Classes Face to Face

(With home practice support via practice Sheets and Vimeo )

New Term Registrations

Thursdays 6.30 p.m. Foundation Face

and 8 p.m. Continuers

All Saints Junior School Brownlow Rd RG1 6NP

Thursday February 22nd-March 28th 2024

(6 weeks £63)

Enhancing our energy part two the Sun

New Term Registrations

Thursdays 6.30 p.m. Foundation

and 8 p.m. Continuers

All Saints Junior School Brownlow Rd RG1 6NP

Thursday February 22nd-March 28th 2024

(6 weeks £63)

Yoga is both a practice and tool box for improving our well being as well as a  path of self realisation. It works with practices for the body, breath and mind. This may involve improving how the body moves, centring our mind through breathwork, or changing how to react to our thoughts through meditation.  Ancient yogis formed methodologies to work with energy- our life force, known as PRANA. The dichotomy of this being the sun and moon energies. Ida (moon) and pingala  (sun)  energies.  Through our yoga practice we restore balance by recognising and working with our relationships and manifestations of both. When we practice  yoga we are helping to bring balance to these two opposing energies.

With the foundation of rest and care for both our body and nervous system being established through the monthly cycle we turn to the daily rhythm of sunrise and sunset. We will work with practices to rise and then contain our energy to greet the day but also help us to close the day. Sun salutations will provide a constant touchstone and in turn be explored to both modify and develop how different rhythms of movement, breathwork, sound and mantra  can provide the right balance for us on any given day. Working with our fire chakra, Manipuri, we can use certain postures and breathing techniques to move away from feeling sluggish or lethargic to build heat and generate more energy.  Our practices will be expansive, exploring taking up space both physically and energetically.  The practices of the sun will be safeguarded and nurtured by the moon energy.  By being in relationship with both we bring the third energy of balance.

Recent themes

Enhancing our energy part one, the moon

SThis time of year really is my favourite time to work with people establishing their yoga practice! Everything begins to shift around us, growth is seen, the day lengthens and sunlight begins to warm us again. This energy provides a slip stream for us to practice yoga. This term we will be looking at stabilising, rising and balancing our energy as we move in to the spring. We will be using the chakra energetic model. There are seven chakras areas following the direction of the spine that can create a focus for movement to release and strengthen. To unlock stagnant energy and to create mental and emotional focus. Each week focusing on a different chakra, starting from the base of the body, working our way upwards through the weeks to create change. Through movement, pausing, breathwork, imagery and mindfulness we will go on an energetic journey of sensory discovery which will create balance and holistic integration.

In foundation there will be ample explanation and demonstration for complete beginners as well as interest for those growing their practice, in continuers more challenge and depth with be available.

Functional movement and breath

Our postural and movement patterns are the result of a lifetime‘s worth of habit, interest, injury and how we take up space in this world. This creates the landscape of our body like a map that we can zoom in and explore. We can experience gravity and alignment seeing its relationship and connection to other areas and the body as a whole. The body as a living breathing map that the breath itself creates both the bridge and the lens for this exploration.

For example thinking about our feet. How gravity and the weight of the body falls through the feet. How we become aware of that in stillness and in movement, how we shift and then that ripples to the body affecting the position of the pelvis and the shoulders which intern affects the position of the spine. By exploring and bringing a lens of awareness through movement, meditation and breath work onto the feet we can begin to explore these connections through the body and find healthy ways of standing on our feet and moving from our feet to unravel and bring the body back into harmony.

In foundation class the practice will be accessible for all offering supportive demonstrations and modifications so that you can enjoy the practice at every level. In continuers class there will be an assumption of connection to the breath and the body to allow us to explore deeper.

I look forward to exploring with you!

Good Space

I need space. We all do. Especially now. Let me support you to move and breath into a better space through a yoga practice.

Our relationship with yoga is underpinned by some key vocabulary and philosophy which can be really fruitful to explore on the mat to create change and well being.

This term we will be exploring sukha and dukkha in relationship to the context and feeling of space. Sukha: good space and Dukkha: restricted space. Bringing into awareness and then challenging space that is unpleasant within the body, breathing and mind. From there being guided and supported to create an alchemy of good space through yoga practice.

What is your experience of space and how can we in our yoga practice move towards cultivating good space and reducing restricted space? When there is tightness and reduced range of movement in the body; pain and restriction, influence how our body is held in space and how it’s internal space is experienced. This holds a key to how we move through the world. Holding tension, muscular and joint pain, influences our nervous and endocrine systems and in turn our immune function. Our bodies posture, through habit and lifestyle, adds to this internal experience but also communicates something valuable about how we occupy space to those around us and in turn influences how they interact with us.

How space is experienced in our breathing and the restoration of it, in both the rhythms and stillness around breathing, has a profound effect both on our body and on our thoughts.

We will work to explore specific parts of the body and create awareness and connection there. Discovering where the restrictions are to our space, and shift it so it supports good space both there and for the rest of the body. Challenging habits and patterns creates a deep feeling of openness and ease in the body. Whether that be unlocking our shoulders or freeing space between our toes. Using breath work will will ease the boundaries around our breath and restore functional breathing and through this explore the different parts of the cycle of a breath to sustain good energetic space. Through this practice and focus, though mindfulness, we will create an opening of space and reflection around our thoughts so that clarity and compassion become more readily available. As we move and breath into the right space for us.

In foundation this experience will be supported by learning in a clear and accessible way the core skills of a yoga practice, with simple explanation and demonstration. Whilst in continuers there will be room to develop and take the practice deeper.

Past themes

Spring

The Sap is rising and the seasonal shift calls us to open the windows, let the air in on our practice and begin the work of renewal and change. Both growth in the physical goals for our bodies but also in how we support our energy through breath work. These conversations and practices around growth and change on our mat, in turn are guided by meditations to support attitude and vocabulary. This is key.

We will explore adventuring in our variations of asana as well as trying new postures. Breath work that reduces apana to open up and create a vacuum for more prana to come into our bodies. Bhandas (energetic locks) that support an intensifying of this energy work. Exploring this interplay between prana ( life force), Agni ( fire and change) and apana (detoxification). As always this work is best supported by our knowledge, understanding and respect for aryuveda. We come as a group of individuals to our practice and the more we understand what our constitution or dosha type needs, in this seasonal shift, the more we can reflect on our yoga practice, diet and dinacharyas ( self care practices) that can support us to leap, with energy, into this new season and year. All the more relevant for us now. Just as nature shakes of winter to harness energy we can work towards rebalancing and clearing our bodies from what we have experienced. In foundation this will be explored with teachings to understand the fundamentals of this seasonal shift in our practise whilst in continuers there will be more appropriate physical and mental challenge from this foundation already being in place.

Wintering

This term our practices will honour the strength of slowness and rest, deeply exploring the shedding of tension using the breath in held asana. In held postures we will focus on strengthening the core with bhandas to sustain this stillness and in turn allow risks in our movement to come with the spring. There will be an emphasis on energy work, translating wintering into the breath both in asana (postures)and pranayama (breathing) practices. The discipline of a slow cook in our practice to nourish deeply. Recognising that our own particular constitution and dosha types support or create risks in wintering and becoming sensitive to that. I will guide meditations for daybreak and dusk, practices to move by candlelight, recipes to nourish and abhyanga to preserve our bodies. Let’s winter together as a community.

Pause the body, slow it down and hollow out a space with the breath, a space for knowing and a spring for adventure to bubble forth. Wintering is hearing, listening rather than talking. Simplifying into here, now.

Stripping back our breath work without distraction, learning both to sensitise, recognise and stabilise our breath.

Whether you are a beginner, establishing a practice or working to deepen your longstanding yoga practice, teaching will create what you need to take us from here now, in winter, to spring. Learning both the core skills of a yoga practice whilst keeping it alive and relevant

Touchstones

This term we will be using the different aspects of a yoga practice as Touchstones. A Touchstone is an element of how our body, breath or mind works that holds the key to finding stability. Change is a challenge and an opportunity. When we navigate it from being firmly anchored in stability we can find well-being.

Soma. Our body. We will explore coming home to the 'ground beneath our feet', 'the courage of our heart' and 'space within even when we are without.'

Prana. Our lifeforce, energy. The breath. We will explore coming home to the 'stability offered on the exhale', home to the 'stillness in the breath that supports strength'.

Citta. The mind. Coming home to moving from 'fear to Here:Now' and the 'Gratutude of the heart'

putting together the jigsaw of good posture.

Pelvis

Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes