What an exciting month – as you know I am usually late with the news update but I am itching to share the happenings of the last month!
Sessions are well attended with the last Breathing Bones class of the month being oversubscribed. 17 bodies squeezed into the space. It is amazing to see my patient faith in the value of this body of work being appreciated.
“I find it rewarding to explore the physical body and it’s relationship to our whole selves.”
Caroline Myss
The Yoga is attracting a lovely diverse group, building a commitment to the ongoing development of our practice. Backbends, headstands and arm balances are associated/accompanied with fear and challenge (even when they are accomplished!) An increasing number of yogis are facing the fear and some are dropping back and a few coming up too.
It is incredibly transformative to come face to face with ourselves in this way.
I have been offered Tuesday evening and I have mulled over what is missing and how best to use this opportunity. I have been trying to find time to run an introduction to yoga course, deepening your practice classes to look at aspects of the asanas in detail and also counted vinyasa class. So the decision is still to be made and classes will start in November. Requests will be considered!
This frees up the Wednesday evening slot so there will be self practice Pranayama – yoga breathing with Laura Gonzalez who leads the monthly morning practice.
Kia Naddermier kindly invited me to her Intermediate Series Ashtanga Yoga and Pranayama workshop in Oslo. Magic, brilliant, informative, inspiring…I could go on.
This is a world-class teacher and she is coming back to Glasgow 11 – 13 November. There a still a few places for the Primary Series and Pranayama course at £220 for all classes and £110 for Pranayama only. Please be quick!
Sunday 9 October the theme is: foundation, rooting, planting (the placement of feet, hands, head).
Thought of the month:
I am continually going on about the body hearing your thoughts and so removing negative patterns of thinking during your practice…and hoping that this process can be transferred to daily life too. Dreaming the improvements that you are working towards and imaging positive outcomes is part of my mantra. I feel that this section from Conditioning for Dance, Eric Franklin says succinctly and clearly something I have been trying to articulate for years and that it is not just pertinent to stretching and body work.
Pay Attention to What You Want
“Flexibility is not just a question of getting tissue to lengthen, but also of adjusting the nervous system to create a new sense of length while you move. When teaching the nervous system new ways to move, what we experience gets reinforced. If you start a flexibility program by paying attention to where you cannot move, you will allow the nervous system to record the opposite of what you want to achieve. Experiencing limitations may be a valuable tool as an analytic tool, because you are figuring out what areas of the body need to work. However, I do suggest focusing on feeling and imaging flexibility and not on limitation.
As Zvi Gotheiner points out, the key to permanent increases in flexibility is not just to do regular flexibility exercises, but to create a body image that contains an increased flexibility self-image. “
Eric Franklin