45 Mins
Simplicity, Synchronicity and Usability
This class was created to be part of a daily practice sequence. A coverage of movement and mobility through the entire body with a balance of all the elements to open everywhere; abdominals, vinyasa, shoulders, balance, hips, and a long constructive rest sequence at the end.
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Hippy Dippy
This will get you deep in to your hips joints, hip flexors and hip rotaors. We explore a way of practising standing poses on the floor that opens you up in a way you could never do whilst standing. Allowing for much greater freedom of movement and even the possibility of moving in to half lotus (maybe even full lotus).
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Lift & Elevation - Structure
Like any good structure, our bodies rely on a good foundation and good mechanics to function well. There is a lot of pubic bone action in this practice, calling attention to the LIFT safeguards our lower back, stabilises our pelvis, works our ‘core’ and allows us to connect to the legs below and the chest above for satisfying back ‘bends’ AND incredible forward ‘bends’. A note to say it’s not really bending, it’s extending.
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Twists & Turns
Working on keeping the spine’s ability to move in all directions is key to long term spinal health. Rotation of the torso is dependant on the super highway of muscles that connect from and to the pelvis and shoulders and all that passes in between. They help keep us upright, help move, rotate and extend the torso. Here we explore twist and rotations aimed at freeing the ribcage.
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Shoulder Strength & Mobility
We mainly focus on shoulder mobility with some added strength work for the shoulders here. Our arms are designed to move with far more range than our legs and with this there are 4 Fascial arm lines, which shows you how versatile and useful they are intended to be. With this comes the tendancy to wear them out. Our arms and shoulders connect to the side, front and back muscles so we neglect them at our peril. This is also a useful class for post operative shoulder work.
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Open Chest Strong Back
In a lot of Yoga poses we over use our arms and shoulders to do the hard work. If we take the arms away and focus on the strength of the legs and the paraspinals muscles in our back we can develop muscles else where and share the load throughout the body. Ultimately this level of work also supports and strengthens the abdominals, all contributing to healthier movement through the whole spine and stronger backs free from discomfort.
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Open Palms Open Arms Pits Open Chest
Every action we make is connected to the next and in movement every body part we connect to and work with, links us to another along the chain. Whether this be kinaesthetic, muscular or skeletal. We can practice with total focus and mindfulness on how we can open the body this way. Here as the title suggests we look at the role of opening the palms and arm pits to open the chest and shoulders.
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Shoulder Rotations & Freeing the Upper Back
This is an exploration on how we can free the shoulders and open the upper back. Working through the different rotations in the arms and direction of the fingers in a way we can’t with other parts of our body. After all our feet cannot rotate all the way around to face behind us and yet are fingers can. This is accessible and an interesting way to practice that creates big change in the freedom we feel in our upper body.
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Moving Through the Spine
Opening the chest and moving through the spine whilst connecting to our heals is a great way to explore back extensions. By lifting through the entire leg chain to pelvis we can see how we can focus on one area of our body to open whilst drawing strength from our foundations.
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Free and Open Upper Back
This is fun class and recorded in the first week of the new year so great for when you have some energy to expend and you also want a jump start. Energetic standing poses and transitions with a focus on opening the upper back and the back of our body is our focus. We also explore lifting the chest and not always moving immediately with our heads in and out of postures.
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Open Heart Clear Head
An open heart and a clear head indicate a good practice. Mood elevation and the capacity to see clearly are the benefits of practicing yoga through all stages of life. Here we open the chest with some accessible back bends that open the chest and shoulders but also integrate with poses that lengthen the psoas and open the hip flexors and quads, cue pigeon and splits prep :-)
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Lotus & Binding
When playing with the poses that lead to lotus and binding we look at poses that open both the hips and the shoulders. So whether we can catch the foot in a bind or bring our foot in to lotus or not doesn’t prevent us from moving through the steps on the way. Twists, shoulder openers and strengtheners, going upside down, chest opening, and then possibly twist with lotus where the body allows, other base positions are readily available :-)
Read More60 Mins
Backbending - What’s behind us?
When we start to open the chest and front body we often do this with movements that place our attention behind us, where we cannot see what is going on. Whether this is with practices that open the shoulders, arch our spines or contract our glutes to effectively and safely master back bends, big and/or small. The primary focus here is actually the legs and the glutes, leading to ustrasana (camel), but the fun is on the journey, not the destination as we bring awareness to the unseen parts of our bodies.
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Palms - Connecting the Palm to the Shoulders
We often take for granted how much what we do with our hands has to do with the movements in our shoulders. Here we practice (with the the bricks as a learning tool) how to open the palms and access a route in to opening the armpits, shoulders and upper back. An open chest helps our posture, elevates our mood and can tip toe us towards fun back bends and arm balance play. As well as helping us strengthen our arms and shoulder joint.
Read More60 Mins
Twist, Lift & Extend
Twisting is a great prelude to opening the hamstrings, I’m not sure when I first learnt/experienced this but I have found it to hold true in my practice. It’s tricky to do standing twists, they require mastery over the hip joint to stabilise yourself, being centred in your core and also relatively free in your rib cage and upper back to rotate. It’s the ultimate meditative, mindfulness in action practice. Here we twist, open the shoulders and upper back alongside opening the hips and hamstrings. It’s a wonderful practice for sports people and anyone who needs to provide relief for the legs.
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360 Leg Movements
The legs move from the pelvis; forwards, backwards, to the side and across. Not always with the same ease of movement on both sides but with the same possibility unless or until there are restrictions in the hip joint. I wanted to look at the different muscles involved in poses when we lifted the leg in different planes from differing base positions. By the end I think we would have explored movement in the hip joint and legs from a 360 degree perspective.
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Binding & Folding
Sometimes we omit things we should be practicing more often. Full range of motion and movements in all directions around the shoulder joint is crucial. Here we review the poses and practices which involve the shoulders; wrapping, binding. revolving, twisting and movements in different directions added in to our familiar standing poses. This then challenges our proprioception and balance when in space. We also explore at the end ways to approach headstand with or without the intention of fully going in to the pose.
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Strong Abs - Core Centric
Good movement through the body and a healthy spine is reliant on a strong and flexible core. The beauty of many Yoga poses, practiced carefully and consciously at the appropriate time, both occur together. The beauty of this class is we include, hip stretches, arm strength, balance, backbends as well as direct abdominal work to really stabilise the core of the body so we can move our limbs in all directions and across different planes without bucking in the middle.
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Freeing the Ribcage - Twists & Binds
There’s a little bit of everything in here. We connect hips, twists and binds for maximum rotation and also for the biggest transformation in freeing the ribs and the ribcage. Which in turn elevates the spine and chest from the front, sides and back, frees the lungs to breath more expansively and works to chink away at the upper thorascic spine which can be less inclined to move freely. Binds are optional, there are ways and means of creating the same effects in the body with the use of our props that are fuss free and easy to include so we can practice without discomfort or let restrictions hold us back from finding openness.
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Vertical Spine
I would say this was Part 2 to last week’s class entitled Up Up and Away but of course can be practiced alone. From teaching this in person I learnt that the vertical spine and being able to lift up out of the armpits is fundamental to balancing safely upside down. It’s also key to ease, I never felt as though it was strength alone that kept me balancing in inversions, it’s about strong fundamentals, foundations and a lightness that comes with practice and letting go of fear and knowing where and when to prop. This is preparatory, you absolutely do not have to do the full inversions, but can enjoy the process and the preparation along the way. Shoulder and upper back opening and side body lengthening in all it’s glory.
*Please note we had problems with WiFi when we recorded this so my phone had to do the Zooming and the recording.
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Up Up and Away
Elevating the chest lifts the rib cage, expands the lungs and is key to a backbend practice that utilises the whole length of the spine. Here we start moving towards deeper backbends by practicing poses and sequences that open the chest and expand the heart but through the connection with the legs and pelvis like navasana (boat pose), . I love this practice!!
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Overlapping Hands - Effective Side Chest & Armpit Opening
I love experimenting and new ways to move and open up the body. Opening the arm pits frees the chest, sides and back of the chest and lungs. It also makes you taller! We open the palms, get super long through the arms and extend out, we also play with balance, tipping and extension, stabilising and strengthening the hip, knee and ankles joints.
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Balancing on our Hands
Don’t be perturbed by the idea of taking more weight in to your hands and practicing arm balances. There are many stages along the way and ways to balance with support so the hands and wrists do not take too much weight or any at all. Strong legs, as well as strong arms and shoulders are key but to balance and create postures where we balance on our hands rather than our feet requires good hip and shoulder mobility so there’s lots of this preparatory work here as well as twists and forward folds. It is also key to maintain length in our abdomen, and protect the integrity of spine so we don’t get overly compressed in our endeavours.
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Heart Leading the Brain
We don’t often think of our yoga practice in terms of it’s coherence and integration. Or maybe you do, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. What is key as we start to switch on to the fact that everything is connected, is that we do not move in isolation and we do not exist in isolation. Most of the movements in this practice focus on us leading with the heart, opening and lifting the chest whilst remaining stable and strong in the legs and lower back/abdomen. One action doesn’t over take everything else, even if it is a focal point, the whole body needs to integrate to make the asanas feel coherent and so we don’t injure ourselves in the process too ;-)
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Spiralling Arms
This is like daily flossing for your shoulders. Our shoulders are connected down to our finger tips, to our collar bones and sternum at the front and to our ribs at the back. There are so many ways in which range of movement can be limited, whilst we often over do some movements and under do others we find ease and restriction sometimes in different directions. Take this practice easy and keep coming back to it, or take certain movements from the practice, little pieces and see if you can do a different one every day to keep the shoulders moving healthily in all directions.
Read More65 Mins
Bolster love and Digestive Health
The sight of a bolster instantly made everyone in class think of relaxing. The support it offers and what it is usually used for is synonomous with letting go. In this practice we use the bolster in a more active way in our standing poses as well as in more supportive and restorative ways when it comes to certain seated and supine poses. The bolster massages our kidneys, adrenals and posterior diaphragmatic area, whilst creating length and wideness in the stomach, liver and front diaphragmatic region. It’s preferable to have a bolster but if you don’t have one you can use a rolled up yoga mat, a sofa cushion or a pillow (or two).
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Lifting your spirits - An antidote to lethargy
When our energy levels are low and we are feeling lethargic, motivation, positivity and joy can feel as though they are missing from our lives. Here we focus on lifting the chest and opening the armpits. BKS Iyengar once said no one can be depressed if their chest (and hearts) are open. So let’s give it a whirl, we will lengthen the side body primarily, extend all the way to the finger tips, twist and go upside down (if appropriate for you). Happy armpits = Happy Life !!!
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Lifting the Pelvic Abdomen
Focusing on the lowest part of the abdominal muscles and where they connect to the pubic bone can at first feel illusive. But through clever sequencing and use of props we soon learn how to connect to this part of our body and in doing so we create more space for the abdominal organs, more lift in the chest and a stronger lower back. We test are balance, how much mobility we have in our rib cage to tip back, forward and side to side as well as developing length and strength in our arms. Enjoy this sequence, it’s super engaging, fun and most importantly, enlightening :-)
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Organising Ourselves - Moving Directions
A lot of poses that make up our yoga practice involve us moving in different directions. Not only up and down or left and right, but sending different parts of ourselves in different directions. We are often asking the legs to move in one direction whilst our arms move in another. With backbends this is especially true and especially complex. For me one of the biggest illuminators was the direction I move my pelvis and how I work my legs. There are also lots of surprise ways to move in to a backbend or experience one in many different ways … from many different directions.
Read More70 Mins
Twists with a Twist
Twists with a twist refers to the way in which we take parts of our body from one side and cross them over to the other. If some families of twists feel confined this sequencing is more about elongation and rotation of the ribs. Like a combination of side lengthening, twists and forward extensions. To gain the greatest ease, mobility and length we make repetitive movements that feel like pulsing in and out. Less holds, more movement.
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Here we explore traction and how a directional pull on the trunk or an extremity enables soft tissue to elongate. I always find it fascinating how easy it is for tissue to shrink and in turn how quickly we lose space in the body that can be lengthened with relative ease. In this practice there’s lot’s of arm lengthening, chest lifting and tractioning the limbs in different directions for maximum elongation.
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This practice was filmed on a hot day in the summer. This is the time when we need to temper the heat with the water element in our bodies so although we make the most of having more energy and enthusiasm during the lighter months, to avoid depletion we need to rest the body too. We focus on poses that take our legs wide in this practice, externally rotating the legs for the most part, exploring balance as well as taking supports, especially when feeling over heated. The last third of this practice restores the body with more supportive and restful ways of forward bending.
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This is one of my favourite practices. It feels like medicinal healing stretching for the body, without stress, strain or difficulty (well mostly) with maximum length gains. We mainly focus on creating more space between the pelvis and the floating ribs through the extension of the arms (mainly) and the legs. By creating this length we create more space to the front sides and back of our torso, countering shrinking and compression of the spine. Alongside strengthening the legs these practices prime the body for an embodied backbend and inversion practice but here we keep it simple and touch on shatooshpadasana to close which wonderfully combines the actions of chest opening, leg and glute strength, extension of the spine and a lift up towards the top of our shoulders. Get long, get lifted!!
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This class is juicy. We lengthen, lift, revolve and extend through our side body. Starting by opening the groins and lengthening the inner thigh we create more room for the diaphragm to move in space. In turn this allows us to lift out of our pelvis, open our chest, twist and side stretch with increased ranged of movement. This sets us up perfectly to move and balance in more challenging standing pavrittas (twists). This can all be developed from simple asanas practiced passively at first to enable us to hold for longer periods and in turn see more significant change in the body that helps us develop the more complex movements and asanas with greater ease.
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I love adding a belt in to my practice. It can feel experimental if you are not used to it but then you begin to see how much more accessible some postures are, especially if the belt adds the extra length to the arms to reach the toes, countering the need to round the upper back when getting to the toes is a struggle or restricted by the length of the hamstrings. Belts also help us feel and see the connection of the arms to the shoulders and the chest, that these are moving parts of a whole and not separate entities. I hope you enjoy this practice with the belt as much as I do.
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If I am going to receive a mobility test for my hips and or my shoulders there are a few poses that highlight where my restrictions are. For lotus, the hip is key and no amount of force to the knee or ankle should be necessary if the hips external rotation is good. Same for binding, long arms helps but it is more about a full circumferential rotation to get the hands to wrap behind you. Good chest rotation is key for the binds as is the ability to revolve the femur bones correctly in lotus. As always it is not the end goal that marks success but the journey and the awareness this journey gives you in to the mechanics and workings of your body. Your response and the work on your own practice towards full body awareness is the essence.
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Creating stability in the shoulder blades and the ability to allow them to move up and down so our arms can move over our heads or support us should we go upside down is pivotal to a healthy joint and movement practice. Here we look at a range of shoulder ‘opening’ practices, both isolating movements and exploring ranges of motion in different poses such as binds, spinx, reverse namaskar, gormuktasana (eagle), forearm balance and handstand. Of course there are many stages along the way to build towards the weight baring poses, all practices that stand alone without the need to progress necessarily today, but building blocks along the way.
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It is really easy to over look certain aspects of your practice, lots of opening of the back body for instance and neglecting the front body. Lots of active, not enough rest, lots of yin style practices, not enough active for example. I’m guilty of this when it comes to my quads and hip flexors, in comparison to my hamstrings their movement and flexibility is more limited. Which in turn influences how much we can lift and arch in backbends. Here we look at practices which help us lengthen our quads, hip flexors, psoas and also shoulders so we can work towards the “dancer poses”. For which I have an image of the dancer touching her toes to the back of her head when in reality mine only reach my lower ribs even on a good day!!
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I think of this sequence as a story of poses where we asked our arms to reach out. A gesture of moving forward but often there is something holding us back. In this case some tight shoulders or a need for length in our side bodies. Reaching out, reaching forward, reaching up, reaching over, reaching back. Learning how we can make our limbs longer often comes from decongesting the connecting muscles in to our torso. We find we have more freedom and range of motion to move the limbs more freely, with greater extension and connection to our core.
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The shoulders are a fascinating part of the body. They are responsible for lifting and moving our arms and are connected to our sides, back and front torso which then connect to our hips. So we are never uniquely just lifting our arms, we can adapt and focus on lifting and lowering lots of different connecting muscles. We will then see how the stabilisation of the shoulder and the surrounding muscles, careful engagement of the core and connection to the pelvis and legs helps us in to arm balances.
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To lift the spine and improve posture I usually cue you to lift your chest/breast bone or to press down in to your sitting bones to lift up. But what happens when we start to lift and twist by lifting from the sacrum (the middle/back of the pelvis)? How is our movement up and round improved? What new knowledge do we feel in our bodies? This way of approaching lifting the spine and twisting broadens the abdomen and organic body much more profoundly than we feel when focusing on the upper body initiating the movement and yet the upper torso still lifts and turns, maybe even more so. What do you think? Practice and see :-)
Read More75 Mins
When we go backwards we are heading in a direction where we cannot see where we are going. We reach back in to the unknown but we take with us what we do know. We also trust. We know how to extend, arch, lift and lengthen. We know where the earth is or where our toes are even if we can’t see them. We know how our body feels moving in space, so as we go backwards we trust our body to take us there. Backbends also require us to open our chests and shoulders, lengthen our abdomen, hip flexors and quads. Opening each part of the spine evenly, not over using our flexible parts or under using our stiffer parts. It’s really a work of art, moving, breathing and backbending.
Read More75 Mins
Holding a posture is often the strongest part of the practice physically. Then we practice staying, making the pose homely so that we can then experience feeling; the doing has been done, nothing has to be held. After the doing and the holding the homely state will start to come more quickly with practice. What we can create, maintain and enjoy in our practice begins to feel limitless and we find a state of peacefulness in many poses that may have started off feeling stressful or difficult. Our mission is for a state of being where feeling homely comes naturally no matter the difficulty. Here we explore breathing whilst holding in a variety of postures that lift and expand our upper rib cage and shoulders, challenging our balance as well as looking for different breathing patterns when the body isn’t straining or stressed.
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So much of what we do rolls from one thing in to the next, we don’t allow for space between one event or thought and the next. The problem is that things can then become a jumble and we can take on too much. We can use our practice to observe the space in between and how this helps us to not only calm the nervous system but move more freely and more spaciously. The space between the inhale and the exhale, the exhale and the inhale, the space between the pelvis and the ribs, the shoulders and the neck, the ankle and the knees, the eye brows even .. you get the idea. In this practice we look at creating more space in the chest and shoulders through the extension, movement and placement of the arms and legs in different plains. It’s fun and uplifting to move freely :-)
Read More75 Mins
There is no doubt our arms and legs have different functions. If we were meant to walk on our arms, they would be our legs. But there are lots of poses in Yoga where we are asking our arms to hold and carry the weight of our body or share the load with our legs. That doesn’t mean this is about handstands, we do it downward facing dog, side arms balance etc. And very often we shift our body weight from one to the other and back again. By looking at ways to use the arms to support our body weight, how our connection to the arms from our torso (front, sides and back) needs to be balanced and stabilised in the shoulder joint so we can move with confidence, without struggle and see how our arms can be as supportive as our legs.
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Each week I let the theme I am working with come to me intuitively. This week it started with a seed that started looking in to the month of September and it’s place in Chinese elemental philosophy, which lead me to reading about the element associated with Autumn, which is metal and how this relates to the lung meridian. I also wanted to work towards Urdva Danurasana as this challenging back bend hadn’t been on our menu for quite some time. As it turns out backbends and the path towards urdva danurasana trace the lung meridian perfectly and increases our connection to opening, lifting and increasing range of movement in our upper torso and also our capacity for deeper and fuller breathing. The qualities associated with a balanced metal element are being flexible and malleable. If metal is deficient you can feel very rigid and stuck and experience restrictions with your respiratory system.
Read More75 Mins
For me I have spent so many years dedicated to lengthening my hamstrings I have relatively neglected to balance out the length in my front body. Here we look at a practice which requires us to lengthen and open the front side of our body. This is a significant component when back bending and using the curve through the entire spine and not just segmenting the spine or just using the most flexible parts (lower back and neck) to move in to a back bend. Most of these poses require us to lengthen the front of the thigh, strengthen the glutes and mobilise the upper back (dorsal). It also gives us some insight in to where we hold on and where we need to let go. A life long balance to seek and find.
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When we focus our attention on opening one place we can experience many asanas from a whole new perspective. We continue with our opening and lifting of the upper torso and see how this is not only applied to back bends but can also apply to forward folds, arm balances and inversions. All poses that require us to extend and lengthen our front body.
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What does something we do with one part of our body do to affect another part? This is the constant see saw we explore in our Yoga practice. Everything is connected and we can see this when we feel that no movement we take is singular in it’s experience. What we do with one part of our body has an effect on another. Here we explore the act of back arching, principally by opening the upper back but in such a way we feel the movement all the way through the legs so the body as a whole comes in to the arch. Then we start to notice less the extent to which our back is bending but more the capacity we have for our front body to fully open and lengthen.
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When we cross over from right to left or from left to right it involves a twist/revolving movement through the spine. It also allows you to focus on feeling and stretching one side of the body at a time, principally the back side. We can also see how a twist or a turn can impact our ability to breath in to each lung. We also experience that there is asymmetry between our two sides. There is lots of exploration in this class, not just twists but cross body movements and accessible arm balances and transitions. Good training for the vestibular system too, learning about our sense of balance and spatial orientation. Have fun :-)
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The abdominals muscles are made up of the rectus abdominis, transversus abdominis and the internal and external obliques. In brief they provide support for the spine, support and protect our internal organs and help to regulate breathing. Muscles get stronger in the lengthening process (eccentric muscle contraction). Put simply it is when a muscle lengthens when it contracts rather than when it shortens and contracts. In this class we explore a huge variety of ways in which we lengthen and strengthen our abdominal muscles without a single sit up in sight. There’s lots of variety, movements in all directions and an exploration of all the abdominals muscles.
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There’s a sense that we have to hug in to lift up. If we gather ourselves towards our centre in order to extend our limbs in all directions it helps us to balance, move more symmetrically, strengthens our core and supports the spine. Stabilising the hip joint feels like we are hugging them in, same at the shoulder joint. This allows our arms and legs to move more freely but also helps us to find more length through the movement of these limbs. Essentially feeling longer and taller. If you have a Yoga brick this would be perfect for this class. We use it to connect our outer to inner legs and to balance on, really challenging the strength and stability of the joints in the leg chain (ankles, knees and hips). The sequencing leads us to Shoulder stand (supported) and here we can really appreciate how the preparatory work of the legs helps us to lift up and lengthen, taking the weight and pressure off our shoulders, so we feel lighter and able to elongate upwards.
Read More45 Mins
In this fundamentals class we focus on poses where we can move the arms in different directions; forwards, to the side, up and over and backwards. Opening, lifting and lengthening the sides of the body . The family of poses that require us to be very still and strong in the core of our body so we do not use either extension or flexion of the spine. We explore how our arms are connected to our whole torso rather than just being a movement that comes from our shoulders. We stabilise our centre (core) and pelvis so we don’t zig zag the body in order to balance when we are moving our limbs, principally our arms in different directions.
All these poses help us look at ways we can find more length in the side body in order to more effectively find freedom of movement in our shoulders.
Read MoreI haven’t taught a splits prep class in a while, so this is a first for the library. I have had dreams whereby I slide in to them effortlessly, sadly this is not my reality right now, but each year I do get closer to the ground. What is glorious about splits is actually the preparation, you have to open both the front of the body, mainly the hip flexors to allow the chest to lift and for the back leg to be able to extend away, and the back body, principally the hamstrings to extend the front leg forwards.
The pose, Hanumanasana is named after Hanuman, the monkey god, son of the wind (Vayu) who was known for his giant leaps, whereby he could stretch his legs incredible distances. The power of his back leg propelled him skywards whilst his front leg would reach and stretch towards his destination. Feel the powerfulness of this pose, be brave and experiment (safely) with what is possible. Most importantly, enjoy the journey.
Read MoreThis class focuses on opening the chest and shoulders through a full range of different movements and actions. There is also an emphasis on core stability and strength to allow the arms as well as the legs to lengthen in all directions. With preparation we move towards Shalabhasana (locust pose) which resembles more sky divers pose in the beginning. It is a prone backbend that builds strength in the paraspinal muscles (3 muscle groups that support your back) and the legs. We finish off with right angled handstand and/or the preparation for weight baring on the arms before concluding in Setu Banda Sarvangasana. This can all be done without props but if you have a yoga belt and a bolster this would be super beneficial.
Read MoreIf you are spending long periods of time sitting, whether this is at a desk, driving or feeding a new baby the pull in the body to slump becomes harder to resist. Our focus in this class is how we can counter the effects on the upper back (the hunch) through shoulder/chest openers and twists. There are so many options to relieve discomfort and a lot of the postures can be taken individually and practiced regularly on their own for relief. Never be intimidated by the length of a class, we are not doing this particular class in order to achieve a deeper backbend or a fancy arm balance. This is like first aid and does not need to sequential if you do not have the time to follow the full class.
Read MoreSometimes you realise there are elements of your practice you are neglecting or ignoring. This can be consciously or unconsciously. It’s always nice to practice the things that come to us effortlessly and that we enjoy whilst resisting the things that make us uncomfortable or are practices that we don’t enjoy. Blockages can be physical, if we are injured or feeling poorly certain practices should be avoided, but it is deciphering if we are always avoiding the same things because of what we tell ourselves we feel about this certain movement or practice. Sometimes it’s about finding a different path, a different perspective and a new way of approaching or looking at something. Backbends are the perfect practice to explore this. When they come easy the practices are energising and fun and make you feel strong and alive. But when you you feel stuck, heavy or resistant they can leave the body and mind (ego) feeling depleted and deflated. This practice gives an accessible route in to back bending/front lengthening that can be kept very simple or advanced as your mood, body or practice decides. One thing to emphasise is that back bending shouldn’t cause you lower back pain. Once we learn to use our legs and open the upper back and chest properly the lower spine and pelvis are completely stable. Please discontinue practising any movements that cause pain or lasting discomfort.
Read MoreOne element that is hard to avoid in any style or level of Yoga class is shoulder mobility. Rarely is flexibility over strength or strength over flexility the solution, it is a happy interchange between the two. This class we focus on mobility and gaining greater range of motion in the shoulder area, which includes the connections to the chest (muscles and bones), the ribs and upper back. With repetition of certain actions and movements we see how this has a dynamic effect on the movement range of our upper torso and how our body has the potential to use this information to practice asanas that require more weight baring. Primarily because our body feels lighter, we are no longer over using and creating stress in the same and often the wrong muscles.
Read MoreMoving from our centre helps us to balance, stops us from falling and enables us to move with increased awareness in all directions. In this class we investigate how a balanced “core” that is both strong and flexible can help us twist, open and lift our chest, backbend, forward fold, roll, invert, and of course do ab-centric asanas too. You can do just about anything and find healthy, pain free movement patterns that will strengthen your practice and help you prevent and/or observe imbalances in your body.
Read MoreBy changing the direction we place our palms we can change the experience of the arms, shoulder girdle and chest and completely transform some of our backbends. We also start to consider kumbaka as a moment, a pause at the top of our inhale that can reveal a profound stillness. Our practice culminates with an introduction to Maha Mudra.
Read MoreIt is too simplistic to say you can open the shoulders without opening the chest, and you can’t open the chest without opening the back and none of these areas are unconnected to the hips or legs. But we have isolated shoulder movements that open the chest and chest openers that open the shoulders. With forward extensions to lengthen the hamstrings to further elongate and lift the upper body.
Read MoreWe twist, we open, we lengthen, we release. Like a 360degree tour around the ribcage to lengthen, stretch and release the chest, upper back and side body for optimal lift and preparation for shoulder stand. Strengthening the legs and twists prepare the body perfectly for all lifts, backbends and inversions.
Read MoreLengthening the sides of our bodies means creating space between the pelvis and the shoulders. Helping ease possible feelings of restriction or tightness without necessarily going straight to the centre of where the tightness is felt. Clearing the pathways to the major junctions/joints in the body is crucial, looking at the space in between. The ribcage is pivotal in connecting us to all sides of ourselves.
Read MoreExploring range of movement in the shoulders for increased mobility in the whole shoulder region, including upper back (traps) and chest opening.
Read MoreMobility in the shoulders comes hand in hand with mobility in the connections to the torso. Here we explore how a wide ‘wing’ span can create width in the chest, improved balance and more freedom in the shoulders.
Read MoreOpening the armpits to free the arms from the chest and create both horizontal and vertical space in the torso. Exploring from a multitude of base leg positions.
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