New Year, More Yoga!

How lovely it was last week to be back together in class for another whole new year of yoga. It was heartening to see so many mats rolled out for practice, and to welcome faces old and new.

There are so many ways in which we can embody our yoga practice, and this term we shall be focusing on a different perspective each week.

Last week we began by exploring how we might let go of things that no longer serve us through “Releasing”. Letting go of the old, the outdated and the unhelpful allows us to make space for the new, the desired for and the hoped for. It encourages change and a growth mindset, and it is a helpful focus during any yoga practice. We can release through the breath with a sigh, we can release through the body with a stretch, and we can release from the mind with mantra, affirmation, meditation or mindful walking.

In contrast, this week is all about discovering our experience through “Listening”. When we create the time and space to focus inwardly towards our Selves, rather than outwardly towards the world, we may discover a whole universe of unexplored territory. Listening encourages Svadhyaya, which is self-study and self-reflection, and through svadhyaya, we find we can tune in to the rhythms of body, breath and mind, and really “hear” what is being revealed to us. As we become more proficient at tuning in, we find that we begin to learn a great deal more about what makes each of us so individual, and yet so connected.

Yoga Returns To Crowland

2015 – And we haven’t changed a bit!

I am so excited to be teaching in Crowland again. I originally began to teach there after a conversation with a gentleman by the name of David Grundy, who I met at a networking event. We were chatting outside in the sunshine, and he suggested that I bring yoga to his home town. I remember saying something blase along the lines of: “Well if you help me get there, I will come!” It turned out that David is an extremely helpful and proactive individual – he was keen to practice yoga! – and in a very short time we had a class up and running. That was back in 2012, and since then, we have practiced in a number of venues, the most popular being the old British Legion Hall. Then, sadly along came the pandemic, which put a stop to all classes, and to the hall itself.

However, this story has a happy ending, as the hall was bought, and turned into the Crowland Community Hall. Now, almost four years after we last rolled our mats up, we shall be returning to the hall, to unroll them again.

I am not just excited to be teaching back in Crowland. I am also incredibly grateful to all of my Crowland students who have practiced with me over the past 12 years, many of whom are still with me today.

We have created more than a yoga class over the years, we have become friends and confidents; we have partied together and walked together, chatted together and shared special moments together. (I still have my yoga cake topper from my 50th birthday cake, almost ten years ago!)

And we have done more than just practice yoga: we have grown individually and collectively, as we explore our many layers and make new discoveries about our Selves.

Crowland students, past, present and future, I feel very grateful and honoured to teach you, and here’s to the next twelve years!

For more information about classes in Crowland, click the Yoga Classes tab.