When attending yoga, you might choose to go to a class in a yoga studio, a gym, or a community-driven class in a church hall or similar. But what if you’re finding a particular pose hard, and you can’t catch the teacher afterwards, or you’re not getting what you need from those gym classes, you might like to consider hitting someone you like up for a private sesh.
When practicing yoga, you may have been guided to micro-bend your knees or elbows, in order to avoid hyper-extending (or ‘locking’) into the joint. But what does this actually mean?
Knee pain is a common complaint in yoga classes and beyond, but you might be surprised to discover that quite often, the culprit is, in fact, not the knees at all, but instead, your hips and your bum.
I just wanted to talk a bit about downward-facing dog, because, well, it's a really hard yoga pose, and one of the most well-known out there. If I had a pound for every time someone told me they couldn't stay in it, or that they'd left a yoga class after the teacher harassed them for not being able to do so, I'd be... well, not rich, but I could buy a Nandos?
When attending yoga, you might choose to go to a class in a yoga studio, a gym, or a community-driven class in a church hall or similar. But what if you’re finding a particular pose hard, and you can’t catch the teacher afterwards, or you’re not getting what you need from those gym classes, you might like to consider hitting someone you like up for a private sesh.
When you start practicing yoga, props aren't usually top of the list. Instead, you'll probably be thinking about comfortable, stretchy clothing, enough space in your living room (if practicing at home) or how bendy you aren’t. But props are really a key part of maintaining a yoga practice, and this is why.
I just wanted to talk a bit about downward-facing dog, because, well, it's a really hard yoga pose, and one of the most well-known out there. If I had a pound for every time someone told me they couldn't stay in it, or that they'd left a yoga class after the teacher harassed them for not being able to do so, I'd be... well, not rich, but I could buy a Nandos?
Harriet McAtee is the Lead Trainer of the teacher training programme at Yoga Quota, which works to bring yoga to underserved communities across the UK. Here she talks about what consent means to her, how Yoga Quota chooses to confront these issues, and what she thinks the yoga community is doing well, and what needs to happen next.
Eunice Laurel is a movement practitioner who founded Movement for Healing, which provides access to yoga and other healing arts tools to women impacted by sexual and domestic violence. Here she talks about her background and her thoughts on what consent really means.
Power imbalance between teacher and student, whatever the discipline, is real and complex, affecting boundaries inside and outside of class. It’s time we considered how this imbalance affects us as teachers and as students; what impact it has on our consent practices, our use of touch, our interactions and the respect we have - or don’t - for each other.
Last week I was privileged enough to spend some time at the Brighton Yoga Festival, organised by the Brighton Yoga Foundation. Chaired by Theo Wildcroft and Jacqueline Hargreaves, the panel hosted Jubilee Cooke and Karen Rain, who had both flown over from the States specially, and Josna Pankhania, who had flown over from Australia.
In today’s world, where thousands of yoga classes take place every week, where we train as teachers and have to try and maintain our lifestyles by bringing in students, it might seem somewhat of an anachronism to ideate the idea of facilitation ahead of idolatry, which is what yoga, with its guru-led systems, has dealt with for so long.
