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At Home On The Mat

I am a Feldenkrais teacher who also practices and teaches yoga. A few weeks ago, I was asked to write a short piece on maintaining a home yoga practice. I didn’t realise then how relevant this would become! I’ve copied the article here below. Grab a cuppa and have a read.

AT HOME ON THE MAT

What Brought me to Yoga 

Yoga is a journey and we are all beginners: my journey has now been nearly 30 years since I discovered yoga when working as a young actor. Someone taught me a Sun Salutation as an effective and quick way to warm up the body before performing. I quickly found that this simple repetitive sequence also calmed the mind and I adopted this as a ritual before auditions, performances and even interviews when I often found myself grabbing a little bit of floor space on a landing, a stairwell and even in a toilet. 10 years later,  I had a busy and stressful job as a theatre director and desperately needed some activity that wasn’t work related that I could do in my own time. I found a wonderful Iyengar yoga teacher called Arlette McKenzie in Bishops Stortford and became a regular at her weekly classes. Several jobs and several different yoga teachers later, I returned to Sheffield and signed up for Frances Homewood’s Wednesday class at the Sheffield Yoga Centre. I didn’t have a regular home practice at that point, but I found stretching through Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog) and into Balasana (Child’s Pose) extremely beneficial as a way to unwind the body and mind.

Committing to Home Practice 

What prompted me to start practising at home? I wanted to get better at yoga and I was finding the benefits of a stronger body and calmer mind quite addictive. It was very difficult to attend more than one class a week, so home practice was a logical progression. The first sign of commitment was buying a yoga mat from Yoga Studio, complete with handy carry bag – I still have it and it has proved very good value. The second thing was – what to do on the mat? I bought BKS Iyengar’s Yoga – The Path To Holistic Health and tried to follow some of the recommended sequences in this valuable if very weighty book. Later I bought Geeta Iyengar’s Yoga in Action: Preliminary Course. In her preface, Geeta says “Often when beginners attempt to practice on their own they have forgotten what they learnt in the class…this book will give guidance to them in their home practice, after they have first studied with the teacher in the class”  (my underlining).

I don’t think that there is any real substitute for a teacher in class who can see what is happening in my alignment, but the advantage of practicing at home is that I can take my time and try out different approaches to the poses, remembering the advice that I have been given in class. I am a trained Feldenkrais teacher which means that I believe that all bodywork is an individual learning process. There can be a sense of freedom and playfulness about spending your own time on the mat, wriggling in Marjaryasana (Cat Pose) and wobbling in Vrksana (Tree Pose) . As BKS Iyengar says: “Do not stop trying just because perfection eludes you”

Away from home, I have improvised yoga equipment using telephone directories and Gideon’s bible and discovered that bath mats really aren’t safe substitute for a yoga mat! I’ve discovered how to do Setubandha Sarvangasana ( Supported Bridge Pose) from a coffee table and that it’s always possible to find a chair to do seated twists on.  I’ve found that a full-size mat and carry bag can be quite bulky to take on any journeys and so my latest purchase has been a travel yoga mat which is quite a revelation – it folds up into a neat square and weights a mere 800g. One warning –  a potential hazard to doing mat work in your own home or in a hotel room is the close contact with a mucky carpet and a view of what’s hiding underneath the sofa.

Rules for practice: 

  1. Yoga is best done on an empty stomach and it is always easier to practice in the morning, even though I may be stiffer than later in the day.
  2. I will always feel better after practice than I did before
  3. A practice doesn’t have to be very long. It is better to do 10-15 minutes than put off doing anything because I haven’t got a spare hour.
  4. It’s all right to be playful and just wriggle about on the mat, letting my body fall into poses and balances
  5. Try to vary the poses in the practice and not just do the “easy” or familiar ones
  6. Don’t let the cat into the room while you practising. It’s incredibly difficult to breathe in shoulder stand when a friendly feline is sitting on your face
  7. Having a “beginner’s mind” is something that only comes with experience

ENJOY THE JOURNEY – NAMASTE!

Putting a Spring in Your Step!

Yes, apologies for the pun but here we are nearly at the end of a soggy February and many of us are looking forward to better days and drier weather. I’m grabbing any respite from the rain to get out in the fresh air – as we all now, daylight and the open air is good for our mental and physical health. My next workshop is all about better walking and running, whether you’re a couch potato that needs to find the propulsion to get up and go, an active walker/runner that keeps finding discomfort after activity or you would simply like to find a better swing to your stride, come along to “Improve Your Stride” on Saturday 7th March 2020 from 10.30-12.00pm. The workshop is at Remedy House, 24 Wilkinson Street S10 2GB and costs £20 per person or £36 for two. I guarantee you’ll feel the difference.

New Practice Rooms…at The Practice Rooms!

from 1st February 2020, I’ll be seeing 1:1 clients at a brand new venue, The Practice Rooms in Sheffield. This venue is in a lovely old beautiful building, close to the centre of Sheffield and has 10 rooms especially designed for holistic health and therapy. You can have a look at my link right here https://thepracticerooms.co.uk/find-a-therapist/profile/dianne-hancock

 

More Workshop Reviews!

In my last post, I mentioned some of the comments following my January workshops. Here’s another: “I loved the way we stretched in the class which had a significant impact later but was almost unobtrusive in that I don’t realise the extent to which I’m stretching whilst I’m doing it. Most certainly felt two inches tall at the end and “active” once I arrived home. There were a number of stretches I can do in bed too which is a great way of starting the day.”

Happy New Year!

2020 has got off to a great start for the Mindful Body with two fully booked workshops. The first – “Moving with Your Whole Spine” – was on 4 January 2020 and I got some lovely feedback from participants. “I feel like I’ve got a whole new body!” one woman said at the end of the session. It is so rewarding to give people the experience of better movement. Workshop No.2 was in the lovely Equaminity Studio at Penistone on Saturday 11 January and that theme was “Functional Feet”. Here’s one review: “Thank you for a great workshop, Dianne. As a Reflexologist, I don’t often get a chance to ‘twiddle with my own toes’! This gentle and subtle Feldenkrais movement therapy really makes your brain work – strangely! I felt relaxed and sleepy afterwards – and yet more aware of my body and more alert at the same time. Looking forward to the next workshop.”  Upcoming classes and workshops can be found here  

 

The Mindful Body comes to Penistone

I’m very pleased to announce that I will be starting a new Feldenkrais class at Equaminity Studios in Penistone this week. The new class will be from 10 – 11am every Thursday and is suitable for those new to the Method and for people who have already enjoyed the benefits of The Feldenkrais Method and how it can help you to improve your movement range with ease and comfort. Email info@equaminitypenistone.uk to book.

Back to School!

I’m back after a long break from posting here. My apologies, but sometimes life gets too busy communicating to communicate! I hope you’ve had a great summer and I’ve enjoyed meeting a lot of new clients over the last few months, as well as planning new classes and collaborations for the autumn. A full and up to date version of the new classes and events is in the calendar and you can also go to the Classes page to see what’s on offer.

Preventative action

In the news this week there has been a lot of discussion about NHS funding, where and how the money should be spent. I feel very strongly that we need to invest in preventative care – particularly as in the UK we have a large proportion of our population that is over 65 years. Small changes to lifestyle and habits around exercise, diet and personal care can make a real difference in avoiding larger problems later on. It is not down to the medical practitioners to make these changes: every individual would benefit from greater knowledge and ownership of their personal health. In general matters we go through life amazingly ignorant of many things that directly affect us and it’s only when things go wrong or break down that we get involved in the mechanisms and processes that help us function. This might be the workings of the combustion engine or…more importantly, our own mental and physical health. We need a good health service that is safe and reliable but we also need to challenge our own passivity: returning again and again to a chiropractitioner to solve the same problem always reminds me of Albert Einstein’s well known definition of insanity “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Again Einstein…”We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

And breathe…

  I can’t believe that next week will be the beginning of December and so the last Saturday workshop of 2018! It’s been an action-packed and very eventful year both personally and globally so the theme of this workshop “Take A Breath” seems very apt. We can often feel overwhelmed by the pace of life and the expectations we create for ourselves: therefore it is very important to find time to pause, reflect and simply, take a breath. This December workshop will focus on breathing, mindfulness and relaxation techniques to help build personal resilience and equip you for the month ahead. You can book by going to the bookings page here

More information is on the Classes page here