yoga4healthyliving

Yoga Dunstable

Remember everyone, no yoga class on 3 October.  I am off to do my Bowen technique course.

Yoga Breathing and Stress

Eric spent many years living as a monk in a Zen monastery.  In his first year he underwent a tremendously painful and emotional time.  Completely overwhelmed by the intensity of his feelings he sought out the guidance of before head abbot.  As he sat before the abbot he explained his dilemma and with great hope waited for the abbot to advise him as to how he might alleviate his suffering.  The abbot answered simply : "If you can breathe in...you can breathe out."

Yoga for opening your mind

Where do I start?  It is sometimes said in yoga that a flexible spine leads to a flexible mind.  I am a firm believer in this.   I have been teaching yoga for over 7 years and practising it for a fair bit longer!  As a consequence my spine has certainly become flexible (and strong) and my mind has become flexible too.  By that I mean, I have become more open minded, less judgemental, more accepting of other peoples ideas and ways of being and doing.  My NLP training helped hugely in this.  But what I have even looked for the NLP course if I hadn't started to become open minded? 

So which asanas did I practise to become so flexible?  The answer is probably just what I felt like practising.  Going with my intuition.  Starting from some basic warming movement such as cat and then moving into bridge.  For a long time I didn't believe that I could do a full bridge, supported only by my hands and feet.  Then I let go of that limiting belief and wow, I could do a fabulous full bridge and even hold it too!  Not that you or I need to do a full bridge to achieve a flexible back - I truly believe that you only have to do 80% of a posture to achieve the full benefits.  However to me it is very exciting to look at what you can achieve when you let go of limiting beliefs.