My annoying habit with yoga blocks

After class the other day my friend told me about the difficulty she had during the practice, when we were doing supine twists. You know the problem? Mats close together means everyone has to roll in neat synchronisation, otherwise there's just not enough room. My friend's neighbour seemed to have arms and legs everywhere meaning... Continue Reading →

June 20, 2016 2

Yoga in the closet

I'm just back from a weekend visiting my family. A time for deep connection with those who know me most intimately, back in the house I grew up in. A time for reminiscing and replaying familiar jokes. A time for easy company, and well-established roles. In some senses a total reconnection with where I came from.... Continue Reading →

May 15, 2016 8

A daily necessity?

My teacher dropped the s-word into class this week. Sādhana. He glossed it as 'daily devotional practice' or something like that. Then he tried to qualify this, to restate it, perhaps wanting to soften the definition somehow. I don't know, I'm just guessing from how I remember it. I sometimes wonder how many people in... Continue Reading →

November 8, 2015 4

Guilty eating

I worked myself up into a small tizzy recently about telling my mum and dad that I'm not eating meat at the moment, given that we're all away for a week's holiday together. They are what you might call traditional English eaters -- meat and two veg and all that. Plus they regularly fret about... Continue Reading →

July 30, 2015 2

Expressing happiness

I realised recently that I've developed an emotional tic of biting my lip. Not an anxiety thing, but as a way of controlling the insane grin that's liable to break across my face at odd moments when I relax. I notice this a lot while I'm out and about, walking to work, doing the shopping. It's less a... Continue Reading →

June 11, 2015 0

Wise choice or ill thought out relativism? On being a ‘flexitarian’

I blogged recently about my food choices as a yogini, where I wondered if acting locally (looking after myself and those closest to me) was as valid a way of practicing ahimsa (non-violence) as acting globally (looking after the ecology of the planet). This blog post attracted quite a lot of attention (what does a 'like'... Continue Reading →