Practice time

When people ask me how long I practise yoga each week, I'm usually pretty evasive, second-guessing the response I think I'll get. I usually down-play it, since most people look perturbed at the idea of daily practice. And even in the company of serious students/teachers I also hesitate to make my practice sound too heavy... Continue Reading →

June 12, 2017 1

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

Laughing plank

I went to a long class-cum-workshop at the weekend. Honestly it wasn't quite what I expected but of course I learned heaps from it nonetheless. It was a deliberately very challenging sequence with the explicit aim of 'pushing our buttons' and seeing what happened, providing a laboratory for us individually to observe our responses and... Continue Reading →

May 1, 2017 2

Cruelty in Sanskrit class!

“Can I be cruel?” my Sanskrit teacher asked in class this week. Actually all he was proposing was that we read out loud the new vocabulary lists rather than listening to him introduce us to unfamiliar words. Not so terribly cruel after all, but the rules of engagement for adult learning are very different to... Continue Reading →

May 19, 2016 2

The Joy of Sanskrit

I hauled myself down to London last night (it's never my fave destination and my icky cold isn't going away so this was a big effort). I'd booked on to a Sanskrit seminar weeks and weeks ago and I didn't want to waste the opportunity. Actually it turned out to be great timing since my local... Continue Reading →

October 3, 2015 2

Letting go of expectations in yoga asana

It started when the yoga teacher said she was 'managing expectations' when she told students who hadn't pre-booked the class that they were unlikely to get a place in class. For my part, I came to class full of expectations. And I didn’t manage them all that well. I expected my hamstring to be tricky to... Continue Reading →

June 1, 2015 0

What’s the point? lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu

Around Christmas I spent some time reflecting on what the point of yoga is, or rather what is the point of my yoga. To be sure when I started asana practice I had very limited ambitions, and they were all about me. Nothing wrong with that. We all start somewhere. And something I'm realizing about... Continue Reading →