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Reading Vanda Scaravelli's Awakening The Spine, I was struck by one of her opening thoughts on page 15: Why Are We Doing Yoga? For health reasons? Perhaps a walk in the park would be better. To help someone else? There are so many ways of helping people. To make money?  This is surely not the best [...]

Feedback following last 2 blogs on the subject of how we increase our body sense in yoga practice.  Using sprinters as a model to sense when we lose support in practice - by repeating the whole movement or by focusing upon a part, backing off, pausing and then repeating. Parts versus the whole in yoga [...]

I use the term frequently.   Essentially it is about training movements not muscles.  It mirrors how the body naturally moves and helps to improve that movement.   In our yoga classes we focus upon our walking pattern quite a lot.  We flex and extend our toes then balance on our haunches.  By strengthening the arches of the [...]

My mini-series on common structural problems presented in a yoga class , has highlighted a "part" of the body that is not functioning as well as it might and I have attempted to  show how our whole body movements help to improve the function of component parts" as we "map" movements through slow, repetitive practice. [...]

The elbow joint made up of the lower part of the humerus and the upper ends of the ulnar and radius, which make up the forearm. The joint allows us to                                              - bend the [...]

Images of hands in namaste or reverse namaste commonly symbolize the serenity that accompanies yoga practice.  Whereas a more common experience is pain in the wrists and hands which means that "stock" poses - cats, dog, plank etc - become problematic.  Our advice is to explore and to back off where necessary but, in a [...]

This is the first in a series of posts covering common problems that present in a yoga class.  Plantar fasciitis is a nasty pain in bottom of the foot. It causes mainly foot arch pain and/or heel pain.   Pain is quite often at the front of the heel  Plantar - "relating to the sole of the [...]

After mentioning Dr. Esther Sternberg’s The Balance within: The Science connection Health and Emotions,I was interested to hear about research into harnessing the power of our immune systems (Radio 4 - Today Programme on 8th February). Through advances in immunotherapy the immune system is "nudged/tweaked" - boosted or dampened to help the body cope with the inflammation that accelerates [...]

In Dr. Esther Sternberg's The Balance within: The Science connection Health and Emotions . She explains the link between the central nervous system and the immune system, exploring how immune molecules made in the blood can trigger brain function that profoundly affects our emotions,  This  interplay of our emotions and our physical health is intrinsically affected by stress. [...]

Many people access yoga classes when experiencing pain. They may have journeyed through the doctor's surgery, physiotherapy room and perhaps some "alternative" therapies along the way.  Yoga seems to help people recognize the mind/body connection and when this happens the "history" of the pain may become clearer. In "Pain. The Science of Suffering", Patrick Wall [...]