yoga is a life enhancing practice of movement, breathing and presence which helps us develop an authentic connection with ourselves and the world around us.
i have been practising yoga for over forty years and helping others with their practice for over thirty.
my initial teacher training with the British Wheel of Yoga has been enriched over the years through study and practice of a traditional approach with Paul Harvey, and for the last five years in the refreshing, poetic approach of Sandra Sabatini, herself a direct student of Vanda Scaravelli.
all of these experiments have nurtured a creative and easeful approach and i enjoy helping fellow practitioners to sow their own seeds of yoga sensitively and in the spirit of personal possibility
flexible one to one sessions are available by arrangement
‘Air: source of the breath
That enables flowers to flourish,
And calls the dark, rooted trees
To ascend into blossom.” John O’Donohue
the lifting light and the abundance of new life can all inspire our own expansion, our own blossoming
which begins with deep roots
so come to the mat
take time to find your footing – can you feel your roots spreading deeper?
after a while
breathing out allow your arms to move away from your sides, investigating the space around you
breathe into your new shape
move a little further on the next out breath – breathe in to this new shape
breath by breath
until your arms feel wide enough, high enough to form an open canopy
repeat repeat repeat
“The liberation of the upper part of the body produced by the acceptance of gravity in the lower part of the body, is the origin of lightness.” Vanda Scaravelli
many of the rules of yoga have filtered down to us through generations of teachers and practitioners, across borders and through time
do the yoga rules you are sticking to feel relevant?
would it help to review the rhythm, form, breath, timing, content or spirit of your practice?
there should be room for manoeuvre. rules and guidelines can be wide enough to include all the tribes and variations – baggy enough to let us breathe within our own twenty-first century, northern hemisphere circumstances, whatever our gender, age, race, and belief system
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
From Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins
i recently visited an exhibition, where a watercolour by Cezanne Montagne Sainte-Victoire was commented on by the artist Phyllida Barlow. she remembered a lecture on the painting from her student days
“look at how little there is – the economy of colour, line, space, and where an empty space is in fact full.” Michael Andrews
looking at the painting made me think of simple yoga practices, where very little apparent content, can offer us so much if we are able to attend to it
empty space becomes full and in the same way, fullness empties