The Vayus - exploring the energy body: This was a Monthly Gathering talk, and is a dive into the vayus- otherwise known as the pranic winds or energetic flows in the body. The map of the vayus offered to us by the Hatha Yoga Pradipika is a wonderful spring board to explore our felt sense of our inner state of being. This talk breaks down what the vayus are, how the 5 main directions relate to our experience of moving, breathing and experiencing, and how all of this relates to our day to day experiences living in the world. Begins with a short meditation practice and moves into lecture/discussion format. Feel free to write to me with any questions or insights ;).
Restful movement, stillness and chanting: This nourishing class will offer you a gentle movement practice to release and unhold especially through your neck, shoulders and jaw, before moving into some stillness with restorative postures and opening into a chanting practice to close. Super soothing and settling for your nervous system to rest into. Enjoy.
Into the Stillpoint: A return to centre. This practice explores gathering towards where feels like centre, and how our sense of centre can shift and morph during our practice. What does it mean to abide with our awareness in the innermost? Through postures that gather to midline such as eagle variations and tree pose, we play and move through a vinyasa flow practice that begins slowly and warms up into a strengthening standing sequence before returning to the ground for a big chill and chanting. A great practice to focus scattered energy or agitation.
Moving into winter: A practice to support transitioning into the colder and darker portion of the year, that focuses on allowing tiredness and slowly builds into a steady practice with some longer holds to deeply ground and soothe the nervous system to support nature’s call to hibernate :). A good one for if you feel tired but still want to move.
Soft Axis - The Gut Tube: Our gut tube runs along the front of the spine, gently tethered and offering support for spinal movement since we were just learning to move in the world. This fluid practice brings awareness to this relationship and explores a variety of movement contexts to find freedom and space to spinal/gut tube movement; not only to facilitate ease in the gut tube, and digestion but so that we can truly open into clear listening of our gut instinct and bodily intelligence.
Weight & Levity: A return to weight to find levity. This practice starts on the ground with practices to release holding and tension from the tissues and opens into a circular flow exploring backbends, side planks, lunges, and strong leg work to find a sense of rootedness as we find expansiveness through the spine, lungs, heart, chest and arms.
Freedom in Backbends: A thorough exploration of spinal extension and twists. We look at the spirality of the upper arms as they come over head to find depth in the armpits and appropriate constraint around the joint as we lengthen the front of the body with arms overhead! Play with over head backbends, twisting balances and wheel pose towards the end. Props: Two blocks if you have them.
Balance, Inner Ears & Awareness through Listening: How does awareness of our inner ears affect our movement? In this practice we start on the ground and move towards progressively more challenging balancing explorations that will offer our systems new patterns to play with. Woven throughout are opportunities to hone awareness as we tune into the sensory experience of receiving outer and inner sound, and how this can open a space in which we can truly hear ourselves.
Purna - whole, complete, satisfied: A satisfying multi modality practice, with a focus on the felt sense of fullness in our body via embodiment of the lungs. Somatic explorations bring awareness into our lungs and then we flow from there outwards through to the rest of the body, exploring natural breath patterns and offering our system the possibility of moving with more time than we need. Flow and relish expansive side body work, integrate strength and spaciousness, and dive into applied yoga philosophy that you can feel in your own body. Begins and closes with chanting. Enjoy!
Levity through the axis: Finding levity through out axis in rotation via a small bone called the ethmoid that lives in the front portion of our skull. A total game changer! We play with a strong twist sequence that leads us in the direction of side crow whilst deepening our relationship to a spacious axis.
Density & Space: An exploration of the sensation of weight bearing into non weight bearing, and how this can open into a felt experience of the relationship between space and density. Yoga philosophy teaches us that we exist as part of a space/density continuum and this class is a strong and playful exploration of the relationship between the two. We play with asymmetrical shapes, arms balances, movement around the mat, momentum and a variety of movement possibilities before resting into seated side body openers and a long rest, with chanting to close.
Arms & Hands Exploration: Our feet are designed for weight bearing, and our hands are designed for mobility. Yet in yoga movement we seem to be very curious about making our hands into feet! This class is a deep dive into carrying weight through our hands, particularly when our arms go overhead in postures like downward facing dog, handstand and wheel. We harness the natural spirality of our design to move in a way that optimises weight bearing. This is an important class for wrist health and solid groundwork for inversions.
Full body tune up: My current go to faves for a full body wiggle! Low impact and yet strong and satisfying, fully following what feels delicious. Ongoing, fluid motion in lots of different directions and with tons of variety. Starts with an upper back and side body release over a bolster and opens into a full body wiggle that cultivates a sense of inner coherence, continuity and presence. Yum.
Rest into Flow: Pure nurturance. This class starts off with some restorative postures and then sneaks into a delicious, well rounded movement practice. It is one of my absolute favourites: slow, steady, utter nourishment for your nervous system, delicious movement explorations and really honing our capacity to attune to presence. Props: Anything resembling a bolster, blocks, strap, blankets - get it all! I do give options for no props so don’t let a lack of props hold you back! I highly recommend practicing using the suggested playlist below.
Multi Dimensional & Omni Directional: An explorative movement experience looking at the multi dimensionality and omni directionality of how we are built and how we can move! Starts slow and unfolds into a playful and challenging flow to keep your tissues intrigued and curiosity sparked!
Follow your feet: A varied practice that explores and wakes up the antennae for movement that are your trotters! Move into a footworky fun and creative flow and play with inversions at the end if you like to see how your feet play a big part in getting upside down. Treat your feet to attention, nourishment and challenge and feel the ripple affect through your whole body as you practice.
Journey to Handstand - Legs: A practice designed to help you develop strength and awareness in your legs to help navigate standing on your hands. You can do this class with or without doing handstands, there are only a few in there at the end, but if you are wanting to build a handstand practice, the legs are a good place to start! We start slow and build into a challenging practice, exploring some familiar postures in new ways, and close with a floor sequence, a yummy rest and some chanting.
Circulation & Heart magic: ‘The human heart is the shape of your entire body, it is not a pump, but the place where blood refreshes its movement’ (Gil Hedley). Explore embodying your vascular system, blood flow, beating heart, pulsation and breath. This is a dynamic, at times strong and explorative practice that gets your circulation going and enlivens our felt relationship to our heart and all that that entails. We close with seated hip releases, a delicious rest, an inspiring peace mantra, and remember how to rest our mind into our hearts.
A process of becoming: A creative practice exploring backbends and the process of folding & unfolding ourselves into being. Integrating philosophical references from the recognition sutras, we start with a floor based flow finding space around the heart, ribs and spine, and then move into some creative core work and leg strengtheners as we find our fluid flow. Opens into backbend sequences and closes with a floor sequence to release. Props: 2 blocks (or 1, or large books)
Innermost & Outermost: A creative flow moving around the mat, exploring the relationship between the outermost layer of our body and the innermost workings of our nervous system. The skin and nervous system arise from the same source within the embryo. Feel into that relationship in this practice as you start with supported supine postures, challenge your balance, find your strength and power, and close with supported backbends and a yummy long rest. Props: A strap/tie and a block or rolled up towel.
