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.
Goddess Prayer: A longer and more complex chant, and one of my all time favourites. This chant calls to various forms of the goddess and comes from a text called the Devi Mahatmayam. This is from the Argala Stotram that is comprised of 26 verses, here I share the first 3. The melody was taught to me by my teacher Stephanie Snyder.
Hand balance flow: A short, strong, varied practice with less instruction and more flow. Explore weight shift in side to side plank variations, play with crow pose, handstands and some stretchy standing flows before closing with some hip strengtheners and releases. Check out the suggested follow on practices to build this into a longer, fuller practice.
Honouring our tiredness: Sometimes all we really need to do is honour the fact that we are really tired. In this class we spend 15 minutes simply resting in 4 restorative postures, and work with breath and visualisations to honour and release fatigue. Props: Bolster or two sleeping pillows, a blanket or two and possibly a block will come in handy if you have one available.
The Heart: Exploring the relationship between the physiology of our heart, ancient philosophies that talk about the heart, and the utter magic of our embryological heart journey. I read some words written by anatomist and poet Gil Hedley, and share teachings from the Recognition Sutras and Joanne Avison’s insights on the heart. Inspiration station!
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.
Grounding Flow: A fluid but grounding flow to move with steadiness and slow. it. down. Start with an awareness meditation and unfold into a vinyasa practice exploring twists and steadiness in our legs, playing with some variations of half moon pose at the wall. You’ll need two bricks if possible.
Breath of Fire: An invigorating practice, and a personal favourite to shift my mood or energy and get a sense of ‘clearing the slate’. A short, sharp exhale followed by a passive inhale and some gentle breath retentions in between breaths make for a quick, effective and potent practice. Not recommended if you are pregnant or menstruating or have any abdominal sensitivity.
Counting Breath: Admittedly a little funny, this breathing technique helps us to fully empty our lungs. We add some sound (counting) to our exhale and keep going until there is no exhale left. Then we drink in a full inhale. It is a quick way to keep carbon dioxide in our body for a little longer so that when the oxygen floods in with the inhalation it can be distributed efficiently.
Maha Lakshmi Tutorial: A longer, more challenging but absolutely beautiful chant invoking the goddess Lakshmi, called the Mahalakshmi Astakam found in the Padma Purana. I chant the first three verses but have listed the rest below for your further exploration. I learned this melody from Stephanie Snyder.
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)
Nurture & Invigorate: An accessible and well rounded stretchy flow that could be a nice wake up or a bit of invigorating nurturance at any time of day. Move through some non linear side body stretches, lunges, twists, forward bends. Build strength and stability and also find your flow. Close with some seated forward folds and twists and a short, sweet meditation.
Floor based flow: A supportive and somatic floor based practice to wiggle and roll on the ground moving though spinal rotations, shoulder release, playing with weight shift, free form flow and fully unholding into the support of the ground. Nurturing, gentle and powerful. Just over 35 minutes running time.
Heart Flow & Lower Body Strength: A fun and varied practice tuning into our vascular system and heart, with a focus on waking up the back body and building strength and support in our legs, glutes, feet - basically the antidote to sitting :). Play with yummy stretchy balance variations in supported side plank, handstand hops to get your heart moving and half moon, and close with some seated twists and a sweet rest at the end.
