Keeping it in the family

I'm realising that when people know you're a trained yoga teacher there are two reactions: they either expect you to 'fix' anything that's ever been wrong with them and assume you live some kind of austere ascetic lifestyle, or there's mistrust and cynicism, doubting that you know anything of any value. I don't think I'm... Continue Reading →

August 3, 2017 3

Flow of words

In my teaching this week I was thrown off what I'd prepared by a comment at the start of class which kicked off some ideas in my mind and the moment I opened my mouth I found I was extemporising from her comment instead of doggedly sticking to my prepared plan. The physical sequence was... Continue Reading →

July 21, 2017 5

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 →

July 5, 2017 6

Yoga in the heatwave… and after

We had a heatwave in England recently. I loved it! I am definitely solar powered. I come alive when the rest of the country is wilting. And practice feels different in my body. Muscles just feel nicely stretchy from the outset. I don't know that I move more deeply within any particular āsana, but from... Continue Reading →

July 3, 2017 0

Weird wonderful Wednesday

Wednesdays are weird days for me. It's the one day of the week when I work a half day in the office and then the afternoon is mine. Or Yoga's! 🙂 It's the time when I usually teach, and I also have time to work on some yoga-related writing assignments and maybe a bit of... Continue Reading →

May 31, 2017 4

Open to learning

The guru mantra got me from the first time I encountered it. After all I love learning, exploring, and sometimes mastering new things; I've always enjoyed finding ways to teach myself and I've been blessed with some truly phenomenal teachers through my life. I'm married to a teacher too! So I guess the surface message about learning... Continue Reading →

May 27, 2017 4

Month by month

I'm a few months now into my routine of a monthly private session with my teacher. It sort of feels already like an indispensable yoga must-have, but it also feels like early days in something new, something that I am/we are feeling our way into. What do I want from this opportunity? Help with figuring out... Continue Reading →

May 14, 2017 1

Enough already!

"Enough already!" It depends how you say it. It's either a slightly tetchy way of telling someone to stop doing something or it's a kind acknowledgement of the sufficiency in all things. I'm flip-flopping back and forth at the moment with both ways of talking to myself. I am having serious 'enough' issues, feeling never... Continue Reading →

April 28, 2017 2

The secret formula

I saw one of my teachers recently whom I haven't seen in a while and perhaps only a few times since TT. We had a great chat after the class he gave. He asked whether I was teaching and because he's one of those quiet steady types with eyes that see right into you, I found... Continue Reading →

March 24, 2017 3

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 →