Yoga with Polly

05/09/2025

✨Classes resume Mon 8th✨

After a lovely break with the familam and settling into school and college this week, Yoga with Polly is back 🎉.

Have a full autumn with retreat days, event Collab and regular classes and have some announcements for the return of Relax and Unwind sessions later in the year.

Regular classes still have space on Mondays in Wilton and Friday mornings in Downton but Weds nights are waitlisted!

See you all on the mat soon or pop me a message if you are interested in a Collab or I can help with something specific like an event ❤️.

28/07/2025

Stable & Wick Collab and Garden Yoga This Week!
Details in my newsletter that dropped today:

A collaboration that has never made more sense . . . Because I essentially live there anyway! Join me at Stable & Wick for yoga in the paddock and a coffee after. We start at 7:30am with a yoga practice suitable for all levels, followed at 8:30am by a hot drink. Click the image below to book or pop....

23/07/2025

✨Advanced Yoga Practitioner✨

This is more than most a piece of paper. This is me deciding to embark on a journey that has taken me to different parts of the world, to dedicate my time to finding myself and my practice again after becoming a mum and becoming part of a community again after COVID.

It's also a lasting gift from my mum, who, having passed in 2020, had funded this endeavour. I wanted to make it mean something and go towards something immaterial that I could never lose. It also seemed quite fitting that money from teaching (it was from her teaching pension) went towards me bettering my teaching ❤️.

As always grateful for this practice and those who have taught and continue to teach me and all the beautiful souls met along the way. Also to my family and friends for being my biggest cheerleaders.

02/07/2025

✨Another Review✨

X###x

30/06/2025

✨ Review✨

Means the world ☺️, thank you Steve xx

02/02/2025

✨Imbolc✨

The day between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, a time of hope for new life emerging and the return of the light. I enjoy this time of year as much as I do Spring as it has that sense of looking forward to what's coming up with hopeful excitement, but it still invites you to be intuitive and introspective, planting the seeds for the upcoming true 'New Year'.

I spent the weekend in the garden, making and baking and spending time with family, and enjoyed this time to appreciate home. Reflecting on how in summer we are drawn elsewhere, away from home to explore further afield, whereas now is the time to root and ground at home.

14/01/2025

✨Whoop, keep on learning✨

Just before Christmas I completed a CPD course with the knowledgeable . Proud to say I'm able to cater for many more people to support them through different phases/changes in their lives and can teach in a bone safe way ❤️.

If you have any questions about dos and don'ts for a bone safe practice, fire away ###

10/01/2025

A week Sunday ☺️❤️

An extended practice focused on long holds and supportive use of props to set ourselves up for the week ahead. We will begin our lovely Sunday session with yin yoga to find space and release the tensions of the day and then follow this with a restorative yoga including a meditation to round off our....

31/12/2024

✨Imagination✨

In the Winter season, we are in this limbo between the 'death' of the outer landscape throughout autumn and the rebirth that occurs in spring.

Whilst society tells us that we must find a 'new year, new you' by adding more to our schedule, finding an increase in activity and constantly striving for a better self, nature and our biology is the antithesis of this imposed ideal.

Winter is the time to tend to our inner landscape, move our energy inward and find time to conserve it. It is a time of rest and reflection, a chance to recharge our batteries.

In TCM, the organs of winter are our kidneys and bladder. The kidneys are considered to be our batteries and energy reserve. Our bladder is in charge of our storage of resources. To keep in balance, both require us to be aware of how we are spending our energy and call for a delicate balance between rest and action.

The emotions associated with these organs are fear and faith. Overworking, stress, fear and living in our sympathetic nervous system can deplete our resources and energy reserves, but equally stagnating and lack of finding ways to light a spark within us can also deplete our resources. This is where we must find a balance of being mindful of taking time to rest, to avoid the overdoing in our time of hibernation, but also avoid a state of not re-energising ourselves by reflecting on what gives us purpose. Moving your 'doing' from what you feel you should do to please others or some societal standard of 'working hard enough' to doing things that speak to your natural gifts, that spark your creativity, imagination, create hope for things to come will provide you with the energy that rest can also grant you.

This time of year is very much about speaking to your authenticity, and having faith rather than fear that when you flow with your inner truth, things will work out as they should. ###

Photo taken

15/12/2024

✨Move with Grace✨

'To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of ease, lightness and grace. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical but when your inner dependency on form is gone the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, conditions, people that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them. '

This week's classes were themed around the meaning of grace relating to presence, specifically grace meaning to make full contact and give full attention to the present moment. Presence also allows us to let the moment be what it is, not assigning and organising it into 'good or bad' or 'productive and unproductive' but appreciating it as life flowing through you.

I'll be honest with a busy schedule, being tired with the darker weather and getting over the cold doing the rounds I felt all my patience, gentle parenting and grounded nature slipping away by the end of the week. I heard my own words from class guiding me to allow these feelings to be felt but use them as a guide to find some time for my practice and to spend quality time with Bean. Nelly asked to join me during my practice this evening, a perfect excuse to be present together.

13/11/2024

✨ Horizons✨

'I don't know what is to come past the horizon I am on today. But I am moving forward on these trails with hope things will go the right way' Jennae Cecilia

For the month of November I am taking part in 30 Days of Yoga to raise money for . As part of my practice, I've been flowing through variations of Horizon lunge and it led me to reflect on that horizons symbolise hope, forward motion and new beginnings. These are things that can be difficult to envision or cultivate when in crisis and suffering in ones mental health. The Mind Charity help others to be able to find hope and see a way forward.

01/11/2024

✨Play✨

Play is defined as something that’s imaginative, self-directed, intrinsically motivated and guided by rules that leave room for creativity.

I try and incorporate play in my personal and taught practices. Research has shown that play is not only important for childhood development but has profound effects on adult brains and mental health. It is said to improve the function of the prefrontal cortex, leading to higher attention and focus. It has also been shown to produce more dopamine than just exercise alone (which as we know exercise on its own is a well known way to produce this happy hormone) as well as regulating our stress response with production of norepinephrine. Furthermore, it is said new neural connections are created 1000 times faster when associated with play rather than repetition.

I just touched the tip of the iceberg when I started reading through the research studies on this topic. As always I am open to discussion on what other people gave found or trad and am by no means an expert, but try to base my post on scientific evidence and research.