Bringing the niyamas to life – Svadhyaya

As a quick reminder, the niyamas are five personal qualities mentioned in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras that we’re encouraged to cultivate within ourselves, to help us on our yoga path. In this article we’re looking at the fourth niyama: ‘Svadhyaya’, which means ‘self-study’. I warn you now, I may go off on one a bit in

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

Sharath conference notes – March 7th 2015

I’ve noticed on the Ashtanga Community in Mysore facebook page that there are a few requests for write-ups of Sharath’s conference notes. Well, seeing as I simply cannot stop myself from taking copious notes whenever anyone is talking to me (I think it’s how my brain processes information) I thought I should answer the call. However,

A meditation on meditation

So I’m a week into my attempt to meditate daily, and it’s going well so far I think. As far as any kind of technique goes, I have simply been watching my breath. Every time my mind wanders (which is ridiculously often), I just gently steer it back to observing the breath, trying to feel it enter and

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,

Home Alone 2

So, Chris has left again to complete the second (mahoosive) leg of his moped trip through India – this time he has around 2500 km to cover up to Delhi rather than the 600 km covered on the first leg, gulp. He reckons it will take him between 8 and 10 weeks. So I am

Karma bananas

I feel like being in India is teaching me all kinds of little but important lessons. Perhaps it’s because I have the luxury of time each day to do asana, pranayama and meditation, such that I’m more open to them; I think such life lessons are probably there for the taking at any point, as long

The slow count

This morning we had our first led primary series class with Vijay – it was a sloooow count, and I swear he slowed down even more for navasana (the dreaded boat pose, where you balance on your bum in a V shape) and utpluthih (where you lift up onto your hands whilst in lotus and

Puja and pranayama

Today, the yoga bungalow where we’re staying was decked out in its finery ready for puja, which is a kind of Hindu offering ceremony, and we were all invited. The offering was made to the Hindu gods Lakshi (goddess of wealth and good fortune) and Ganesh (remover of obstacles) in order to help bring success