Dying for the yoga class to finish

Hot tears leak unwanted from my eyes. They trickle down the side of my face and into my ears making the teacher's voice a little distorted. I'm lying in savasana, corpse pose. Some say it's their favourite yoga pose. How can that be? What do they find there that eludes me? Some say it's the... Continue Reading →

September 12, 2015 6

Losing control

It was one of those magical practices when the yoga happens and all you can do is let it. Let the breath come in and go out, let my limbs find their shape in each asana, let my body feel where to go -- bodily sensations only, no brain involved. The teacher's words resolved themselves in my movements.... Continue Reading →

September 2, 2015 3

Simple smiles

It's a long weekend in the UK. That in itself is enough to make me smile. Just a bit more time to do whatever presents itself. A feeling of a bonus day. It's been a day full of things to make me smile: Surprising sunshine on my way to class this morning. I felt properly... Continue Reading →

August 29, 2015 4

Sweet vairagya — cake and yoga

My teacher started class last night with a personal story. It was about wanting something, having it taken away, finding a way of accepting that — and then having it offered to you after all. It happened trivially, rather sweetly, to be about wanting a cake-trip to a favourite café. But it could have been... Continue Reading →

July 22, 2015 1

May was (supposed to be) the month of pranayama

A good few weeks back kiwiyogirunner and I came up with a crackpot notion of tackling our mutual aversion of pranayama by facing it down and bringing it into our practice more during the month of May. I think she might have had a fever when she agreed to this. Her May didn't start so well... Continue Reading →

June 19, 2015 3

Space and boundaries: where I practice my yoga

I've been thinking a little about space recently, or maybe that should be spaces in the plural, since I don't mean the intergalactic variety but more on the smaller personal environment scale. I'm still thinking through the class vs. home practice thing I've been wondering about recently. An aspect of this is the different physical... Continue Reading →