 Until...?
I love the 'never stop pushing' slogan. It sums up an approach to life that is all around us. The poster of it caught my eye this morning in a shop on Gloucester Road. It is a common method to think you are getting the most out of life when you are busy and doing more, pushing harder, and it reflects an inherent dissatisfaction with what we currently have. If we get busy enough, if we do enough things, if we dig deeper and keep going until we get to the end of the week and collapse in a heap, did we win? What is the prize? Yoga asks something else of us We all have things we would like, or need to do. Work, life, family, relationships, desires, fun, creativity. There is space for all of these and they are all important. Yoga doesn't suggest that we sit around all day taking it easy and never getting anything done. Nor does it suggest that we power up and push through for an hour and that we will come out rebalanced and serene at the end. We might just come out stretched, wired and pumped for more. For every extra push, there is an equal and opposite reaction. A push back. A toll is taken. If we just keep pushing, at some point we are at risk of falling over. Sthira / Sukha There is a verse from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras which sums it up nicely. It states that when practicing yoga, every posture and practice should have in equal measure: Sthira: sturdiness and effort Sukha: ease and openness. Both are equally important. Without both, you're missing the mark. Yoga has balance built in. Return to balance Do we personally need more of one or the other? If we tend to push forwards in life and only stop when we are exhausted or are forced to, then more ease and openness could be exactly what we need. If we tend to be a bit lacklustre and drift through our days, then more focus and effort may be the right balancing force. We often have a dominant mode, personal to us. It might feel hard to do the other. And there lies your practice... Each posture and each practice can support effort and ease in equal measure. Our life needs both Too soft and you'll become lethargic and unmotivated, too much and you'll eventually be exhausted. And along the way as our yoga practice develops, we notice that life isn't inherently dissatisfactory. We might just be looking in the wrong place for satisfaction. Have a balanced week 🌞
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 Breathing is curious
We do it all day every day without thinking. Sometimes we might think about it when it doesn't feel right, when we have a chest infection, or are in an unpleasant environment where the air isn't fresh. Harness your breathing In yoga, breathwork is one of the primary tools. There are a variety of ways it can be used to amplify the natural effects of breathing creating noticable effects on body, mind, energy and balance. You can try emphasising inhaling or exhaling, pausing after inhaling to stimulate your energy and vitality, you can add a gentle wait after exhaling to calm yourself and settle overactive systems and mental states. However overdo it and the opposite is true, so skilled guidance and practice is important. It helps sleep, when you know how One of my students couldn't sleep the other night so she tried the box breathing that we are working with this month. It didn't help. Box breathing is quite a stimulating, revitalising technique which when trying to sleep will overstimulate and wake you up more. It doesn't mean the technique isn't useful, just not for that time of night. Getting to know your breathing and posture toolkit to help your daily life is brilliant. Extended, gentle exhales would be a good starting point if sleep is problematic. Breath-centred yoga Breathwork is a whole branch of yoga practice. One of the hallmarks of my classes is the way the breathing is applied both during poses and at the end of class to rebalance us. We are moving air pressure in different parts of the body. Pressurising different places in the various poses. An opening posture (e.g. Warrior 1) with an upper body inhale amplifies the effects of both the posture and the breath for a compound effect. Add a skilful breath pause and see what happens. Learning to direct our breathing into different areas of the body, emphasising chest or belly breathing to address imbalances in your normal patterns where tension and tightness may have become the norm. This can have a profoundly beneficial effect on mental and physical health. Emphasise inhale or exhale? Emphasising the inhale, breathing into our upper chest, being stimulated, alert and vibrant, expanding to invite and lift energy is great for a morning class. But go carefully. Anxiety, aggression, disorganisation, can tip over into making these worse. The invitation to mindfully observe effects of the pose is exactly the place to note what serves you well and what doesn't. By the end of class, you should feel balanced, relaxed, vibrant, calm. And the effect doesn't stop there. If you're agitated or annoyed in the rest of your day, then think again, a balanced state has not been achieved yet. Note the effects so you can learn what you actually need, not what you think you need. They are different. Evening classes can down-regulate your nervous system with closing postures and longer exhales to support a balanced ending to a busy day. Positivity and good sleep that night should follow effortlessly. It can go wrong, let's get it right Get it wrong and you'll be wired after your class and its 9pm when you want to be winding down for sleep. Or you feel zombified or disorganised mid-morning and may not sleep well later on. Get it right and you'll feel balanced, vibrant, alert, calm, and in harmony with your body, mind, environment and those around you. Get to know your breath, learn where the techniques can be helpful so that you can draw upon them when needed. As always, come and chat if you haven't yet got the hang of it as it does take a little practice but is well worth the effort. Enjoy  One of my wonderful, long-standing students began running during lockdown and it has become a regular, daily routine. She loves it and is convinced that the regular yoga that she does helps her stay injury free.
Running is better with yoga Running is simply brilliant if you can do it. It gets you outside, promotes lots of physical benefits, boosts feel good hormones and clears your head. Accompanying it with regular yoga helps you remain injury free, takes care of tight bits that emerge, and provides space to engage with mindful grounding that can help enhance the enjoyment of your running and notice injuries sooner. Maintenance We all have to take care of maintaining our health, whether it is mental health, physical, emotional and being prepared for what life will inevitably throw at us. We do what we can, what we enjoy, and what we will keep up. And anything is better than nothing. Cultivate more then the physical One of the understated aspects of yoga, beyond being safer from injury and recovering faster, is the easier, calmer, kinder attitude that we can cultivate with ourselves. As aging unfolds, and limitations are encountered, when we can no longer do what we were used to doing, we can discover that there is another path to being and feeling well. We start to discover and cultivate a more positive relationship with ourselves that doesn’t rely on the abilities of the physical body. We practice finding it easier to accept and even be grateful for the health opportunities and challenges as a part of life and a part of our practice. Yoga can teach and show us how to practice connecting to a more peaceful place that contains us even when everything else is seemingly falling apart. Even better than a healthy body Even better than remaining injury free, is feeling content when life and body don’t comply with what you would like to happen. Finding a breath-centred yoga practice gives you skills, techniques and subtle understandings beyond the (wonderful) benefits and effects of postures. When limitations do come up, you have other methods to help you land in that same place. Helping avoid frustration and discomfort and enjoying calm, contentment and serenity as you journey through life no matter whether your body is cooperating with what you would like it to do, or not. Enjoy.  Last year was the trickiest yet. It was challenging, unpredictable, chaotic and emotional. On the days when events were heightened, I have never been more grateful for small acts of kindness. A smile in the street, and a warm conversation at the shop went a long way to helping my day feel better.
Kindness & yoga go a long way Kindness isn't enough but it goes a long, long way. Thankfully, I have yoga as my mainstay, which helps me start each day with a fresh outlook, a more relaxed body and nervous system to be able to cope as well as I can as challenges unfold. Remember knee slides? Kindness isn't enough to make you a good yoga teacher. It helps and is an essential quality really, but you also need developed skills and experience to help a broader range of people. Older bodies need more care and skill than the easy breezy 20 somethings who can still do knee slides (remember them! I can't even watch any longer). As we age we need extra levels of expertise to navigate all that we come with. Life accumulates and leaves its marks As life progresses, injuries have been accumulated and left their mark, life has left us highly strung, our day-to-day posture is becoming fixed in ways that reflect our lifestyles and lifes challenges, which are often sedentary or lack time and space to stretch and unwind enough. Skill & expertise at YogaSpace The standards of care, skill and expertise we have at YogaSpace are far beyond anywhere else in Bristol. Most of us have decades of experience. 3 of our teachers have been studying yoga and sharing their craft for 40+ years (each). Many of us took 3 or 4 years of extensive study to become yoga teachers, far beyond the typical 9-month (or even 1-month in many cases) 200 hour training popular today. I started practicing yoga 28 years ago and began my 4-year teacher training study 21 years ago. This means something. This gives experience to draw upon, gathered from the vast array of bodies and minds that I've worked with over the years. This all helps guide you into a fruitful yoga practice. Working with and around all that you come with to take yoga in a way that can work its wonders for you. Enjoy your yoga, with all that you come with. |
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Bristol YogaSpace Ltd
The Courtyard Princes Place, Bishopston Just off Gloucester Road Bristol BS7 8NP |
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