Since we don’t get much of a chance to chat at morning practice. I often value the few words exchanged in the change room after practice. They usually contain little gems that I mull over during my day.

This morning Alana was talking about how challenging she found practice today (hardly a verbatim quote) which was such a relief for me to hear as I’ve found practice really challenging the last few weeks. I find myself going through another one of those ‘difficult’ patches and I guess I’m going to have to learn (one day) to just accept them. But somehow I still expect plain sailing.

Currently my right shoulder, right side of my back, right ankle and inner left thigh are really troubling me. So I’m trying to be really gentle but consistent with my practice. When things get difficult I always try and look for an explanation - like what am I doing wrong. I think I can trace this latest spate of challenges to dropping off my practice slightly over the last few weeks.

There seems to be some weird stuff that goes on when you start practicing 5 days a week. Recently I was in what seems like a real sweet spot in my practice. No pain anywhere and my body and breath felt light and strong and the energy just seemed to flow. This was a direct result of consistently practicing 5 days a week for a few months.

I’m really grateful to Sarah for her consistency and also to each Ashtangi that turns up in the morning for practice. I know without this community I wouldn’t be able to maintain. But knowing that there are others making the effort in spite of their own difficulties inspires and supports me.

Namaste

I recently upgraded the software for this website with the unfortunate side effect of breaking it slightly.
I know you’re all champing at the bit to leave comments on all the interesting posts but you’ll just have to wait until I get it fixed OK?

This week saw the start of winter with regards to the morning mysore practice at BNHC.

We’ve moved back to the little room! Strangely the numbers have been around 20 every morning which is great! Normally numbers drop off considerably during winter as there’s no strutting down the beach front scantily clad So this is an excellent start to winter.

BNHC (I promise I don’t work for them!) is also offering a great incentive to those considering committing to practicing 5 days a week:
Do 4 consecutive classes and the fifth is free. How cool is that? Perhaps that has influenced the turnout? Whatever the reason its great to have room full of people to practice with on these cold dark mornings!

Namaste

hello England.

we are in beautiful berlin and its soooooo amazing and inspiring…….

we are here for the Nancy Gilgoff self practice classes and astanga adjustment clinic.   watch out- we may have to practice on you and have been trained to creep up from behind to wrench your knees and backs out for our own pleasure brrrooooooooooohaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrhaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr (J)!

Be very afraid. Anyway, Nancy Gilgoff has provided some really great insights into the practice that come from her 30 years’ experience and close knowledge of the Jois family.

She says that the ashtanga practice is an ‘energy builder’ - that means drawing energy in, rather than losing it by extending too far and reaching too far out. Instead, she talks about pulling the energy towards the centre of the body (thanks Josetta!) by focusing on the core and curling inwards in forward bends. I used to think yoga was about ’stretching’, and I still think this is how lots of people see it - about elongating the body and limbs. This is a completely different take as it’s about more about drawing the body back into itself - Nancy talks a lot about ‘integration’ of the body.

J again, just flicking through some of myworkshop scribbles-

yeah, its about an internal energy focus, so whereas Iyengar is very concerned with the look of a posture, astanga is more concerned with the internal, breath and bandhas, to let the energy flow (we may start charging for this Guy).  this all makes so much sense.  Ah yeah and she talks about Surya namaskara as your prayer and to use that frame of mind for your whole practice, you can see it as a prayer, grattitude and a connection to the bigger picture…..this takes you out of your ego, which in turn will reduce injury (less “pushing”).

so many beautiful words and ideas from Nancy and lots of fun and laughter too. and the adjustment clinics are tremendously inspiring, even if you dont want to teach, (thou I cant wait personally) you learn so much about the postures and the practice from looking at how to dissect the poses, what each one is doing, where the focus is etc……….

anyho that is it from me, am in yoga heaven, spending pretty much every waking moment talking or doing yoga and eating great vegan food (which is everywhere) and so great to get to know Louise and Shari better and meet other similarly yoga obssessives……..

big yoga love comin at yall

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Look forward to practising at BNHC soon and seeing everyone again - Louise x

Here at last is the link to an excerpt from the Manju Jois interview in Brighton

It’s about 10 minutes long as I ran into some technical problems (a fancy way of saying the recorder ran out of space.) The interview lasted about an hour and I’ll post the list of questions that I asked Manju and his responses over the next few days.

The good news is that Manju enjoyed his stay in Brighton and looks set to come back next year which is fab.