JUNE YOGA WORKSHOP.

It was a lovely sunny day

The time had arrived for our next yoga workshop.

I have felt really rather stale and stuck just lately.  Also, my body feels weary and this workshop was to be my last teaching for a month.  Time to stop and take some breaths and think gently about how things really are and where do I feel I am moving towards….

It came to me that what I needed was to work with twisting my body to wring out some of the stagnant energy lingering in my joints and muscles and then move into opening myself out into backbends to give more space.  Hopefully, becoming more receptive to the fresh energy easing its way into every cell in my body.  And then there were inversions to really make sure my body was up-skittled, shaken out and emptied of as much negativity and toxicity as possible.  As we teach best those things we need to learn it felt absolutely right to offer this all up in my workshop.

So we began….not in quite the room we had expected but nevertheless it all worked.

Some gentle seated twists, hip openers and then moving into more dynamic poses to warm the spine. Forrest abdominals work wonderfully at heating the core/spine and bringing a fiery warmth to the hips and belly.  We do them slowly with deep, long inhalations and exhalations…with time and awareness you can feel which area of the belly you need to focus on to go deeper.  They also strengthen and prepare the spine to go into backbends.  First though, we needed work on our shoulders to ease open the ribcage and heart centre. In the midst of all this were forearm balances, shoulder stands and for some a headstand.

Absolutely vital to the whole process was the midway break for tea, banana bread and chocolate treats.  The chocolate treat recipe is featured in the post entitled ‘Superfood Choccy Blocks’.  None were left so it was very fortunate that I had set aside some pieces for John!  

Then it was time to lift the energy and move into standing poses with triangle, twisting triangle, warrior poses and twisting lunges then into Down Dog, cobra, locust and wheel!  Time to warm down and really relish how our bodies now feel after all that work.  A time to breathe deeply in and feel the spaciousness in our hips, neck and that awareness of the spine having being stretched out…a time to let go and relax throughout and feel totally supported by the earth.  And so to yoga nidra and a perfect ending to a lovely afternoon.  

Cake Time!