I’ve gone on quite a journey during my years of practice and teaching yoga. Yoga as a practice is not set or fixed and no teacher has it all worked out. Yoga has evolved and changed to suit the needs of the practitioners. It’s been updated and revised as we’ve learned more about the body.
Yoga was touched by gymnastics and dance at about the time when photography became easily available. Which explains the overriding image of yoga as deeply flexible asanā. As a thoughtful modern teacher with a lifelong love of yoga, I’ve only ever wanted to bring people into yoga, never to turn them off by perpetuating very bendy associations.
Yoga for me is a technology for change, it reduces physical and emotional suffering. My life hasn’t been easy to date, nor will it ever be. Yoga strengthens the body and the mind, and makes both more resilient. It’s the perfect companion to a life well lived because it will give you flexibility and tenacity to get through anything, and keep your sense of humour.
It’s increasingly apparent to me that people aren’t getting injured and ill through over stretching. They are in fact suffering unnecessarily because they’re experiencing stiffness and rigidity in body, breath and mind.
My advice to you is to attend class regularly and to really stretch yourself. I’m always explaining my rationale and backing up my playful I reckon you can go further cues with the evidence.
See you tomorrow 7.30-8.45pm @ Hove Methodist Church or live via zoom. Click here for details.
Click here for all the answers (and a lifetime of questioning) about the body and the mind when you train to be a yoga teacher.