Jade Lizzie

Sharing the yoga love

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Exhale Festival – a weekend of hardcore yoga

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On April 9, 2015

In Workaway, yoga, yoga class

Black and Light YogaI’ve been lucky enough to be volunteering at Suryalila Retreat Centre during the Exhale Festival. Although I was working the whole weekend, my perpetual fear of missing out meant I tried to squeeze in as much yoga as was physically possible. Not the most yogic attitude, I know. I’ll work on that for next time…

My day on Saturday began (after a quick round of dishwashing) with two hours of Rocket Club Yoga with Marcus. Ashtanga enthusiast that I am, I loved this Vinyasa class, and all of its intense sequences, deep stretches and brilliant assists. It reminded me of something an Ashtanga teacher told me – she doesn’t believe in “hot yoga” because when you are practising yoga vigorously, you create the heat from within anyway. This two hours definitely proved that point. I finished the class feeling hot, sweaty and invigorated.

Next came my fastest ever round of dishwashing and chicken duties to allow me to get to an Inversions 101 Cyber Yoga Workshop with Lamonte. If you haven’t come across Cyber Yoga before, check out Lamonte’s website here. It makes me hurt just looking at his Instagram feed. But as well as being an awe-inspiring performer, Lamonte also turned out to be a great teacher. He catered for every level in his class, from those who were practising lifting up into their first Crow pose, to those who were working on one-armed handstands. He encouraged us to take baby steps into the postures, telling us that only way to achieve “total body control” is through dedication and consistent practice. He should know. Although I opted out of the one-armed handstands (no one likes a show off…) I did discover that I can do tripod headstands, something I previously assumed I couldn’t because I’d never tried. Another yoga life lesson there for me…

I spent the next part of my day working in the Shakti Boutique at Suryalila, before dashing off to Envision Yoga with Vidya. I think I need to devote a whole blog in itself to Envision Yoga, a practice which includes Kundalini yoga, mantras and NLP. We created our own mantras for each of our chakras, and repeated them to ourselves while doing yoga, before shouting them at our partners. Even the thought of it made me want to hide behind the nearest pile of bolsters and not come out. But the session took me beyond my scepticism and left me feeling better than I have in a long time.

My uninhibited energy buzz from Envision Yoga was put to great use in the final yoga session of the day – Black and Light Yoga. For this our beautiful Om Dome was transformed into a UV light spectacle. Daubed in neon face paint, we began our session with yoga, before rolling up our mats and breaking into a rave. Forget dancing like no one was watching, we danced like everyone was watching, and loved it. Then, all danced out, we came back to our mats for a final yoga sequence, ending on a euphoric yoga-fuelled high.

That night I discovered the true meaning of falling asleep before my head hit the pillow, and was still up before 8am the following morning for the next Vinyasa class. The whole festival was an incredible, enlightening and exhausting experience. If I ever do it again, and I hope I will, I definitely need to learn to pace myself…

Facing my fears at Suryalila Retreat Centre

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On March 26, 2015

In travel, Workaway, yoga

TSuryalilahey say you should do something every day that scares you. I feel like I’ve been living by that mantra both on and off my yoga mat in my first week as a Workaway volunteer at Suryalila Retreat Centre.

When I arrived here last week, I was assigned the task of looking after the resident chickens. In the sunshine, as I was shown how to feed the chickens and collect their eggs, this seemed lovely. The next day, when it was freezing, and the rain had turned the field into a mud bath, it was less delightful. Fighting my way past hissing geese, I made it to the chicken coop, where most of the chickens were huddled out of the rain. I glanced to the side and saw one chicken on top of another. Oh look, I thought, 2 chickens having sex, how cute. Then I realised that the one on the bottom was dead. Horrified, I forgot all about collecting the eggs, and ran straight back to the centre, where my host told me that this was no big deal – lots of the chickens are very old and may well die soon. He calmly explained the “chicken disposal process” (essentially bag it, and bin it).

The walk back to the chicken coop, bin bag in hand, tears rolling down my face, was not a pleasant one. I tried to tell myself that this was nothing – it’s perfectly natural for old chickens to die, and really not a big deal to get rid of a chicken corpse. This didn’t help. I’m still not sure what I found so terrifying about getting a dead chicken into a bag, but I suppose fears aren’t always rational. It took a very long time to get the body bagged for removal. It was such a relief when I was finally able to leave the coop and know I didn’t have to return for another 24 hours. Surely I would not be unlucky enough for this to happen again anytime soon.

Unfortunately, luck was not on my side. The next day brought another dead chicken. I don’t know statistically how improbable 2 deaths in 2 days is for a relatively small brood of chickens, but this did not seem like very fair odds to me. At least this time I was slightly more prepared. I had bin bags with me, and although disposing of the body still left me retching, at least I didn’t cry this time. Which I am considering huge progress.

I have also been making considerable progress in my yoga practice at Suryalila. The daily vinyasa yoga classes here are brilliant. Except on my teacher training, I have never practised yoga so intensively, and I am loving it. The yoga teachers have been great at helping me to overcome some of my non-chicken-related fears. For the first time this week I have managed to kick up into a handstand properly, rather than jumping into it, and I have finally moved away from the wall and attempted a headstand in the middle of the room, under the watchful eye of my lovely teacher. Admittedly when I tried this again on my own, I fell over, but as she pointed out, once you’ve fallen, the fear isn’t so bad. And she’s right.

So I’m really excited and slightly terrified about the other challenges Suryalila has in store for me over the next three weeks. I feel like I’m learning a lot and being pushed out of my comfort zone, which was the whole point of this trip in a lot of ways. As long as there are no more dead chickens, I think I’ll be fine…

Gloss paint, mouldy fridges and burnt brownies

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On March 17, 2015

In travel, Workaway, yoga

View from my windowThe title of this blog doesn’t sound particularly yogic, which is because there isn’t going to be a lot of yoga in this one I’m afraid. In fact, my first ten days in Spain have been so bizarre and unexpected, I wasn’t even sure I should write about them on my blog. But, in the words of Swami Kripalu “To perform every action artfully is yoga.” I’ll leave you to judge just how “artfully” I’ve been performing my actions this week…

I’m currently using Workaway to allow me travel and do yoga while volunteering in exchange for accommodation and food. Great, in theory. For my first placement I stayed with a writer in Andalucia. He told me he wanted help with managing his social media and looking after his villas. Great, I thought. The place looks beautiful (I wasn’t wrong there!), I love social media, and maybe I can learn a bit about writing from him too. The reality was somewhat different.

After a few days to settle in, I was put to work painting the bathroom, while my host went on a trip. This didn’t sound too bad, except the bathroom in question was dark red, and my host wanted it painting ivory. With gloss paint. This was possibly the worst idea in the history of decorating. Three coats of gloss later and the dark red was still showing through. My best attempts to protect the floor tiles from the interminable drips of ivory paint had failed, and everything I touched became a painty, tacky mess. As for me, after three days of being stuck on my own in the tiny bathroom, I was high on paint fumes, covered in gloss paint that no amount of showering with turps was removing, and going borderline crazy.

Things did not improve on my host’s return. Clearly (and rightly) judging me unfit to decorate any other rooms, I was given less responsible tasks, such as bleaching a mouldy fridge, and scrubbing a rusty barbeque. The fridge I did a decent job of, the barbeque less so. Have you ever tried cleaning a barbeque with a wire brush? It didn’t go well for me. I cut my hand on the brush, and covered myself in soot. Coupled with the paint spatters, it was an attractive look. Eventually, sick of trying to swill said barbeque in a tiny bucket of water, I gave up, and rinsed it in the swimming pool. Not good, I know, but determined to stick to my yogic principles of truthfulness, I confessed immediately afterwards. I don’t think my host was actually listening, but at least I tried, right?!

Just as I thought I had done as much damage as it was possible to do, my host invited a large group of friends for lunch. He asked me what cake I would bake for dessert. I tried to tell him that baking isn’t really my thing, but this fell on deaf ears. So after googling a recipe that promised “best ever brownies” I got stuck in. The recipe told me to check the brownies after 25 minutes. What the recipe did not take into account was the volcanic heat of the ancient gas oven in the villa. After 16 minutes I caught unmistakeable whiffs of burnt cake. I rescued the brownies before they were entirely inedible, but the edges and bottom were undeniably blackened. It’s fine, I thought, hopefully by the time they’re served everyone will have had so much wine that they won’t notice. As my host watched me hack off the worst of the burnt bits, he informed me that his guests included a former chef of Mick Jagger and Michelin-starred restaurant owner. Brilliant.

Thankfully, everyone – chef included – was very gracious about my overdone offering. And all in all it wasn’t a bad week – the place was absolutely stunning (see picture!), the weather was beautiful, and I was able to do yoga every day by the pool, which let’s face it I wouldn’t have been doing back in the UK. But I have learnt that I need to select my Workaway placements carefully and perhaps stick to those with a clearer focus on yoga. And no, I still haven’t got all the gloss paint off myself!

Planning, preparation and borderline panic

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On March 8, 2015

In travel, yoga

SuitcaseReflections on my last week in the UK…

One of the reasons I started yoga was for the feeling of calm it left me with. And since I began practising every day, I have been noticeably more relaxed. Except last week. Last week there were more relaxed chickens in slaughterhouses.

It didn’t help that I left all planning and preparation to the last minute. I had a house to move out of, a car to sell, all my worldy goods to store, vaccinations to arrange, flights to book and that was all before I even thought about packing. I needed to do lists to keep track of my to do lists. Given that I am not the most naturally well-organised person in the world, this sent me slightly mad.

I found myself frantically multitasking, and doing it badly. At any one time I would be emailing a Workaway host, checking travel insurance details, dividing clothes into “take”, “leave” and “maybe” piles, and trying to get a last minute appointment at the travel clinic.  All this really meant is that completing these jobs took ten times longer than it should have.

Unfortunately during this time when I probably needed yoga more than ever, it became just another task to tick off the list. Determined not to let my daily practice slide, I made sure I did it, but in retrospect this may not have been the best decision. I found myself in forward bends, with my mobile between my feet, texting people about selling my car. It wasn’t until I cut my ankle falling out of a headstand because I was trying to grab my sunglasses case from under the table that I knew I’d taken multitasking too far. Quite aside from the mental benefits of being mindful during yoga practice, it turns out it’s downright dangerous not to be…

It was a huge relief to find myself on the plane at last, knowing that although I still wasn’t Montecorto bedroom100% organised, I was on my way anyway. And doing my yoga practice this morning in a beautiful room that looks out over the Andalucian countryside was a very different experience. I even managed to turn my phone off, which I consider real progress!

3 ways Ashtanga yoga proved me wrong

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On February 20, 2015

In Ashtanga, yoga

ShouderstandsUp until last year, I’d had very limited experience of Ashtanga yoga – I’d been to one class and had watched a few Youtube clips. I was not a fan. However, over the last few months, Ashtanga yoga has somehow seeped into my life, and I’ve worked my way up to a six-day per week Primary Series practice. One of the best things has been in the number of ways this daily practice has proved me wrong! These are 3 of my misconceptions…

  1. In Ashtanga, you need to perform advanced asanas perfectly

My first Ashtanga class felt competitive and almost aggressive.  I really wanted to like it, and to like it I thought I had to be “good” at it. I was so attached to the idea of achieving the perfect asana that when I couldn’t, I got frustrated. I looked around the class and saw others flowing through their vinyasas and seemingly effortlessly moving into postures I found painful just to watch. I wondered how the hell I was doing so badly, and strangely enough, I found an excuse not to go back the next week!

I now realise that the competitiveness and desire for perfection came from me. No one in that class told me that I had to perform each pose fully, perfectly, or even attempt it at all if it was beyond my capabilities. The aggressive attitude was fuelled not by the teacher or the style of yoga, but my own ego. I wasn’t willing to allow myself to be a beginner. Once I let go of the desire to do it “well” and just focused on the process of moving towards each asana, I found it to be a very different experience.

  1. Ashtanga hurts

Two years ago, doing a workout programme called Insanity (not an ironic name, as it turned out!), I injured my lower back, which caused chronic pain. Lots of nerve irritation and muscles in spasm did not go well with trying to force myself into the forward bends of the Primary Series during that first Ashtanga class, and I spent most of the class and the week after it in agony.

I realise now that the increased pain was not caused by Ashtanga but by my approach to it. I was trying to push through and ignore painful sensations. So when I tried it again, I went back to basics. I carefully, taught myself the asanas one at a time and valued the correct alignment more than going deeply into postures. In the process I learnt about my body – what worsened the back pain and what helped. I tried to lengthen, rather than bend into forward folds. I learnt the importance of strengthening and engaging my core, and found that hip openers greatly relieved the tightness in my lower back. I am still learning, but my pain is significantly reduced, despite the fact I am doing more physical activity than ever.

  1. Ashtanga is boring

When I first realised that Ashtangis do the same sequence of postures every time they practise, I couldn’t think of anything worse. I crave variety and change, and the thought of doing the same thing every single day seemed mind-numbingly dull. Even once I decided to give Ashtanga another try, I wasn’t keen on repeating it every day. I wanted to avoid those asanas that didn’t feel good and spend more time playing with the ones I could do.

But what I experimented with was just noticing those thoughts, and then continuing with my practice anyway. I found physical and mental strength in the discipline of not following my thought patterns into altered behaviour. And I began to tune into the subtle differences in my experience and the sensations of the asanas each day. When I did this, my practice became anything but monotonous. Every session is unique, and following the same series of asanas allows me to be more sensitive to the differences I feel in my body.

I’m just at the beginning of my journey with Ashtanga, and it’s already proved me wrong on many counts. I think this is a good thing, because it means I must be learning!  It’s not the only style of yoga I enjoy, but it has become the “bread and butter” of my self-practice.

Has anyone else had a change of heart about Ashtanga? Do you love it or hate it? Please comment and let me know – I’d love to hear your thoughts!

The image shows the pod of hotpod yoga, a purple inflatable room filled with yoga mats and lit at the sides.

Sweating it out at Hotpod Yoga in Nottingham

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On February 13, 2015

In yoga, yoga class

2021 Edit:

Since writing this post in 2015, I’ve changed my mind about hot yoga. I had one particularly bad experience of it in California, and on more than one occasion I finished hot yoga feeling physically ill and having aggravated injuries through overstretching. Instead, I now prefer to use the internal heat I can build through my own effort and breath in a strong yoga class.

However, I’m leaving the original post below for the sake of integrity. I know lots of people love hot yoga and I think it’s important you have chance to make up your own mind about these things (and you too have the right to change your mind!). I stand by my comment about taking a big towel though…

Why hot yoga could be ideal for reluctant yogis

It was with some trepidation that I arrived for my first ever hot yoga class on Tuesday evening at Hotpod Yoga in West Bridgford, Nottingham. The thing is, I’m the sort of person who gets nervous in a sauna. After 2 minutes, I feel panicky and have to check that a) I know where the door is, and b) I can open it. I’ve learnt the hard way that this can be off-putting for other sauna users, hence I tend not to inflict myself on them too often.

The image shows the pod of hotpod yoga, a purple inflatable room filled with yoga mats and lit at the sides.
Photographer credit: Ed Reeves

So it was with some relief that after a lovely welcome from Sarah, the teacher, I let myself into the heated pod, and found that it felt pleasantly warm, not unbearably hot. I could actually breathe quite easily. The pod itself I can best describe as an inflatable, deep purple tardis. It’s a sort of grown-up, enclosed bouncy castle, lit by candle lamps and heated with portable heaters. Now, I’m no snob about where I do yoga. In fact, some of the best classes I’ve attended have been in run-down community centres with biscuit crumbs from the morning’s toddlers’ group stamped into the carpet. However Hotpod Yoga Nottingham had transformed this unremarkable church hall into a space which felt almost magical. It was as if we were cocooned in our own special little yoga bubble.

However, my slightly smug “It’s not even that hot in here,” thoughts did not last long. After 10 minutes of gently-flowing vinyasa yoga, I was drenched in sweat. My nana used to tell me that ladies don’t sweat, they glow. If this is true, my experience at hot yoga proved beyond any shadow of a doubt (as if this were needed) that I am no lady. Before the class I had deliberated over my choice of towel – I could only lay my hands on either a little gym towel or a giant bath sheet. I opted for the little one, a decision I quickly came to regret. I could have done with two bath sheets. Performing parivrtta trikonasana becomes a whole lot more challenging when you are trying to stop yourself from sliding right off your mat and into your neighbour.

That said, the heat really helped my muscles to let go. Under Sarah’s encouraging guidance, I felt my body move easily into deeper lunges, twists and back bends. My upper back and shoulders, where I hold a lot of tension because I work on my laptop for most of the day, clicked and crunched satisfyingly through the whole practice. By the end they were so released I felt like my head was lighter. It was better (and cheaper!) than a deep-tissue massage.  I had also tried my first Kayla Itsines workout the day before and so I was experiencing major DOMS in my quads. This class was great to ease some of that out.

I’d say in fact that this class is perfect as a counter to both sedentary office-style working and any physical training which leaves you feeling tight and sore.

Although as I’ve practised yoga, I’ve become more comfortable with exploring some of its more spiritual aspects, I know a lot of people who would benefit from yoga are resistant to trying it. They find its new-age, hippy-ish reputation too esoteric and off-putting. HotPod Yoga as its website states, pares down “thousands of years of yoga tradition…to some critical, logical and powerful elements.”  This makes it ideal for anyone who wants to feel the physical benefits, as well as the relaxation of yoga, without “chanting, a cult mentality… or haughty gurus.” I think the “Namaste” from Sarah at the end of the class was about as overtly spiritual as the class got, and yet I still left it feeling physically and emotionally uplifted.

To sum up, despite all my initial reservations, I whole-heartedly recommend you give hot yoga a try. Just remember to take a decent-sized towel!

Yoga Teacher Training in Valencia: The Highlights

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On February 11, 2015

In travel, yoga, Yoga Teacher Training

Why I’d choose Yoga Teacher Training over a holiday any day of the year…

Valencia pool picI spent 10 beautiful days in Valencia in October last year beginning my Yoga Teacher Training with Bahia Yoga. It was amazing. I got a few quizzical looks when I told people I was spending 10 days of my precious annual leave on a course. “But don’t you want a holiday?” was a question I was asked a lot. I did (and still do, to be honest!) but this was better.

Before I start to rave about the weather and the stunning surroundings (which I am going to, you have been warned!), it is worth pointing out that this was a serious study course, not a yoga retreat. Every day I learnt so much physically, academically and emotionally that my brain hurt and my body ached.  Despite the fact I am usually a chronic insomniac, I fell asleep almost instantly each night, which was a good job given that our alarm for morning meditation went off at 5.45am. I enjoyed the whole process though, massive geek that I am. Having spent five years as a teacher, there is something lovely about allowing yourself to be a student again, and completely focusing on learning from others.

Once I’d chosen to train with Bahia Yoga, I had a choice as to whether to study one weekend per month in Nottingham, or to do the course over two 10-day stints in Valencia. Now, I am a big fan of Nottingham – it’s my home city and I think it’s massively underrated, but I have to say, it was a no-brainer for me. The opportunity to study in beautiful Valencia, where we could practise outside, and relax by the pool during study breaks was one I could not turn down. Even the weather was on our side – it was October, but still beautifully warm and sunny.

Being so far away from everything, we were in a secluded little bubble. It was still pitch black when we got up each morning, but this meant I experienced for the first time the magic of practising yoga as the sun came up. Meals were eaten in silence (or at least we tried!) and the daily meditation practice meant I felt more relaxed and at peace than ever before.

That’s not to say that it was a humourless affair. It’s possible I’m slightly biased, but I am of the firm belief that people who do yoga are especially interesting, lovely and funny. And the wonderful people I trained with in Valencia proved my theory. It was like spending 10 days with old friends, except old friends whose stories and jokes you haven’t heard before, so you still have all the enjoyment of getting to know each other.

Admittedly this desire to learn more about each other did lead to some bending of the silence rules. Particularly around bedtimes, mild hysteria tended to kick in, as we dissected the day, whispering while we completed our homework. Decidedly un-yogic mosquito massacres also became part of our shared routine.  My new yoga buddies provided light relief when the physical practice became too intense – my favourite quote of the course came from one fellow trainee (who shall remain nameless!) who gasped after lifting up into Bow Pose. When the teacher asked her what was wrong she announced to the room, “It hurts my fanny!”

The whole experience was brilliant – I returned feeling rested, re-energised and motivated to make the changes in my life that I had been avoiding for a long time. I could not be more pleased that in April I will be returning to Valencia to (hopefully!) complete my Yoga Teacher Training. It turns out there are some things that are even better than holidays.

Yoga and cake with the cool kids in East London

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On February 8, 2015

In yoga

Photo reproduced with kind permission of Mandy at Emm in London

After a stressful week, spending a day in London with a friend yesterday was exactly what I needed. She’s recently moved to Bethnal Green, and we went to a Dynamic Yoga class with Adam at Stretch London on Ada Street, which came highly recommended by another friend. It was brilliant.

Since I started my yoga teacher training, I’m constantly on the lookout for things I can learn from other teachers – it’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about my travel plans for the next six months. As a teacher, and I’m not just talking about yoga here, I think you learn the most from watching other teachers – everyone has their own unique teaching style and that’s great, but I have never seen a single lesson or been to a single class that I couldn’t take something away from. That said, I’ve been focusing recently on my self-practice of yoga, so I was very ready to experience some actual teaching again.

The teacher and class yesterday were so good that had I not been completely zenned out by the end I would have been grabbing my notebook and frantically making notes so I didn’t forget anything. So while it’s still reasonably fresh in my mind, what did I like best?

The creativity and openness of the practice

I’ve been basing my daily practice for the last 12 weeks on the Ashtanga Yoga Primary Series. I’ll  blog about this soon, because I do love it, but because this is so structured and disciplined, it was great to mix it up a bit. I wasn’t sure what to expect from “Dynamic Yoga”, but it was a beautiful flowing class with quite an unexpected sequence of postures. Adam combined longer holds of postures with flowing sequences and vinyasas in an order which kept me on my toes, and yet felt very natural.  He invited his students to make the practice their own – to adapt if postures didn’t feel good.

The adjustments

This openness of approach did not lead to a lapse in focus on form, which can be the danger with very flowing classes. It’s so easy to inadvertently injure yourself by rushing through postures with poor form, but Adam’s instructions and adjustments were precise and clear. Yes, you could adapt the flow to suit your body, but no, you could not lose all sense of form and alignment. I love adjustments, because I find it difficult to sense where exactly my body is in space. I tell myself I’m not clumsy, just proprioceptively-challenged! Unsurprisingly, it turns out my hips in trikonasana and downward facing dog are nowhere near where I thought they were. I got two helpful adjustments during this class, which I thought was good going, considering there were 24 students in the class.

The supportive, yet challenging atmosphere

I’ll admit, I was a little apprehensive that the class would feel a bit cliquey – it’s right next to Shoreditch, so it definitely attracts the cool kids of yoga. But actually, the atmosphere was inviting and supportive. I felt completely welcome as a newbie and outsider, which does not go without saying at all yoga studios in my experience. Although Adam left it to us to determine the level that we pushed ourselves to, there were plenty of opportunities to take more advanced options. It challenged me in a different way to my ashtanga practice (and I can absolutely feel it today in my obliques! Yoga abs here I come…)

As an added bonus, we were able to float out of the yoga class and straight into Broadway Market. I personally recommend the organic carrot cake – it’s the best I’ve ever tasted (and I’ve tried a lot!).  It’s all about balance, right?!

Photograph reproduced with the kind permission of Mandy at Emm in London

How I learnt not to take yoga too seriously

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On February 3, 2015

In travel, yoga

Prayer flags Nepal

In 2007 I volunteered in Nepal with the charity TravelAid. Bhola Yogi, the principal of the children’s home where we worked offered to teach us yoga in return for our volunteering.  He didn’t have to ask twice. There was no way we were going to miss out on the opportunity to tell people we’d been taught yoga at 6am every morning on a rooftop in Nepal, by a man whose actual surname was “Yogi”.

6am yoga classes sound pretty hardcore, and in retelling the stories since, I’ve made them sound that way. But actually  in true Nepali style, Bhola-ji’s approach was laid back.  We would practise one posture, maybe two, and then Bhola would instruct us to, “Take rest.” Every minute of effort was followed by one of rest.  We loved it.  Yoga became an excuse to lie on our mats and gaze up at the sky as the sun rose each morning.

He had a similarly undemanding approach to postures that we found challenging. “If you can’t do the yoga, just think about doing the yoga. Same thing,” he would say with a dismissive wave of his hand. I’ve often wondered since whether this principle applies to other activities. When I can’t get out of bed on a bitterly cold January morning for my 6.45am spinning class, will just thinking about it have the same effect? I really hope so.

Bhola-ji did not shy away from directing us about the more personal details of our yoga practice. “Long toilet before yoga, so the stomach is free.  Short toilet after,” was his euphemistic instruction.  And he practised what he preached.  Many a morning we sat shivering on the rooftop at 6am waiting for Bhola to finish his “long toilet” before he would come to teach us.

Our yoga practices like most aspects of our lives in Nepal were seemed hilarious. Perhaps we were giddy from the shortage of oxygen at altitude, or maybe from the sugar in all the mangoes we were eating, but most postures had us collapsed in fits of giggles. Bhola positively encouraged this – one of his all-time favourite postures was Happy Baby, which he urged us to laugh our way through.  This wasn’t something I found difficult given that I was holding a position that made me feel ready for a gynaecological exam. It wasn’t elegant. When you add to that the fact that Bhola’s favourite instruction was to tell us all to “Relaaaaax,” you have a recipe for hysteria.

He had the last laugh. We’d been diligently practising our sun salutations for 4 weeks when Bhola admitted that the “Lion’s Roar” – an open-mouthed, claw-fisted posture that he’d encourage us to hold then loudly roar to release – was just something he included as a joke when he taught children. He never expected us to fall for it.

Being surrounded by such happy people with such an amazingly positive approach to life taught me not to

Returning to yin: my first yoga love

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On February 1, 2015

In Uncategorized

Yin YangI’m beginning my yoga blogging a little closer to home, with the class that started my yoga obsession. Perhaps surprisingly for someone who enjoys exercising to the point of sweaty, scarlet-faced, endorphin-fuelled exhaustion, my first consistent yoga practice was yin yoga. Shortly after I moved back to Nottingham in 2008, I went along to one of Mike Morris’ yin yoga classes, and from that point onwards I was hooked.  I went every week, and (sometimes!) even remembered to practise in between.

Yin yoga is a slow and mindful practice, where you hold postures for much longer periods of time than in most forms of hatha yoga, typically 3-5 minutes. Rather than muscular effort, you use gravity and your own body weight to go deeper into the postures. This allows access to the fascia and connective tissue, which in the Taoist tradition are thought of as the “yin” tissues of the body.

I loved it. The stillness, the calm, the letting go, and even the discomfort.  Because for all its deceptive gentleness, yin yoga can be really damned uncomfortable.  While you may not be holding the postures through muscular exertion, you still feel it. Trust me on this one. Five minutes of “allowing gravity to do the work” while you lie in sleeping swan with your leg tucked beneath you and your thigh externally rotating from the hip, and you really know about it. Gravity might be doing the work, but it’s certainly not going to take the discomfort for you too.

Yin yoga became my touchstone though.  That class every week was the closest I could get at the time to practising meditation.  I learnt to sit with my body, sit with the postures, sit with the sensations and not fight them. The idea of accepting and even exploring discomfort taught me more than months of therapy could have done.

I’ve since moved to Birmingham, where I haven’t found a yin yoga class yet, so it was with genuine excitement that on a trip back to Nottingham this month I was able to go back to Mike’s class.  Returning to the practice felt like coming home.  The discomfort, which my memory had dulled, was horribly and beautifully intense.  Moving into each posture was fascinating. I felt the difference in my joints that the last three months of daily yoga practice have made – more openness in some places, and new aches, tender points and restrictions elsewhere. It was like checking in with myself again.

If you are interested in learning more about yin yoga, check out the videos here and Mike’s website here. Let me know how you get on!

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