you want to start practicing at home, first start with a regular weekly class with a yoga teacher that you feel comfortable with. Ideally a home yoga practice should be in conjunction with a yoga teacher who can help you navigate establishing a home practice, provide feedback to you and guidance along the way. Over time you'll become more self sufficient with it and be established in a solid and supportive, beneficial yoga practice. It is very different practicing yoga on your ownAs I tell my yoga students, it is very different practicing yoga at home, on your own - just you and your mat. A yoga class offers instruction, encourages you to explore in a different way and to try suggestions that the teacher offers you. In class you'll learn new practice skills, new postures and receive guidance from your teacher. A class is where you learn how to practice yoga. At home you are your own guide, and you put into practice the skills that you have learned in class. A bit like learning to play a musical instrument. You won't get very far if you only ever pick up the instrument in class each week. Using the guidance offered by the teacher, you go home and practice your skills and integrate them. Your practice may well be set by a yoga teacher who can help you identify what is a useful starting point, but then it is up to you to explore your own body, breath, focus during the practice that you undertake. The process of your personal yoga practice is more intimate, your focus can be more internal, and your awareness need not be drawn away by external instructions. Start small and regularIt need not take ages, 20 minutes a day is much more helpful than an occasional yoga class. It doesn't need to be an ambitious practice, and it might be more breath or meditation focused, or it might be more physical and challenging. Start with a modest practice, establish the habit of daily or close to daily yoga practice and without rushing headlong into it, over time develop a program that is suited and adapted to your needs I often work with clients 1 to 1 to help them establish a tailored yoga program that they undertake at home, and over time we meet less and less often once they find an established and suitable way of practicing. I also run yoga workshops to support you in checking in with home yoga practice. Or regular classes where your yoga teacher can input into your yoga practice are all great ways to develop a beneficial home yoga practice. It should leave you feeling better than when you beganYour yoga practice should always leave you feeling better than when you began. Calmer, more settled, refreshed, and energised. And if it doesn't check in with your yoga teacher to explore further.
Please feel free to get in touch to find out more. Or find out about our upcoming home practice yoga workshops here
The gentle yoga class was quieter but always nice to be able to offer a more adapted and therapeutic approach to yoga practice for those who want to start there. Small groups are ideal for this approach to yoga so that we can ensure that it is adapted and suitable for you.
We are pleased to say we raised £163.28 for Off the Record, the local Bristol charity providing free mental health support for young people. Thanks for your donations and the donation jar is there this week for anyone who wants to drop-off a donation who didn't get a chance on Saturday. It was a lovely chance to collaborate with many of the other independent yoga studios in Bristol too. Our lovely neighbours, Yogawest, who offer the more alignment based Iyengar yoga joined in, Yogafurie who offer hot yoga in Ashley Down, Yogasara and Bristol City Yoga in Stokes Croft, and Flow yoga in Windmill Hill. It is so nice to collaborate with the other 6 studios, work together to share yoga to the broader Bristol community, and raise money for charity. It is great to demonstrate that in this day and age, not everything is competitive or trying to get ahead. We all love yoga and see if as a way to share our love of it with as many people as possible, bring people together and become more integrated with our communities as a collective. Looking forward to the 2018 yoga trail and working with the other yoga studios again to bring that to everyone. Thanks again for coming and we welcome you back to the YogaSpace studio in Bishopston soon!
Free yoga classes all dayOur class offering for the day is: 8:30 - 9:30am Yoga with Vivien General class for everyone, beginners or experienced 10:00 - 11:00am Birth preparation with Vivien Suitable for those 13+ weeks into their pregnancy 11:30 - 12:30am Pregnancy yoga with Vivien Suitable for those 13+ weeks into their pregnancy 13:00 - 14:00 Yoga for beginners with Clara General class with introductory instruction, others also welcome. 14:30 - 15:30 Yoga with Cathy General class for all levels 16:00 - 17:00 Gentle Yoga with Clara Class aimed at those with more limited mobility or energy but all welcome No booking needed, simply turn up and grab a space. We recommend arriving 15 mins early to get a mat and let the teacher know if you have any health issues that we should know about. Bristol's independent yoga studios get togetherIt is an inspiring time where most of the local, independent yoga studios in Bristol get together and collectively offer free yoga classes. We want to encourage newcomers to come along and try something new, welcome back old friends, and do some fundraising at the same time. We hope to see you on Saturday October 14th! We’re offering more classes than ever before – tell your friends and join in the annual Bristol Yoga Trail. Fundraising for OTRWe're pleased to announce that this year the Bristol Yoga Trail is raising money for Off the Record - a local Bristol charity which provides mental health support for young people. As always, donations are completely voluntary, bins will be available at each yoga studio to collect any donations, but they are of course very welcome.
Tell your friends and hope to see you there.
Church halls can suckChurch halls are not ideal teaching or practice spaces. I still teach on Thursday evenings in Westbury Park with limited heating, lentils leftover on the floor from the preschool earlier in the day, and don’t even get me started about the red glitter stuck to the yoga mats that will remind my students when they get home that they did cobra posture as the shiny specks remain on their foreheads. But I value these classes in many ways and value the students who come so enjoy teaching them anyway How I came to own a yoga studio I didn’t have big ambitions for what I was trying to do, just a space, a resource, to teach what my teacher Paul Harvey had taught me and what I had discovered along the way and find great value in, and pass on this helpful stuff that I was privileged to be able to have time to study and practice. Before starting the studio in 2009 I had a good job that I enjoyed and was teaching yoga part-time in the evenings in the church hall. I didn’t really have plans to start a yoga studio. But one morning I was early to an appointment with my hairdresser on Park Row, so was hanging around near her salon and noticed to sign advertising a space that was for rent. A great place for a yoga studio, right in the centre of Bristol. I recounted this to my hairdresser as I was in her chair and she mentioned that their basement was unused and I should take a look. I did and the seed of YogaSpace was planted. The yoga centre at 10 Park Row opened a couple of months later. At first it was just me teaching classes. Then once the yoga centre started, many teachers approached me to be able to teach there. Naomi started up her Tuesday evening classes which she still runs now. I navigated the changing yoga landscape as best I could as the eclectic practice styles became more popular. I found some wonderful people along the way, and hopefully have offered teachings and classes that the students of YogaSpace have found helpful and valuable and created a studio space that the teachers have enjoyed teaching in. Push yourself, or restore yourself? Or neither... Eventually though my heart was less and less in it as I found myself managing a centre and lots of other teachers and having less time for my own teaching and study. And also finding that the style of modern yoga practice was changing in a direction that I didn’t feel aligned to. It felt more and more fueled by the need to exert, sweat and push ourselve, or on the flip side of that, to relax and restore. To ‘get’ somewhere with our practice rather than discover what we already have. How to 'open your heart'?Yoga seemed to be becoming more physical in what was being taught, more entertaining for people who come to class, physically challenging as the primary focus, creatively expressive and freeform, maybe with a sprinkling of yoga philosophy and perhaps esoteric symbolism. I kept coming across romantic sounding notions such as ‘opening your heart’ (metaphorically and symbolically interesting when presented thoughtfully and with context but otherwise a phrase that in my opinion needs further examination). I needed a rethink of what I was spending my time doing. My compass felt a little off kilter. I had somehow found myself hosting and promoting classes that while enjoyable and of use to those who attend, I didn’t personally love. Paul Harvey's yoga centre, YoganjaliThen my teacher, Paul Harvey, decided to pass on his yoga studio as he was going to be primarily teaching smaller groups and 121 yoga ongoing and didn’t have need of a larger studio space. His beautiful studio, Yoganjali, established in 1998 and where I had taken my teacher training was in need of a new owner. It’s an ideal space, down a quiet cul-de-sac in the heart of Bishopston. If you could design a yoga studio from scratch, this would be it - beautiful, quiet, simple, functional, warm, light, tranquil, and just off a bustling high street. My personal history with yoga was embedded here, steeped in the tradition of Krishnamacharya and Desikachar. No brand names or stylesSo here I am, now based at Bristol YogaSpace in Bishopston, with like-minded teachers, without a brand name or ‘styled’ yoga approach, just simple, breath-centred yoga orientated towards personalised yoga practice, taught in small groups or 121. And I love it. Good luck to Bristol Yoga Centre!Naomi I’m sure will do a wonderful job with Bristol Yoga Centre. It is a lovely studio space and I loved the 7-years I spent there building a vibrant yoga community. I miss the teachers and students and I’m sure our paths will continue to cross, but I love where I find myself. I’ve gone back to my roots of teaching what I have a firm conviction about, and returning to study with Paul Harvey for the rest of the year. This time around, I’m hoping to keep my compass more aligned and closer to my heart. I wish Naomi and all those adventurers out there happy travels and very best wishes with all the other wonderful stuff!
All forms of practice have their place at different times in life, and finding what suits you at is a very personal decision. The adaptable nature of viniyoga means it changes with you as your life changes, rather than requiring that you strive to sustain the same standardised forms of practice. Viniyoga is sustainable and supportive as you deepen your yoga practice over the years.
The British Wheel of Yoga is an organisation that offers yoga teacher training and accreditation, and a good standard of teacher training. It is the national governing body for yoga and the largest yoga membership organisation in the country. It ensures a minimum standard of teacher training so that the teacher is experienced enough and knowledgeable enough to safely run a group yoga class for the wide range of participants that each class attracts. Many teacher training courses these days are available to take as 1-6 month intensives however the British Wheel still maintains that 2-years is the minimum time period to fully explore, train and prepare to become a yoga teacher. Part of the yoga teachers job is to guide participants to move beyond their familiar physical and mental comfort zone and to do this safely is key to good teaching. They also require annual continual professional development have a good quarterly magazine. Anyway, I'm looking forward to teaching at the annual yoga teacher conference and hope to see you there! See Clara's group yoga class schedule > 1) Friendly teachers
All of our yoga teachers are friendly, supportive, and are there to help you experience yoga and its benefits in a way that suits you. We are all different, need different things from the class, and friendly, approachable teacher will help you get there. 2) Health info When you arrive, it is best to arrive 5 or 10 minutes prior to the class starting so that you can fill in a quick health questionnaire and meet the teacher. We like to know about any injuries, fitness limitations, health problems, relevant experiences that might benefit from additional supervision, instruction or adaptation of the practice to ensure it suits you. Every body can practice yoga safely and getting started at the right level will help you get there. 3) Smaller classes We have a max of 15 in each yoga class, most classes are smaller. We strongly believe in supporting each individual and providing a good level of attention that will get you started safely. In a smaller group this enables the teacher to observe your practice and develop it when the timing is right. 4) Teacher-student relationship Our teachers will get to know you and your health background, will observe how you practice yoga, where your interest develops, and be there to offer guidance during the class and talk through any questions both before and after class. There is no substitute for an experienced teacher to guide you along your yoga journey once you get started. 5) Step by step All our classes are taken step by step, maintaining and developing your ability to practice in a group class and perhaps at home safely once you are familiar with the movements, techniques and ways of practicing yoga. Every body is able to participate and any postures or techniques that don't suit you, or are inaccessible for whatever reason, will be adapted or substituted suitably for you to enable you to get the most from practicing yoga.. 6) Feel better A new class should leave you feeling energised, settled, refreshed, more relaxed and spacious, both mentally and physically, than when you arrived. The benefits of yoga should feel immediately apparent and enjoyable. Then with regular practice to help you learn them, the tools of yoga, the movements, breathing techniques, meditation techniques and approaches that you learn in class, may well become a lifelong support... Do you know anyone who isn't busy? Really busy? Chances are you have a long list of things to do (once you've done all the things you need to do). And once you've done that, you'll find something else to keep you busy. Radio 4 recently had a short article on how we are 'addicted' to being busy and I have to say it rang very true. As a society, it is almost a badge of achievement to say your really busy. We value you, the idea of doing, achieving, getting more things done. Really it is easier to be busy than to not be busy. But are 'busy' things distracting us from bigger objectives? We're so used to our time being filled that I'm not sure we'd be entirely comfortable with having nothing to do. When we might actually get a chance to turn our attention beyond the daily distractions. Unfortunately stress, health dilemmas, being 'burnt out' are all modern day results. And what have we really achieved? The idea that we are too busy to take care of ourselves, to maintain a balance in our lives between doing, achieving, and being and experiencing is a conversation we should probably all have with ourselves along our journey - regularly. Yoga practice, and other meditative practices try to encourage moving away from 'doing' and entering a state of 'being' as a regular habit. To become familiar with other aspects of our lives and see what arises as we do this. At least weekly, preferably daily, try simply 'being' for 5 or 10 minutes. Try sitting, gazing, breathing, meditating, a moving meditation such as yoga, whatever you like. Try it and see what happens... Thanks to those of you who came and made our new Bishopston yoga studio open day a huge success! It was lovely to welcome so many new faces to our beginners yoga, viniyoga and gentle yoga classes. A big thank you and hope to see you in class again soon.
Yoga offers us a chance to take practices that will help make our body and mind stronger, more stable and less rigid and allow them to come back to a more harmonious and well-balanced state of being.
If you're a beginner to yoga, you may have an advantage to those experienced in yoga practice in some ways. You come to class being open and curious to what is about to happen. The uncertainty of not knowing what you are going to be doing in your class, the unfamiliar postures and ways of breathing all demand an attention and a focus to pull it off. There is an openness and natural effort, and less expectation. These are qualities that are essential ingredients in cultivating a healthy body and mind and enabling all that yoga has to offer to unfold for us. Without the right attitude of attention and alertness in our yoga practice, our mind and body will stay in its usual patterns. Most of us are creatures of habit -- we're slouching, breathing poorly, thinking about the same old stuff (e.g. what is for dinner or mentally shopping for whatever has captured our attention...) -- all habits that we aim to improve upon through yoga practice. Once we become experienced at yoga breathing, posture, technique and focus we can lose that fresh edge and that natural effort. We can become comfortable, perhaps complacent, or develop additional unhelpful habits rather than less. The freshness of the beginner practitioner is a gift and something experienced practitioners may need to remind themselves of when they take yoga practice. Those with experience can become mechanical and repetitive as they practice during class, missing the potential of each posture and each breath. Being fully present in your practice, is part of the practice. The full physical and mental harmony available by taking simple practices, can be missing for the experienced practitioner. As beginners to yoga we often feel like we don't know what we are doing. We should see this as a gift. Familiarity in yoga postures, breathing and the mechanics of meditation techniques can be a double edged sword. Trying to maintain a 'beginners perspective' will help to benefit more fully from each practice. Is the picture above simply another beautiful sunset, simliar to ones you have seen before? The initial impression may suggest this because of the familiarity of such images - but remind yourself to see it with fresh eyes, as if for the first time. A wonderous, unexplored moment in time with untold beauty on this amazing planet, and an unexplored day to follow. Beginners eyes can discover so much more. Beginners and those with experience, a reminder to bring along your beginners mind to your yoga practice. Most of our day is spent doing things we are comfortable and familiar with, the routine of daily life, perhaps along with a few challenges and changes throughout the day. But what if we routinely asked ourselves to do things that we didn’t think were possible? Things that perhaps took us outside of our comfort zone.
Your response might be ‘why on earth would I do that’? But why wouldn’t you try new things, and extend yourself into new experiences? These are the things that will show you what you are truly capable of, and it is probably more than you realise. 'Thinking' is the key word here. Our minds maintain comfortable boundaries for us, often for good reasons. But do we get complacent? Remind yourself, the way kids do so naturally, that exploration, challenge and being comfortable with feeling uncomfortable are an essential means to extending yourself and leading on to a more fulfilling life. Even when your thinking mind tells you that it is impossible. Start small A good way to rediscover your potential is to start with small daily practices to remind you and demonstrate to yourself that you can do more than you think you can. Yoga practice is one of the ways we can do this. What is you started to explore a posture that at first seems impossible. But with daily practice, and approaching it with sensible steps, you might just amaze yourself and remind yourself that you can do anything you set your mind to. Warning…Your mind will say: “You can’t, what you are thinking? You’ll never be able to do it, it’s a waste of time.” (notice your mind doesn’t say watching 3-hours of tv is a waste of time …) Then your mind might say: “Maybe tomorrow…” But your response could start to be “I may not be able to do it, but I can start to work towards it.” Then get on your yoga mat or to your yoga class and get started. A weekly class is a good start. Then maybe talk to your teacher about a small home practice - which is even better as it brings positive daily habits into your life and the outcomes can be greater than you ever imagined…
Have a clear out
Have a physical clear out. Sort out a room, a cupboard, perhaps even just a drawer. Empty it out and only put back the things that you use and need. Creating physical space is a wonderful way of feeling more spacious internally too. Let go of something old We need to let go of something old first. Perhaps move on from a commitment, a habit, a club, a stagnant relationship, anything that feels like it isn't positive any longer and not worth reinvesting in. Re-assess your commitments and see what would be worth replacing with something more positive and vibrant. Practice gratitude Take a moment to count your blessings. Feeling grateful each day is a wonderful practice to cultivate. It enables you to appreciate what you have, to re-envigorate your enthusiasm for them, and importantly, to break the cycle of always wanting something that you don't have. Gratitude can help you feel more spacious and avoiding taking on more things that you may not actually need. Hey, I have opposable thumbs, thank you! Move and breath Yoga and other embodied meditative practices are wonderful at creating a feeling of physical and mental space. They support you to physically become stronger and de-compress yourself, enabling your body to be more more stable and move more easily and naturally - ie. feeling more spacious. Easing out tensions, stresses and blocks enables us to feel more comfortable with ourselves. And using the mental discplines of breath focus, moving and still meditations to allow us to let go of unhelpful thought patterns and feel mentally spacious and open are all essential to our wellbeing. Notice the present moment Practice being in the present moment more often. We often spend our days carrying around old memories and worries, or bring along anticipations and fears of the future, and perhaps feel burdened and weighed down. Try letting go of these and practice appreciating and fully experiencing each day and moment as it unfolds. I always love reflecting on the Dalai Lamas 18 rules for living this time of year too. Happy new year! Yoga classes have begun to polarise. From the fast and sweaty vinyasa flow and Ashtanga yoga, to the restorative and Yin yoga classes that have emerged. They seem to be on two ends of a wide spectrum of modern postural yoga classes. People turn to yoga for a range of different reasons. Perhaps you've come to it to feel stronger or more flexible, or you enjoy the heat and sweat that it can build. Perhaps you enjoy the stillness and calm that it offers, or the good nights sleep it gains you. You may have an injury or pain that you are looking to sort out, or perhaps you just want that elusive feeling of wellbeing. They are all good reasons to practice yoga, and finding the right approach for your practice is more than just the immediate feeling it leaves you with. Your practice should leave you feeling better than when you started, and progressively better in the long term. You may be surprised that I even need to state this. But I regularly speak to practitioners and even yoga teachers who switch between two extreme styles of yoga practice in an effort to keep themselves balanced. Taking a strong vinyasa class supplemented with a Yin or restorative class seems a simple contradiction in approach. It's nice to change pace and explore from time-to-time. But to pursue the challenge and energy which then leaves you needing restoration to enable you to continue this cycle seems worth reflecting on. It is a cycle we often undertake in life which we then replicate on our yoga mats. Yoga practice is for the long term. It should support your primary aims as well as deepening your sense of internal balance with consistent practice. The balance of yoga doesn't begin on the mat, it beings before you get there, with your intention and choice of how to practice. Back to YogaSpace Homepage It wouldn't have been nearly as much fun without you so thanks for coming along and sharing our day of free yoga classes. Whether you tried Virginie's challenging flow class, or the beginners classes, we hope you enjoyed the day and took the time to chat with the teachers. Our September term is now underway so please do come back and join us. We hope to see you again soon. x |
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