Yoga

13/03/2025

Tensegrity is a very helpful way of understanding our bodies, how we are able to stand up, move and enjoy yoga.

Our bodies are complex so it helps to start with simple examples and go from there.

Here’s an introduction to tensegrity that I’ve written with my Gokhale Method teacher hat on.

In our culture a loss of up to 50% of the height of the discs as we age from our twenties to our fifties is considered normal. It follows that the herniations, nerve pain, and arthritic change that accompanies this chronic degeneration of our discs is also not seen as unusual. Pain and reduced abili...

01/09/2024

India has given us yoga and the numbers we use. Trips to Aldi & Tesco would be much more difficult if we still used the old Roman number system.

The flow of knowledge from India to Europe on everything from maths to astronomy has gone unacknowledged by historians

14/07/2024

I share his enthusiasm for yoga, though in my case it’s been a 48 year journey through at least 6 different styles of yoga, including a “hot” yoga.

Yoga inside an inflatable “bouncy castle” is proving a big commercial success - it appeals to people who would not otherwise have touched yoga with a barge pole.

Traditionally asana yoga, the yoga of poses, postures and flows was simply preparation for the raja or royal yoga of meditation, preparing us for a “steady seat”. The pretzel yoga of contortions & shapes can be fun - but it is just 1 doorway into the much deeper practice of yoga.

It boosts flexibility, strength, balance, breathing and mood … Here are the stupid reasons I avoided it for so long – and 21 things I’ve learned since I embraced it

07/07/2024

I made a mistake on Thursday and did a couple of things that I know play badly in my body with a sacrum that can rotate causing SI joint pain and a fibro type response.

Paid the price Friday: general pelvic pain, fibro fog & zero energy - hit the sack by 7pm exhausted.

Yoga, particularly working with the gathering of the limbs to the spine, containment and rebalancing my sacrum has worked a treat. Felt so much better Saturday that I could head down to the boat, enjoying some time on the river Dart.

It's so easy to get used to a certain way of feeling & being, even getting complacent. My mistake and how quickly I could recover feels almost miraculous.

03/06/2024

Midway through my training to be a yoga teacher I was trying rather too hard to “achieve” a pose. The course tutor came over and bluntly told me “John you have a problem with your chitta!”.

This is usually politely translated as”mind-stuff”. She used the more direct “mind-sh*t”. Took a while to process that, but she was absolutely right.

The moment you try to be “good” at yoga it turns sour. Love this article by Zoe Williams.

The more self-actualised you become, the higher you are on self-righteousness, blaming other people’s problems on their failure to be as healthy as you, writes Zoe Williams

10/03/2024

An intelligent discussion of hyper mobility, which can too easily be mistaken for being “good at yoga”.

‎Show BodyTalk with David Lesondak, Ep Understanding Hypermobility with Chris and Ann Frederick - 2 May 2023

18/02/2024

Intuition is an important part of my yoga practice, its a rather vague concept, so this article is interesting both giving a clearer idea s to what intuition is and how useful it is to be open to your own intuition.

From deciding where to have lunch to choosing to walk away from a danger you haven’t even identified yet, intuition plays a part in all our lives

12/02/2024

An intelligent article on hyper mobility, though I would put more emphasis on how joints work best in the middle of their range of movement. Which is where working with the “gathering in” of the long bones of the limbs to the spine is so useful - it gives the joints more space between the bones AND supports them making movement more stable.

Simone Biles and Michael Phelps are among those with excessively mobile joints. But will this leave them prone to pain and falls in older age? Not if they stay strong and active, research suggests

26/01/2024

Sophie H***e, my “root” yoga teacher has died. I am both in shock and relieved that she is now at peace. I last met her nearly 10 years ago & understand that these past few years have not been kind to her.

She was a long term student of Vanda Scaravelli, whose approach to yoga Sophie shared with her students, including myself and many others including Gary Carter who took this photo while with Sophie in Florence (His heartfelt tribute to Sophie is worth reading).

I 1st met her on a wet autumn day in 2007 in Hampshire where she was teaching a yoga day for the Inner Yoga Trust, who trained me initially as a yoga teacher. I was sat in the floor, legs out in front of me. Instantly Sophie understood what my body needed and starting prodding and stimulating the sole of my left foot - I wondered what on earth was she doing.

Over the next few years I went to group yoga classes with Sophie. The penny finally dropped when I took private 1:1 classes with Sophie and my decades old SI joint pain started to heal.

I am grateful to have met such a wonderful profound teacher & human being. Thank-you Sophie.

01/12/2023

John Stirk has had a profound influence on how I practice and teach yoga. It’s good to hear his voice again this time in a podcast with J Brown.

John Stirk, author of Deeper Still, talks with J about formation, transformation, and the feeling of existence. They discuss changing expectations for careers in yoga, digging deeper to change your perspective, the condition of understanding, getting in touch with insightfulness, healing fragmentati...

07/09/2023

'Mass killing' report in Chapel St Leonards was yoga class

Police say the call was made with "good intentions" after students were mistaken for bodies.

26/07/2023

Plank & “wall sit” or chair against the wall are excellent ways of reducing blood pressure. They are an important part of my yoga practice. There are easier versions if either seems a bit much. Strengthening is good but do it gently and progressively.

Analysis finds isometric exercises that involve engaging muscles without movement the most effective for reducing blood pressure