About Yoga

Yoga can bring about positive changes both physically and mentally, helping us to find the tools within ourselves to cope with the challenges that life brings to us. It puts us in touch with our own body so that we can appreciate, and be sensitive to, it's physical capabilities as well as it's limitations.

Yoga delivers a heightened connection between consciousness and the body, improving both mental and physical self-awareness and creating a mindful state where the innate intelligences of our body and mind learn to recognise and respect the peace found in their equanimity. When the mind and body cooperate our quality of life improves, nurturing strength from the great inside out.

I don't believe that any experience is experienced exclusively in either the mind or the body and when, through yoga. we allow one to inform the other, our responses to experiences come from a more measured and calm place = a beneficial reduction of physiological stress response.

What is Yoga and what is it not?

Is being bendy and throwing shapes what yoga is about?

While modern media has done wonders to promote the profile of yoga, unfortunately it has also brought with it a perspective that makes much of it appear unattainable to us everyday people. I believe that much of what is seen of yoga in popular press promotes feelings of inferiority, or desire for something basically aesthetic. While this attracts some, it can put others off.

YOGA IS NOT just a style of exercise, nor is it reserved only for the young, fit, thin, mobile, healthy or flexible among us.

Krishnamacharya said, “If you can breathe, you can do yoga.” and I believe this implicitly.

Yoga is a practice and an exercise in discipline. Like anything practised, with continued application it becomes more natural and effective.

YOGA IS… a small word representing a simple yet complex, versatile and diverse discipline that can positively permeate every aspect of a person’s life by soliciting enquiry into the health of ones intellect, emotions, ego and physicality, in turn promoting awareness both internally and externally on many levels.

Asana alone is not yoga, Asana alone will not bring about a steady mind and perfecting Asana should not be the goal of one's practise.

Yoga becomes a state of mind, teaching acceptance and bringing a clearer understanding of one’s capabilities, possibilities, and limitations, leading a person towards achieving the best, most comfortable version of themselves that they can be and with whatever attributes they are gifted with.

Equally, even if we don't understand or appreciate the infinite dimensions of a yoga practice we will reap benefits, yoga has a way of permeating our layers until we realise that we have changed and will constantly do so.

In yoga, we learn that there is nothing to be gained by comparing ourselves with another. We learn to not even compare our own practice on one day with that of a previous day but maybe simply to mindfully observe any differences. In yoga self-enquiry and observation pervade, not judgement or criticism.

There is no end game in Yoga.

Sankalpa

Your intention: a promise, a determination, a vow formed by the heart and mind. A deeply personal one pointed resolve to exclusively focus psychologically and philosophically on a specific goal with the intention of betterment. I think of it as of cultivating a seed within, which you desire to nurture and grow until it becomes a bigger part of you. It could be a word, a sentence or a short mantra but one which binds to some good part of your self that will enrich life if you embody it wholly. With a steady breath and focus, your sankalpa is usually brought to the forefront of the mind at the beginning of a practice for reinforcement, to carry through the practice and, afterwards, out into the day.

Ahimsa

Non-violence internally and externally for all aspects of life: a moral guideline for respectfully living. Kindness and compassion for oneself and all living things.

Sthira

A Sanskrit word translated as steadiness, firmness or strength - more often than not used in conjunction with Sukha, as from the Sutra's of Patanjoli where it is explained that Asana requires a steady and comfortable seat; in order for the body to find stillness as the mind turns further away from the external. Not just to be assumed in relation to Asana however, but also to life, especially when considered united with Sukham.

Sukha

Happiness - ease - pleasure - a sense of 'comfortable' that is not provided by material or external pleasures or stimuli, but deeply rooted within. Often applied to Asana but as with Sthira, a valuable concept to absorb and live with.

Sthira and Sukha are also often considered as 'effort & ease' which again is a beneficial blend either on the mat or off.

Prana & Pranayama

Prana is the vital universal life force energy; very similar but not quite the same in concept to chi, or ki and the value and philosophy of which is simply too broad to go into in a little box. Prana is carried with the breath and flows throughout the body through the nadis. Prana becomes more free flowing with the application of asana and pranayama. Pranayama is the application of breathing techniques to harness, manipulate or regulate prana.