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

Corona birthday

So it turns out I’m now 45! I’m pretty proud of that! Today I am happy to be alive; it wasn’t always so. Today I delight in my body, its health and strength and adaptability; it wasn’t always so. But I’m not really looking back at past darkness. Nor am I extending my hopeful vision... Continue Reading →

April 19, 2020 3

Self-isolation, self-sufficiency

I haven’t written much during the covid-19 situation. I guess my feelings vacillate from feeling that the situation is too huge to comprehend, the global scale of it, to my own personal experience of it being on such a small, domestic scale as to feel insignificant on this international canvas. What can I add? Much... Continue Reading →

April 18, 2020 2

Zooming in

I am missing my teachers. When life is chugging along just fine and my practice is flowing and groovy, I can almost convince myself I’m OK alone, that I don’t need a teacher, that I know all I need to already. My teachers would tell me that’s exactly how it is! But back on Planet... Continue Reading →

March 21, 2020 3

On being a quitter

Aside from whatever asanas I’m interested in, my teacher often gives me some creative ‘homeworks’, encouraging me to explore my practice from a whole range of perspectives. Current assignment is to consider ‘what is real?’ Answers on a postcard please! Everything feels distinctly unreal right now, but not in any interesting philosophical way...! Another recent... Continue Reading →

March 20, 2020 2

Keep calm and keep clean

I’m on the mailing list for a few studios where I’ve taken class. So in the past couple of weeks I’ve read a bunch of different emails and newsletters as they reach out to their students in the face of the corona virus pandemic. As a teacher I also got sent advice from YAP about... Continue Reading →

March 13, 2020 1

Resolution on tiptoes

So is it time for a review of those new year's resolutions yet? I don't usually make any, I dislike the whole 'new year, new you' rhetoric, as if life isn't hard enough as it is, as if being me (fully me) isn't a life-long resolution in itself. The attempt to do that is pretty... Continue Reading →

March 1, 2020

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

The smell of anonymity

In that way of coincidences several people have talked to me recently about the phenomenon of ASMR, the phenomenon of noises evoking particular responses individuals. I think this can get weird quite quickly, but at a simple level it's a familiar idea that certain sounds or smells can take us to another time or place,... Continue Reading →