Adapt, adjust, accommodate online - April 2020

Dear All,

Wow! It seems like several lifetimes have passed since I wrote the February/March newsletter. A time in which we have been forced to adopt one of my favourite yoga sayings, Swami Sivananda’s “Adapt, adjust, and accommodate” in a way we have never before.

The human brain craves certainty, but with many comparing the scale of the changes over the past month to the transformation needed to combat the climate emergency[1], major adjustments to our lifestyle are something we probably need to get used to.

The current situation has of course highlighted how lucky those of us with the time and space to practice yoga really are, and the good news is that we can use our practice to help us through these challenging, changing times. Online classes over the past month have attempted to do just that.

In online ‘week one’ (you might remember!) we worked with strong, steady, stabilising poses and cultivated an even breath to help us feel more secure during all the changes. In week two we focused on breathing away tension in the neck, back and shoulders, where it often creeps in times of stress. Our third week of online yoga emphasised expansive movements to help encourage extra space for our breath, and this week our theme has been yoga ‘3D’, moving the torso in every direction possible, great for the health of our spine and digestive system (which contain up to 80% of our immune cells!).

Classes over this period will continue in this vein!

I am also happy to be offering a special ‘flow and restore’ workshop to support better breathing on Saturday 25th April from 10.00-12.00. This is my favourite type of practice with lots of time to move and lots of time to rest, all designed help boost our breathing capacity and ability to find calm under stress. It will involve plenty of breath work and around 40 minutes of dynamic yoga before a sequence of yin and restorative poses and a long, guided relaxation. The workshop will end with a friendly chat over a cup of tea or coffee (bring your own).  Please contact me for more information or to book.

I hope these online classes help us all navigate this crisis a little better than we would otherwise and look forward to seeing you next time to adjust, adapt and accommodate on the mat

Very best wishes,

Caroline

[1] just one example