A short sequence to unlock neck and shoulder tension

With spring comes a desire to surface again, as though from a deep winter slumber.  It’s time to uncrick necks, stretch out limbs and take some deep, deep breaths, breathing in new life and vigour.  To help you banish the winter blues for another year and embrace the spring sunshine, here’s a little sequence I’ve

Posture Focus – Keeping the shoulders safe in chaturanga dandasana

I realise I haven’t been on the blog since I returned from India. So much to talk about, I don’t know where to begin! So, whilst I gather my thoughts, I’m just updating the blog by adding some of my past newsletter articles as I like to put them on here so a wider readership

Hot fuzz

Last night I slept really badly due to a combination of the sauna-like heat of our rooftop apartment as the temperature creeps upwards every day, a pack of howling, fighting dogs outside and at least one hungry mossie. After hours of tossing and turning, I stumbled to class bleary-eyed, bracing myself for an unpleasant Mysore practice. However, strangely,

Experiential Anatomy with Ken the Rolfer – helping the inner journey

This weekend I attended the follow-up to Ken the Rolfer’s initial Experiential Anatomy course and it was just as inspiring and illuminating as the first one. I could listen to Ken talk for hours. His slow, relaxed drawl belies a fiercely sharp mind and fathomless depths of knowledge and experience. When his steady gaze meets mine as

Body prodding and Happy Sankranti

Oh dear, I did it. I called Ken the Rolfer ‘Rolf” to his face by accident, in a Fawlty Towers ‘don’t mention the war’ stylee. Oops… Still, he was very cool about it: “Oh it’s fine, I spent four months being called Rolf in Indonesia – they just didn’t get it.” What a dude. Ken the

Lego and crayons – remembering how to play

This weekend I took a bit of time out of my experimentations with a more ascetic lifestyle – I’m definitely enjoying lots of time to write and meditate but we humans are naturally social creatures and reclusivity is only appealling to me if it has clearly defined limits!  Look – me being social! By the way,

Anatomy Focus – how do we engage moola bandha?

Hmmm, where to start?! Moola bandha is a vast subject, much debated and discussed in the yoga world at every level, from its purely physical uses to its energetic functions and beyond. It even has its own well-known book written all about it. When you’re new to yoga it can be a difficult concept to get

Anatomy focus – how back-bending is also chest opening

It is an anatomical rule that when certain muscles in the body contract to achieve a particular action, another group of ‘antagonistic’ muscles will stretch; you cannot have one action without the other occurring. In back-bending, muscles in the back, such as the erector spinae and trapezius, contract, meaning muscles on the front of the