Asking for it

When I finished teacher training I asked the studio if I could teach for them. I didn't get a reply which I interpreted as you might expect. Fair enough. The last message I remember us getting as little trainees was that we were 'babies who knew nothing'. Not quite the graduation pep talk I was... Continue Reading →

April 15, 2022 4

Picking up

I taught my first in person, indoor class this week after.... what is it now? 18 months or so? I've lost track. In England we've had multiple lockdowns, so many government u-turns and obfuscating changes of regulations... Throughout that time I maintained a zoom community of students. Bar a couple of necessary pauses I've brought... Continue Reading →

September 17, 2021 7

Au revoir yogi

A year on almost and I still can’t decide how I feel about teaching yoga on zoom. I’m guessing I’m not alone in that. You know how it is — some days it feels great and the connection with students feels real and useful, other days it feels full of frustrations and communication fails and... Continue Reading →

March 23, 2021 0

Yoga conversations

I had a lot of ‘conversations’ about yoga today, albeit in a lockdown kind of way. A stranger wrote to me asking for advice. They know I teach part time and they asked me how I could do this, and didn’t I feel divided because I wasn’t a full time yogi. For them yoga was... Continue Reading →

February 11, 2021 3

Baggage train

I’m not a big fan of yoga teacher trainings. I pretty much hated my 200 hour end to end — which (I hasten to emphasise) says much more about me than about my patient teachers. I think they did a good job in 200 hours to set us up to be safe, competent enough, rooky... Continue Reading →

October 24, 2020 2

The privileged view

I remember the first time I encountered the idea of one’s physical posture reflecting one’s mental state, current or past (i.e. whether a reflection of stuff of the moment or a deeper expression of past experiences of whatever sort). It really made me angry. And afraid. I felt as though I was laid bare under... Continue Reading →

October 16, 2020 0

New trust

In these strange socially-distant times, where I haven’t physically interacted with anyone other than my husband for nearly eight weeks, I could easily regress into full on privacy mode, hiding myself at home away from the world. I’m deliberately not doing that. I was working quite hard on my ‘trust issues’ (horrible phrase, I know)... Continue Reading →

April 27, 2020 1

Virtually enough

I was having a bit of a teaching wobble earlier this week. One of those periodic crises of confidence. I’ve been teaching long enough now that I expect it and am usually content to allow the waves of uncertainty to wash over me a while, knowing it’ll pass. But this episode was magnified by the... Continue Reading →

April 24, 2020 1

Choose life

I was with my bodyworker on Monday. As always deep, deep work. She sure likes to give me my money's worth! 75 minutes gets right into the very fibres of my body -- the work on my fascia is just the superficial layer compared to what lies within and beneath. I had wanted to address... Continue Reading →

February 15, 2020 4

Teaching honestly

I have a new regular student in class. She used to study with the Iyengar family in London -- and now she comes to me. Yikes! I was a bit freaked out at first, wondering what she would make of my lunchtime vinyasa flow class. But she keeps coming back, she seems content with what... Continue Reading →