I trust my teacher. So when he gave me a ball at the start of our yoga session together I tried to go with it — even though ‘it’ was an excruciatingly awkward exploration of shoulder and hip mobility and how to connect the two. The ball balancing aspect added challenge, or focus, or maybe... Continue Reading →
Telling stories
Telling stories. Telling stories. RE-telling stories I was formally trained to study the past. I used to be an archaeologist. My academic training taught me that there's usually more than one interpretation of the evidence and if you follow the more radical post-modern theories the past is unknowable and all interpretations become equally valid... Death... Continue Reading →
What is and what is not
An artist comes into one of my classes each month to sketch the students in their asana practice. She’s a yogi herself and is learning to draw the human body in movement. We have some great conversations about how to read anatomy in the way we each need to. She told me that in life... Continue Reading →
Getting a handle on yoga
We've just got new internal door handles at home! Not big news in the grand scheme, but curiously significant in my small domestic world. We'd just been putting up with the style that existed when we moved in quite a few years ago now. Neither of us liked them one bit, but they were serviceable.... Continue Reading →
Forceful yoga
I was listening to a senior teacher talking recently about her background in dance and music and performance and wondering how to relate to that. I am not an exhibitionist or a performer. I write an anonymous blog. I prefer to be a silent witness in the back corner. Barely seen, not heard. My social interactions... Continue Reading →
Remember, remember
I started my class this week by asking if anyone could remember what we'd been chanting the week before, a simple sutra, familiar enough to me now that it readily springs to mind or lips in particular situations. It can be something of an anchor when I feel drowning in a sea of new (half)... Continue Reading →
Yoga lyrics
I'm the urban spaceman, baby; I've got speed I've got everything I need I'm the urban spaceman, baby; I can fly I'm a supersonic guy I don't need pleasure I don't feel pain If you were to knock me down I'd just get up again ... I wake up every morning with a smile upon... Continue Reading →
Equal parts of hope and doubt
I had lunch today with a fellow new graduate. She wanted to talk through the questions she's asking herself right now about teaching. It felt funny with her seeking my perspective on this. She has much, much more yoga experience than me (not just more years, but wider experience of different traditions) and her teaching... Continue Reading →
In the way but moving in the right direction
Crazy, wonderful Tuesdays. Up early for some teaching practice before breakfast. Then a busy day at work including a full-on couple of hours with my boss working through something bogglingly technical together because it was a two-brain problem, my lunchtime spent writing a little story in Sanskrit for my homework, then finally running out of the office... Continue Reading →
On friendship
I'm starting up my little bit of teaching again in a week and my thoughts are turning from my own practice to my teaching. I have a weekly semi-private with two former colleagues who sit on the edge of my friendship circle: we do a little bit of mostly in-office socialising, lunch and stuff. Ordinarily... Continue Reading →