I’ve been expanding my teaching schedule lately, running more workshops, retreats, and private classes on top of the 9 scheduled classes each week. It’s been amazing to reach new and different groups of people and to explore many elements of teaching in more detail too.
One recent class was tailored for NHS patients with mental health difficulties where we used gentle, mindful movement and pranayama (breath techniques) to connect mind and body and release tension. A couple of weeks later I co-hosted a retreat with my friend Georgie, a clinical hypnotherapist, where we explored combining yoga asana (movements), pranayama and subconscious therapy. My next project is taking simple yoga practices into businesses to help manage stress levels and increase resilience for employees…. More on that soon….
But anyway my point is that the more I teach the more I have moved away from my original idea of what I imagined teaching yoga would involve. Yes it’s true that many students take up yoga because they want to be more flexible or in tune with their bodies, and it does feel great to strengthen and stretch from head to toe, but in reality yoga goes far beyond that and has so much more value. When we take yoga out of the studios and into the ‘real’ world where so many people live and work, it makes a bigger difference, and brings the benefits of yoga within reach of a lot more people – some of whom would never dream of signing up for a studio class. So that’s the route I’m gradually moving towards with my teaching - bringing it to as wide an audience as possible. That doesn’t mean I’m planning on packing out Alexandra Palace for a ‘live yoga experience’ any time soon (I’m no YouTube star), or that I’d ever stop my regular teaching class schedule for that matter. But I’m looking to find new and creative ways to get yoga into as many people’s lives as I can. As things evolve and take shape I’ll share news about them on here….