2021: A time to reflect and plan....

This the year is a time for reflection, for myself, it is how the year has affected my yoga business. Cancelling public classes was hard and I genuinely thought his was merely a temporary situation. The online classes have been interesting, and I continue with these whilst the demand this there but it’s not a great medium for teaching a 3-dimensional practice. One-to ones are just too risky in the current climate, one thing we do subscribe to in yoga is not to harm ourselves and others.

Despite this, I remain positive and optimistic about the future of yoga in our society and being able to teach.

The pandemic and its constraints have allowed me the time to get deeper into my practice and study more about yoga, it’s evolution and method. I really think that, despite the obvious stigma that is associated with this practice, it is needed more than ever.

I have been lucky to teach some teens recently who have really embraced yoga, they are open to these holistic initiatives and once they have taken a class, they get it straight away. They see the benefit to their lives and are enthused about learning and practicing more, it really is an easy sell.

At the other end of the scale, I have some great yogis in my classes at Wellington leisure centre who are truly inspirational, octogenarians that can still hold quite challenging postures and move fluently and mindfully, through the class. They too recognize the benefits of yoga both physical and mental.

We all need to figure out coping mechanism for the stresses in life which come at us thick and fast. I would encourage you to consider yoga, at least as a means of finding things out about yourself, identifying and releasing your true potential and improving your mental wellbeing.

This is much more than developing physical fitness, the method is more about developing techniques for total relaxation, taking away the veils of tension we carry in our bodies and then our real potential can express itself, unhindered. Recognising the signs of stress and tension and training the body and mind to respond to these instinctively.

We cannot avoid the difficulties and problems that life throws up, but we can learn to navigate them safely, aspire to live a life, free of tension and anxiety, how about that?

The New Year is a time when we all reset, take stock, maybe get fitter, reevaluate. If you are interested in developing your mind and body to deal with the issues that occur, perhaps improve your fitness in a safe, sustainable way, then please do consider yoga, there is so much more to it than you might think.

Watch your back!

So how's the back bearing up with working from home?

I know of a few people who are experiencing lower back issues for the first time, not that this is entirely down to the several hours spent in the chair but I'll bet it plays a big part.

It's one thing to take breaks, which is the advice given sincerely by responsible employers, or even those with an eye on potential claim cases, "have you do completed your Desktop Environment assessment…"

It would be better to get tuned into your body, it's constraints, and then develop the range of movement you once had.

The weekend warriors are most vulnerable in this new way of working,.. Come the weekend, hitting the trails, grinding out the miles, pushing the body when it has been mostly sedentary, and held in an unnatural position all week, (thank the Victorians for inventing the chair).

There is the option of special chairs I suppose, although I prefer sitting cross legged on a bolster, it's been a revelation for me, my hips, my knees, and especially my back, shoulders and neck.

I certainly recommend we get to know our bodies and then work on the areas that need attention. The best way is to carry out a Range of Movement assessment. I can help with this over Zoom for now and when we are free again, on a safe 1:1 basis.

I will produce a home exercise practice to help you prevent\rectify\rehabilitate your body.

Yes, this is yoga, a means to prevent yourself from being another victim of bad posture, legacy injuries, body imbalance and dysfunctional movement.

My yoga is contemporary, relevant and above all aimed at helping today's postural issues.

Yoga for swimmers

If you are a keen swimmer, this lockdown is going to keep you out of the water, probably longer than you are used to, that is unless you are fortunate and brave to get into the open water or sea.

Here is where yoga may help you during this enforced downtime. There are many reasons to take up yoga to supplement your swimming. Last year I was teaching yoga at the Henley swim, for charity, but it was encouraging how many swimmers joined in and understood immediately the potential benefits of an enduring yoga practice.

Becoming more mobile

As a swimmer, focussing on mobility during a yoga session helps to improve the range of motion that a joint has as well as lengthening the muscle tissue, which improves the integrity and strength of a joint.

Developing strength

Most elite swimmers and those people who swim for fitness will spend a reasonable amount of time in the gym, training with weights and doing core exercises to increase strength.

They can enhance this by adding a yoga programme which is tailored to use movements that are specifically aimed at swimmers. Using both dynamic and static poses, core strength is improved as well as upper and lower body strength. The strength gained is functional, which means that it is directly transferrable into swimming.

Understanding your body

Yoga is a great way of developing awareness of your body, as it gets swimmers to perform movements that they are not used to and develops more variability in the nervous system.

This helps you to achieve technical proficiency, and when you are given technical changes or advice, you will find it easier to put these into practice.

Improving breathing coordination

In swimming, coordinating your breathing along with the movements you use in your stroke technique is important. Learning to breathe in coordination with your movements helps to keep you relaxed whilst performing the action, improving the efficiency of your stroke.

Yoga teaches effortless effort and this term is often used during yoga practices. Putting in the effort while moving with ease. This skill is taught through the use of breathing, which can be directly related back to swimming.

Recovering after training

There are many different styles of yoga, each of which offers very different benefits. Often, swimmers find their muscles are feeling stiff and tight after training and so the idea of stretching, or doing a yoga session, is not appealing.

However, restorative yoga uses props to help support the body while you are performing poses, which helps the body to loosen up. It also engages the parasympathetic nervous system which helps the body to recover more effectively.

Preventing injury

By developing the aspects mentioned previously in this article; mobility, strength, awareness of your body, ease of movement and recover, you set yourself up for preventing injuries.

Creating a yoga practice which takes into account your individual needs as a swimmer, including strength imbalances and prior injuries, helps to prevent getting injuries in the future.

Developing yourself mentally

Being psychologically prepared for training, or competition if you swim competitively, is an essential part of being successful. Yoga can help you to develop mental skills to the best you can be.

Skills like reducing anxiety before racing through positive thinking, self-pep talks and visualisation and relaxation are all practices taught in yoga.