What Props Do I Bring To Class and When Do I Need To Bring Them?

Because so many of you have asked me about when to bring bolsters and other yoga props to class, I thought I would simplify matters and recap on here, so dig out your yoga bag and get packing!

Most weeks we practice hatha yoga with a yang asana (posture) practice. For those classes you will need:

Your mat!

Ideally, you will also have:

2 x “brick” type blocks.
1 x a yoga belt.
1 x non-fluffy blanket.

Yin classes are held in the last week of the first month of each yoga term (so normally week four, sometimes week five). The primary focus for a yin asana practices is to work on the fascia in the body (including tendons and ligaments). The pace of the class is slower, allowing time for the fascia within the body to open and stretch. This often allows us to release stuck energy more fully. The intention of a yin practice is to “be” rather than ”do”.

For yin classes you will want to bring everything you would normally bring to a yang class. You will need blocks and a strap, so if you have neither, then please bring:

2 x small, firm cushions.
1 x dressing gown cord or similar.

Ideally also bring:

1 x yoga bolster, or 2 firm pillows.

Restorative classes are held on the last class of each term (last week of the second month – usually week eight or nine). A restorative class gives the mind and body the opportunity to relax completely. Postures are not held at all, as a range of props are used to fully support the body in the pose. The intention of a restorative class is to completely let go, rest, restore and drift off …

To be able to fully support your body in a restorative class, you will need to bring all that you would bring to a yin class, and also:

1-2 x extra blankets.
1 x thin hand towel.
1 x eyebag (optional).
Fluffy socks (optional)
Cotton or non-woolly scarf (optional)

So there you have it. Everything you need to know about props and when to use them!

Rest, Relax and Restore with Restorative Yoga

Tonight, and Thursday morning, sees our usual end of term Restorative Yoga practice. As with the usual Hatha and Yin classes, each Restorative session varies. Having said that, every Restorative class is an opportunity to be completely held and supported physically, mentally and emotionally. Together we shall sink down into a place of peacefulness and deep rest.

Bring blankets and bolsters or firm cushions/pillows, eye-bags and head-scarves and prepare to simply be! 🙏

New Free Meditations

Huge excitement for me today as my first Insight Timer meditation has just been published. It’s called A Meditation to Increase Gratitude and here is the link:

https://insighttimer.com/…/a-meditation-practice-to…

It is completely free to listen to, and if you would like to support me in my work, do please rate me afterwards as all ratings and comments will enable me to improve what I am doing. If you follow me, you will be notified each time I add a new practice, and I plan to offer a wide variety of yoga practices.

And if you don’t already use Insight Timer, why not? It is an amazing resource offering thousands of meditations, relaxations, yoga nidras, talks, etc. And best of all, they are all free!

Developing A Home Practice


 Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without – Buddha

Hi Yoga Friends.

For many of us, this has been an opportunity to become familiar with a home practice. Practicing alone, at home gives you the chance to move more deeply into your Self, as you explore your responses to the practice without the distraction of others. By creating your own space, you find yourself in your own energetic bubble and this allows you to drop more fully into the experience of your practice.

Practicing alone is a natural progression in yoga as you find yourself increasingly focusing inwards. Your inner world becomes fascinating and ever changing, and there is no longer the need for company in this exploration. Developing your home practice teaches you to become responsible for your practice – more disciplined in taking to your mat – as you are now accountable to yourself, instead of your teacher. In doing so, you deepen the connection to your Self.

This is my longstanding experience of practicing at home. I would love to hear yours, so do please click here: https://freetothink.co.uk/contact/ and share your experience!

Softening the Belly

Find a comfortable seat for Meditation and come into your Space
A Guided Soft-Belly Meditation by Peter Levine

In his book Guided Meditations, Explorations and Healings, Stephen Levine talks of having a soft belly in order to feel from the heart:

“We are conditioned to suffer. The society of the hard-bellied and deeply pained conforms to this lowest denominator. We wander hard and lost through our lives until we awaken with a deep sigh of letting go and soften to the path of mercy.

“When growth has become the priority, soft belly becomes the context for our letting go. Observing the relative openness or closedness of the belly gives insight into when and how we are holding to our pain. When the belly is hard there is holding. Some degree of fighting or posturing is resisting and hardening to the moment, attempting to control. You may have to come back to soft belly dozens of times an hour.

The belly is an extraordinary diagnostic instrument. It displays the amoring of the heart as a tension in the belly. The deeper our relationship to the belly, the sooner we discover if we are holding in the mind or opening into the heart. Trying tightens the belly. Trying stimulates judgement. hard belly is often judging belly. Even trying to understand what is being said now, the belly may tighten.

“Don’t try to understand. Enter the process. In soft belly simply allow understanding to arise, all by itself, from your true nature.

“Beyond the mind is everything you long, in the mind, to know. But the great irony of the spiritual search is that what we are looking for is what is looking.

“It is difficult to see that which sees, but not impossible. It takes some work to let go of old ways of seeing. Softening the belly is a beginning.

“Indeed we are programmed to hold to our pain, to turn it to suffering. We are taught to harden the belly, to hide its fullness, its roundness, its spaciousness. Women in particular are programmed to be “attractive”. Encouraged to wear undergarments that compress the belly and decrease the sense of spaciousness. Men, too, can often be noticed “holding in the belly” to be acceptable. Implored to be hard-bellied by a culture which confuses hardness with beauty. It is a dangerous way to live if one wishes to be fully alive.

“The more ones thinks that he or she is the body, the tighter the belly will be at times. There are so many levels of letting go into the enormity of being, but when there is a holding in of the belly the heart is not so available.

“Ondrea and I have been doing this practice for years. And still we notice again and again that the belly needs to be reminded that it has unconsciously tightened to that which we wish to remain unconscious of. So you inhale down into the belly, And you exhale out past the heart. And the belly softens and you find room in your body for healing, for being, for liberation. The softer the belly, the greater the capacity to stay present and awake during the dense dream of heavy mental states. Soft belly encourages investigation of the body-patterning that accompanies such states. It allow exploration without getting drawn into their familiar, seductive thought-patterns. We cannot over-estimate the importance of softening …

“… Now, deepen soft belly to make room in your life for you life.”

Free Online Resources for Healthy “Feel Good” living

Currently, we have available, at our fingertips, a wealth of free, online goodies, designed and created to enable us to stay occupied, amused, fit and healthy and this website has an excellent variety of healthy, feel good options. Including this weekend: two whole days’ of free yoga, meditation, talks, comedy, etc (see Om and Bass festival, near the bottom of the page). The link below will take you to the main page:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/deals-hunter/2020/04/free-ways-to-relax-feel-good/

The Precious Delights of Yoga Nidra – Free Online Practices for All

Uma Dinsmore-Tuli is one of my wonderful yoga teachers. She trained me in the art of yoga nidra, and some of you may be familiar with one or two of her practices that I offer from time to time.

Uma, and her husband Nirlipta, are offering a gorgeous nidra practice every afternoon at 3:00pm, and everybody is welcome, so why not treat your Self to the precious luxury of settling in, getting really comfortable and relaxing through all the layers of your being. Click here to listen live, or at any other time.

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti x

Rest, relax, restore and receive the healing benefits of yoga nidra