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When I first decided to try aerial yoga, I envisioned being strung up high from the dome of the Royal Albert Hall by my ponytail, attached to a fuse, which, as it burned, would unleash me spinning Cirque du Soleil-style, landing in the splits an inch from the floor.
I was wrong.
Aerial yoga combines traditional yoga postures with the principles of aerial arts*.
Read moreWhat do Marilyn Monroe, Oprah Winfrey, Camilla Parker-Bowels all have in common?
What do the Dutch call knobbel op de grote teen, the Portuguese joanete and the French oignon?
From my ‘extensive and highly scientific’ research on the humble bunion, do more yoga and loving your feet more is the way forward. I can help you with the first part, you have to do the second part.
Read moreThe emoji on my phone representing yoga is someone in a lotus position. If you ask me I think Warrior 2 is a far better choice. I feel it's a more popular pose, accessible to most people. It’s a deceptively simple pose, which can make even the hardened yogi cry for mercy.
Read moreNot all meditations are the same.
Not all meditations are right for everyone.
But meditating is good for everyone according to the neuroscience...
Are you someone who could count your heart beat without checking your pulse? Or someone who has no idea what's going on that even if you had a heart attack, you wouldn't notice?
Read moreI had never heard of Deborah James who recently died from bowl cancer, but hearing the BBC newsreader, announcing in his best BBC accent that we should ‘check our pooh’ made me snigger like a 7 year old. It felt so incongruous, this great British institution saying the word ‘pooh’, when we all know they should be using the term 'number twos' instead.
Read moreThere are some things that are 'just a habit'. I don’t have to think about it, it’s automatic. Teeth brushing, making coffee in the morning, starting a yoga practice with a weird stretch and a yawn. Somethings became a habit without releasing it – a glass of wine at the end of day, a croissant on a Sunday, dancing outside in a thunderstorm. I have no idea at what point these things became a habit.
Read moreI recently heard a ‘top tip’ from a teacher that struck a chord with me. 'If you are ruminating, then ground down on your feet". This got me thinking... (I am aware of the irony of this sentence).
Apart from the fact it is so ridiculoulsy simple I can't believe I wrote it down, we all know this intuitively. It is literally a no brainer. ;-) It makes perfect sense to 'get out of your head' into the opposite direction.
Read moreIn a recent workshop the teacher told the class to have ‘an anterior tuck of the pelvis, but counter nutation of the coccyx’.
For some people this sentence is easy to decipher, for others it requires some investigation. I have translated it into Sandra-speak for those who would like some deciphering.
‘Stick your bum out, like a duck waddling sexily and at the same time tuck your tail under like a scared whippet dog hiding his tail’.
Have you ever looked at a yoga pose and thought, "Why!??! Why on earth would I want to contort myself into THAT?"
Then you try it, can't do it and then get annoyed. Then think, "Why can't I swivel my head 180 degrees and lightly place my nose between my butt cheeks?" Finally it's followed by "It's not fair".
Read moreHave you ever been so angry, but not been able to vent your ire? Did you clench your jaw shut and make a bull-like long exhale through the nostrils? Did you want to scream an expletive (or ten), but instead you shut your mouth and made a kind of Darth Vader sound in the back of the throat as you composed yourself?
I am pretty sure you know what I am describing. To me, this feels like the best option when I am fuming. This forceful exhale gets rid of that surge of energy and brings some balance back. When it doesn't work, that's when all hell breaks loose and I say things I wish I hadn't said. (This is of course all hypothetical- I am a yogi after all...)
Read moreHave you ever tried a Moon Salutation aka Chandra Namaskar?
It hasn't been around as long as its famous counter part Surya Namaskar (salute to the sun), but it's a really nice sequence that makes us move in all directions, using the long end of the mat.
The Shiva Samhita (500 year old Tantric text) regards the moon as the source of immortality. Like the 'sun' is located in the solar plexus, the 'moon' is said to be located in the crown of the head and contains 'amrita' the divine nectar of immortality. (There is a yogic practice where you to slice your tongue - just a little -so you can flip the tongue into the back of the throat better and catch this amrita and reverse ageing and decay… Well, this may be a gentler way of keeping the elixir of life.)
Read moreTake a moment now to note where your tongue naturally sits in your mouth. Where is the tongue resting? At the top of the palate? The bottom of the mouth? Where is the tip of the tongue? Pushing against the top teeth? The bottom teeth?
It turns out there is a wrong and right way to rest your tongue and ‘proper tongue posture’. Bad tongue posture can have a negative effect on your eyes, nose, head, neck, shoulders, and teeth. Improper tongue posture can contribute or lead to sleep apnea, TMJ (jaw pain), problems with vision, bad body posture, tooth damage.
Whereby "proper tongue positioning" can lead to improved sleep, better breathing, and decreased neck, jaw, or head pain.
Read moreAt the very end of each yoga class we finish by having a bit of a lie down. To a beginner this is a very odd thing to do- to lie down in the middle of the room with a bunch of strangers for a few minutes. The reasoning is that after having created all those wonderful shapes and moved the body, breath and energy in all directions, we let it all go. We lie down into corpse pose (Savasana), finally stopping and returning to stillness. In this stillness the body has a moment to absorb and assimilate, on all levels, the changes that have happened, before we spring back to life and it gets very busy again.
There are those who come to yoga so they get 40 winks or 5 minutes of 'peace and quiet'. And those who love the practice, but sprint out the room as soon as I say 'find a comfortable lying down position'. They either don't see the point of wasting time on the floor for 3 - 5 minutes or they can't cope with 3-5 minutes of doing nothing. To be fair it's not easy.
Read moreClose your eyes. Relax your body.
(Make a mental note of how hot you are on a scale of 1 to 10)
Have a millimetre gap between your teeth
Keep your tongue flat against upper palate
Separate the lips, gently exposing as many teeth as you can
Inhale slowly and deeply through the teeth
At end of inhale, close mouth and exhale slowly through nose
This is 1 round. Repeat 5 more rounds.
(Make a mental note of how hot you are on scale of 1 to 10)
You can't read on until you've tried it. It's only 30 seconds of your time.