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Hey Hendrik, you wouldn't be the first to put Brasil as perhaps last guess - My dad was the 'Brasilian' (his parents emigrated from Ireland when very young and had all their children in Brasil - dad followed suit and had all his kids here and I at least was raised here too). Mother is Irish/ Scottish stock and I ended up with all her fairer features! Add to that she's a lover of languages, she made sure we grew up bilingual so thankfully I never had to 'learn' English, hence no Brasilian accent!
Indeed, I love snow but I'm also loving the fact that I never need more than one layer at the moment! No doubt there'll be more of the white stuff between now and March!
So Aillon Free looks like quite a character! I'm always intrigued by yogi's who branch out into other practices, comedy in particular is very refreshing as yogi's can be known to take themselves a little too seriously on occasion! This is one of the things I loved about my teacher Edward Clark. Never have I been so intelligently taught and challenged and yet he made us fall apart laughing...
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Indeed *m.f, when weight is fully released or supported, in many ways alot more satisfying. But of course it does require masses of trust. So mirroring good for beginners at least or those who are just not accustomed to working with others.
Just remembered a lovely one today. A does a handstand into B with knees slightly bent - A's back will be up against the front of A's body. A's legs go over B's shoulders - ie. A bends their knees and hooks legs over B's shoulders. B can then straighten legs and A can take hands off the floor. B can give them a bit of a swing too. Brilliant spine lengthener and fun too.
Oh and btw, I can feel your dissolved ego - mine too you know, it really makes no difference to me at all that I am here. ;-)
[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3] [/SIZE][/FONT] -
btw *m.f, Keith's yoga-Aikido-propelling dance sounds great - very la la la human steps!
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A in **urdhva dhanurasana - **B places their feet next to A's feet, bends their knees, holds A around the back of their hips/ sacrum. A places their hands on C's hands, C embraces around the back A's shoulder blades. On the inhale B and C pull gently in opposing directions.
Inversions...
A goes into adho mukha vrksasana preparation against a wall. B sits facing A's back and places hands on shoulders - placing pressure towards the wall and up.
Falling out of sirsasana - A goes into sirsasana, bends knees and creates a back bend. B and C are kneeling either side. B places hand between shoulder blades, C places hand on sacrum as A brings feet down...
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so many for D-Dog, but one of my faves is still have A in D-dog and B places feet next to their hands and lies on A's back with full body weight.
A person in Prasarita Padottanasana c - B person steps into the circle of their arms. Encourage A to allow their full weight to fall into B.
A person in **Virabhadrasana II **with back close to a wall, person B sitting in front of them leaning back on elbows, B places their feet on A's thighs near to knees, push gently - direction of the feet is back to the wall and rotating upwards to encourage correct knee alignment...
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so, contact yoga! yes, this is lovely, fun and very effective stuff. One day I'd love to do a full course on this. I teach and practice contact improvisation so have certainly brought elements of this into yfc classes.
Blimey, there are so many and they are not so easy to articulate in written word. But here go a few suggestions.
For breath...
Person B holds sides of person A's ribcage - get them to expand ribcage laterally on inhale and close right back in on exhale. B must give them a bit of pressure so that they have something to push against on the inhale and to yield to on the exhale.
For beginners to get a sense of energy direction in Uddiyana (rather than lock), lovely having person A have their ribcage lifted by person B on inhale and feet pressed down into the floor by person C. Person C keeps feet pressed down on exhale whilst person B strokes shoulder blades down firmly.
To encourage serratus engagement of shoulder blade to ribcage rather than the all too common trapezius shoulder blade lift - Person B stands beind person A with arms outstretched pressed against deltoids. Person A lifts arms outstretched to sides whilst B places firm downward push...
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greetings all,
Watched the news last night, blimey I do feel for y'all, hope you're all keeping warm and snug and that any xmas travel plans won't be too disrupted...
Meanwhile here, after a week of tropical rainstorms every day, the sun and heat have finally made a daily appearance and meant that I've been able to do yoga outside. Been a while since I've done yoga in the heat - feeling quite otherworldly. Particularly as I tried your latest posted sequence *m.f! Quite challenging, will keep trying it 'til it feels fluid... nice and logical though!
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*m.f, ta for info on world yoga day - great idea - I probably won't be able to participate as I'll be running parkroadpilot (www.parkroadpilot.org) a fundraising arts event/party that very weekend, but praps we can raise money for the same charities.
Also, thought I'd send this on. Sadly, I am sending it too late as it's happening today, but another great idea methinks - one that I would've liked to participate in had I been in the country! Keep an eye out on youtube...
On 7 December 2010 14:47, Ash Jenkins <ash@roundtablefilms.co.uk> wrote:I am from a company called Roundtable Films in London and we are arranging an Flash Mob event for Saturday
18th December to take place in London, LA and Kenya all on the same day. The Flash Mob is a launch to an
awareness campaign that supports Kenyan Yoga teachers at The Africa Yoga Project who are teaching yoga to
have an affect on Tribalism in Kenya. Many of the teachers were idle youths from the slum areas in Nairobi who
have recieved a personal transformation through learning yoga and they are taking this experience to thousands
of individuals across the county, in an attempt to heal tribal boundaries.
The Flash Mob style event in London will take place in Covent Garden at 1pm, the idea is that yogis guised as
shoppers at precisely 1PM roll out their yoga mats and drop to the floor to do the Sun Salutation Series for
5 - 10 minutes. Before end the Flash yoga session with the yoga "Om" and disperse. This event will be filmed
and the video will be edited together with the footage from LA and Kenya into a video for Youtube to promote
the AYP teachers and the documentary film that is being made about them.
Best,
Facebook link http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=173609632659191
Website http://www.yogaforunity.co.uk/ -
A point on the poses which we find easy and those that we find agonising...
Needless to say, the best thing about all of this is you gradually get to know how your own body functions. From what you were born with to what has evolved over a lifetime of all your various activities and tendencies. Once you have identified those, then you can understand why some are agonising and others aren't. Obviously, the agonising ones are usually addressing parts of our body that are stiff and/ or weak and then there are those that we just find plain scary.
The coolest bit of all is how all this info gradually gets processed gradually over time by body and mind and the poses that we love to hate gradually become the poses we love to love.
One of my teachers was excruciatingly good at spotting what we found difficult within seconds of entering a pose. Mostly due to lots of fidgeting, sighing, muttering, over-preparing etc. Anyhoo, she never let us get away with it, occasionally reducing people to tears. As you have probably gathered by now, my teaching stylee isn't quite as old school, but a good reminder I guess that as with most things in life, it's the poses that you find difficult that you will probably get the most from, so take note of what they are...
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prancer, like the idea of yer nifty fifty sun salutes in the park. Most definitely up for that.
As part of the bodywise fundraiser, Angelika - great teacher - led a 108 sun salute session. I spoke to her about it and felt very inspired (as did she!). It took two hours to complete and no-one dropped out, so let's see how we feel when we start to thaw out and perhaps go for the full monty!
*m.f - that must be the best turkey dodging xmas greeting I've seen this year! And as ever with you, in what looks like a glorious spot! I'm behind Hendrick on the headstand on the saddle challenge, I certainly don't put it past you! ;-)
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meant to add - thanks Oliver for posting about the BW event!
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Then there's the event at bodywise. Thank you sooooooooo much to those who came along (and to those who couldn't great seeing you last Thursday and Oliver, thanks for getting us out to the pub, great to have a chat to you all in the lovely Palm Tree and meet the charismatic Jim!).
Anyhoo, there were 9 or 10 of us on Sunday, more than in any other class provided that day, so the warren and its bowels are deeply, deeply grateful to y'all and of course it was just another opportunity to see yer faces again! And yes, Reiki was good...
One hour is indeed too short. I did mention this to the event organiser, but there was just too much to squeeze in and adding any more time on would've meant shifting all etc.
Regarding class times - we will be starting at 8pm in January and in theory should be finishing at 9.15pm. I am happy to go on 'til 9.30pm if the majority are happy with this as I think 75 mins isn't quite long enough either. Am happy to keep class price the same. Also, course length will be going back to 7 weeks - having piloted 5 weeks, I just felt it was too short.
Somebody asked about whether there would be more events. Probably not for a while, but what there will be are yfc workshops which will be taking place, at least every two months (and eventually every month hopefully) on Saturday afternoons between 2.30 - 5.30. I tried one of these last Winter and enjoyed it immensely. With a three hour session, we will be able to work with very specific requests/ themes, go into alot more detail etc. The first one will be on the 22nd Jan. Will send out a reminder closer to the time...
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Blimey, so where to begin - feet I suppose - do they or do they not grow? Well, if you've spent most of your life gripping your toes and wearing tight shoes (which most of us have) or indeed if aspects of your life require you to do just that (miss sox and Hendrik in mind here), then they may well feel like they're lengthening and/ or expanding (although probably not for miss sox or Hendrik!) when you are encouraged to spread your toes apart and become aware of weight distribution through different parts of the feet.
I have gone up a shoe size at two points in my adult life - when I stopped pointe work (that really does keep your feet minute!) and discovered contemporary dance which is all about the glorious barefoot. And then again when I started yoga. Although some do find them understandably alarming, I have become quite fond of my pizza wedge feet. My toes just feel more like fingers which when mostly ignored on pedals, is I believe no bad thing for anyone, especially the cyclist.
Bringing awareness to the parts of our body that we don't pay an awful lot of attention to is good methinks. Toe flexibility is one of the first to go as you age and can end up being one of the most unpleasantly painful, so well worth keeping them wigglin'! One of many things I have learnt from my teachers who are in their 60's...
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Greetings all!
First off, having not been on this thread for a while, I was thoroughly entertained by all entries and glad to see it has been kept alive and kicking - I miss y'all and it! Thank you for keeping all manner of yoga experience vividly discussed!
Secondly, i shall continue with my usual absence apologies! Knowing that I wanted to be back home for Xmas and that home is Brasil I have spent the past two months working 7 days a week - invigorating stuff - cycling across London most days a week in cold weather and keeping practice as strengthening and as hot as possible, but as ever, it meant that sitting in front of a laptop was last priority.
However, I am now in Sao Paulo which is surprisingly wet but warm (hurrah!) and won't be teaching 'til Jan now, so hopefully I can greet y'all from a distance with a little more regularity (well, 'til I go to the beach that is - hehe! sorry...)! Though things are changing - there are now cycle lanes and cyclists where once upon a time there wasn't, it is still arguably a suicidal mission commuting in this city. So I suspect I won't be getting much two-wheeled action, but getting some extended yoga and meditation (especially on the beach in the sun, oops sorry... done it again!) will be featuring for sure.
More soon...
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Indeed, heat is good and much needed at the moment - bring on Ujjayi pranayama all! Try whilst riding, particularly useful at the beginning of a long ride first thing in the morn - wakes and warms swiftly and effectively!
Excellent news on association with dance centre *m.f! Still seems there are so few people experimenting with yoga and dance. A shame really as the postures can be such an excellent point of departure for creative movement. It certainly has a huge influence on my performance work anyhoo, even if they are not necessarily the principal stimuli... Yes, do send on!
Very into asymmetric poses which open up the oft neglected areas of the torso at the moment, particularly variations on Parighasana (gate pose) - this is a great one for cyclists all!
Last but not least, just a reminder that the new 5 week yfc course is starting tomorrow night at www.bodywisehealth.org 8.15 - 9.30pm.
Hope to see some of you there!
Namaste
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Greetings all,
Hope practice is warming up as the days draw darker!
On the topic of warming up, how's the primary series coming along *m.f? Ta for Kino Macgregor vid. Always inspiring to see women succeeding at the postures/ inversions that many often don't attempt...
Sem, how are you finding Bikram? Their price scheme is notorious for being very reasonable and a great way of ensuring Yoga addiction - I hope it's worked!
Hey Hendrik, good to hear from you and am glad YFC at the cycle show worked for you! The hall was indeed quite noisy, as the days went by, I ended up doing rather more one-to-one sessions as a result! Cycling tv filmed (www.cycling.tv) filmed that session. The last time I looked on the website I couldn't find the footage. I also emailed the interviewer who participated but have heard nothing yet. Will update you if I hear anything. Look forward to seeing you again on Thursday!
Ok, over and out for now - busy working on YFC expansion - 'tis coming along slowly but surely, many opportunities on the horizon including South and West London classes coming soon, watch this space!
Namaste...
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*m.f - meant to add, a friend of yours came to the stand to introduce herself - I can't remember her name now, but she was lovely!
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I enjoyed the cycle show immensely - indeed the stalls are undoubtedly pricey, but thankfully this was a price I didn't have to pay... in exchange for offering yoga taster sessions all day every day for small groups and on a one-to-one basis for nothing, so free and healthy it remained!
So quite tiring for a one-woman operation (with the assistance of a few brilliant volunteers) but as with so many things in concentration, an extraordinary education on all levels! A great opportunity to meet people, discuss their cycling patterns, body awareness, complaints and most importantly introduce them to the idea of yoga and taking a class wherever they may live - hurrah!
How's your course coming along?
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no worries *m.f, quite understand...
Enjoy the ride!
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Greetings all,
Sorry about 2 week absence!
Combination of covering many classes for the brilliant Angelika Grohmann (Body of Light) for three weeks whilst she was away and getting ready for the cycleshow. Blimey, having never participated in such a commercial venture, I feel like I'm reinventing the wheel somehwat - a phenomenal amount of work is needed to get one's own stand up and running, but am learning heaps along the way, so all good (I think)!
Commercial it may be, but I must say my experience so far with the organisers has been nothing short of inspiring. They have been uber generous, seem to be genuinely excited by the concept, are encouraging women to 'man' their own stands and have been very supportive and patient with naive creatures such as myself along the way.
Thank you Oliver for ticking one of my tasks off my apparently endless list of to-do-for-cycle-show list! Wanted to add too that I just received a few comps for the show which I'd be happy to give out to lfgss peeps, just pm me if you'd like one...
So some sunny yoga vids posted! Good to see you're still getting plenty of use of your seaside deck *m.f - impressive uddiyana! Boards of Canada a particulary apposite choice too...
And good on lucky Ashtanga dude to be able to practice the series on so many extraordinary surfaces!
Sounds like your class is doing really well *m.f - keep up the good work! 12 weeks sounds like a great course length too...
As for London-Brighton ride, was that yesterday or the following weekend?
New yoga for cyclists 5 week course starts this Thursday 7th October, hope to see some of you there or/ and at the cycle show!
Namaste...
Rebecca
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Hey *m.f,
Ta for suggested sequence - looks great - will have a go and feedback soon! Always really refreshing to try a new way of putting things together!
And rather racy pic of Urdhva Dhanurasana - ooer missus! ;-)
Holy Isle was great. It is indeed a tiny place, not even two by two miles. The publess-and-post-officeless 'village' is small, volunteer-run and a pretty successful venture as far as I can tell. Their vegetable garden is gorgeous and fruitful, the kitchen an inspiring and quite hilarious place to do some hours and the meditation rooms generous and bright. And yes, coming from London, it did feel refreshingly minimal. Although small, there is much lovely walking to be done, either around the whole island or over the heather clad lumps in the middle where you get a 360 degree view of Scottish land and sea as well as the company of wild sheep, goats and horses. So yes, the days were simple and divine, consisting of cooking, meditating, walking, chatting, reading and sleeping.
Would recommend to anyone, especially for the skint (once up there, you can be bedded and fed for nothing as long as you're willing to put some hours in the kitchen or garden every day), for those needing to get away from it all and for those wanting a break from caning it!
How's your new course?
Namaste all...
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Oliver, no breaks 'til Christmas this time round as they're all short (5 weeks) courses. Sorry I didn't get this earlier and for any confusion caused!
Look forward to seeing you soon!
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Greetings all,
Good news for those interested in doing the next yoga for cyclists course (starting Thur 2nd Sep for 5 weeks) - you can get £10 off the course price if you book by the 2nd of Sep!
So you pay £34 (or £21 if you're a concesssion!) for 5 classes. Worth doing even if you reckon you'll miss one class as it still works out cheaper than paying drop in prices.
Namaste...
LFGSS
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
So lots of good Contact/ acro yoga links there. Jaquiwan's stuff looks like fun - juggling whilst sitting on your partners feet - not bad!
Great stuff from Krishnamachary too. Gave me a few ideas - had forgotten about that partnered back bend - will be on the beach with 4 young nieces and nephews next week - will try!
Lots of impressive partnery stuff from my teacher Edward Clark's Tripsichore yoga dance theatre company. Just google first three words.
As for the word Asana, well... inevitable really!