Sarai Yoga

12/11/2024

You will be missed old friend and teacher. So many good memories of practising in Mysore and around the world. RIP 💚

09/09/2024

www.saraimonk.com/blog/how-to-reduce-anxiety-immediately

If you suffer from anxiety, you will know how awful it is to live in fear of a panic attack, social situations, or things feeling out of control. In this blog I will explain how to reduce anxiety immediately. This includes understanding the origins of anxiety, and how feelings and anxiety are linked

07/06/2022

Breathe in, breathe out.

19/01/2022

Research indicates that doing something that you love / brings you joy every day (doesn’t have to take long) has a significant impact on mental well-being.
I really really enjoy doing handstands! (I don’t do them every day though. Movement in general gets my juices flowing).

What’s your happiness ritual?

13/01/2022

Hips hips hips
Tuning up with some 90/90 pails and rails.
Then exploring how to activate seated poses so they’re more dynamic and interesting (and not all passive).
How do you make your hips feel good?

01/01/2022

✨✨Happy New Year ✨✨
Here’s a clip of a free 34 min yoga class I recorded to help you ease into the new year. It’s a spinal mobility flow to get your spine moving in all the directions and leave you feeling great. Click on the link in the bio gif the full class. If you get the chance to practice it let me know what you think 🧘‍♀️☺️

20/12/2021

Finally got these beauties to the park! It took a bit of flinging to get them over the branch 🤣
If you practice yoga, there’s not much pulling strength involved in a classical class and pulling is one of the 7 fundamental movements skills -along with squat, hinge, lunge, push, rotate, gait (walking).
Training all movement patterns is vital for a well rounded and functional system. The body is amazing at adapting but it sometimes leads to pain and becomes maladaptive.

What I found when I used to practise ashtanga was that all the pushing strength and no pulling led to major compensations in my shoulder girdle.
This led to discomfort and bad posture, tension in my neck, shoulders and tension headaches. None of which was sustainable or healthy.
Training pulling strength can also improve pushing as co-contraction around the shoulder joints equals more support and ease in pushing and pulling movements.
I am not a gymnast nor do I have a PT, so this play was purely for fun and to see if I could do ‘skin the cat’ - MUCH harder than it looks!! 😳🔥👊😅

Do you use gymnastics rings?
What’s your favourite way to use them?
Post in the comments below, I would love to hear from you 👇

01/11/2021

What you get when you mix mobility strength with iyengar. I used a massage ball behind my leg to fire up the hamstrings in the leg balancing and kept the rolling forward bends (this rolling sequence is loads of fun and from the Iyengar yoga tradition) active and controlled pausing in a navasana and staying active all the way down, during and out of the seated postures.

23/10/2021

Playing around with sequences for Monday’s class. The focus will be hip extension and shoulder flexion /extension and thoracic mobility with the peak pose being diagonal stretch twist (anyone know the yoga name for this Ido Portal movement ?) and then optional wheel (urdhva dhanurasana).
One thing I’ve noticed recently is that I always want to pack more into the class than is necessary or possible, and always end up dropping bits to fit to the 1hr. When I’m practising myself, I love having a vague focus and then being creative with lots of different ideas and movements. But am more structured with my class planning. (Such a different mindset to ashtanga!).
How do you sequence your self practice and yoga classes? Let me know ☺️

23/10/2021

23/10/2021

07/09/2021

A simple way to add load to your yoga postures to build strength, is to use a resistance band.
Adding load is important so the body can adapt and become stronger- something that doesn't always happen when practising with body weight only.
The band helps to wake up the muscles which you might be finding hard to activate, by providing feedback to your nervous system to fire up the muscles, and increasing your awareness, so that when you do the yoga pose without the band, they will know to kick in.
Part 1:
Arms: Gomukhasana
- band helps build strength at end range.
- shoulders are back and down, scaps retracted
- contain ribcage by descending the lower ribs engaging abs
-keep trunk still (contained) throughout, slight posterior tilt in pelvis
- if comfortable, dip chin to lengthen neck
-you may feel your triceps or shoulders working