65 Mins

Pulsing, moving and lengthening

This class was taught as the first class in January, after Christmas and in the UK a time when it’s pretty dark outside. Often Christmas is spent more sedentarily and possibly with more food and alcohol than usual (this is by no means a blanket assumption!!) But I like to start the month focusing on waking up the body with pulsing movements rather than long holds, abdominal lengthening to elongate the whole torso and get to work on posture. I lifted spine is a mood enhancer as well as being necessary for a healthy spine. I love these practices; core centric, innovative, interesting, challenging and fun.

HATHA FLOW, Chest opening, Abdominals, Balance, Strength, Front body lengthening, FunctionGemma NashJanuary 12, 202365Mins

Lifting The Pelvic Abdomen

65 Mins

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 :-)

Understanding and Standing

65 Mins

Standing and Understanding

This was filmed during a heat wave and is the perfect practice for when the body is depleted and doesn’t need to be over heated or over stimulated. And when it doesn’t want to move in and out of things quickly. We use the belt, the wall and the floor for our support and feedback and explore how opening the sole of the foot helps us engage all the muscles in the legs up to the pelvis with poses like trikonasna, ardha chandrasana, anantasana, Supta padagustasana 1 & 2 and uttitha hasta padangustasana. I love practicing this way, it gives you both the time and support to feel what the body is doing and with how much more range and ease with which you can move.

HATHA FLOW, Function, Adductors, Groin, Hips, Mobility, RestorativeGemma NashJuly 21, 202265Mins

Organising Ourselves - Moving Directions

65 Mins

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.

To Pull Apart - Extension

65 Mins

To Pull Apart - Extension

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!!

Calf Wrapping - - Connecting the Dots

65 Mins

Calf Wrapping - - Connecting the Dots

Some instructions can seem so obscure that at first you have no idea how to ask your body to respond. Something seemingly insignificant, like pressing your big and lifting your toes or wrapping your outer calves in. But when the brain and the body do connect with the action you start to feel some profound changes and make some new discoveries about your body and how no part in disconnected from another. Put simply the action of hugging the calves makes us engage the whole leg better and allows the glutes to ignite and for the hip socket to feel more compact and for us to be able to lift up out of our pelvis, lengthen the spine and to lift and open the chest with greater ease as a result.

HATHA FLOW, Function, Hips, Adductors, Balance, Chest opening, Groin, Legs, MobilityGemma NashMay 13, 202265Mins

Hip Huggers

65 Mins

Hip Huggers

As well as having a love for adding belts in to a practice I also love using the brick between my thighs. It completely revolutionised my practice. It switched on a way of activating sleepy muscles in the legs that lift us out of our pelvis, stop the outward migration of the hip socket, strengthens the legs and actually makes us taller with greater control and stability being increased at the most central parts of our body, the pelvis. We use the block between the thighs a lot in this practice, then we take it away having woken up the muscles to work without the block, educating feeling and sensation in the body to work and function where we otherwise may have left these muscles laying dormant and relied on familial patterns to move from.

HATHA FLOW, Function, Hips, Adductors, BackbendsGemma NashMay 5, 202265Mins

ONLINE STUDIO OVERVIEW NOT VISIBLE TO STUDENTS

To Pull Apart - Extension

Calf Wrapping - - Connecting the Dots

Hip Huggers

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