With the Summer holidays just around the corner and plenty of long warm evenings inviting you to socialise and indulge, there are plenty of distractions to take you away from a regular yoga practice. Here are some of the benefits you get from a regular yoga practice and 10 very good reasons to try to keep your practice up even when you don't really feel like it. When you feel your motivation is wavering , just think of 2 or 3 of these reasons, the ones that you know will reso

A few years ago I was welcoming a new associate to my team, he was a young, very well educated Russian and over lunch we started chatting about current affairs and how things were going in Russia after the end of communism and the advent of Putin. Somehow the conversation turned rather philosophical and we ended up talking about what makes humans so different from all other animals: the ability to make choices! A goose will always fly South in Winter, a tree will die in the

I have been writing this blog for over 2 years now and by far the most read post remains Tips to establish a personal practice , you may want to read that post before reading this one which goes a little bit deeper into how you can work out WHAT to actually do when you have managed to create the space and time in your life for a personal yoga practice. I hope you enjoy these tips, if you want to know more, join me on 16th September for a half day retreat , details and boki

When I started practising 3 and a half years ago I didn't know of the existence of arm balances ( poses performed balancing on your arms). It was only when I started to research yoga and read the classic yogic texts that I came across some of the amazing poses described in the Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha book by Swami Satyananda Saraswati . Mayurasana and Astavakrasana to name a couple About 2 years ago I started my journey into learning what is considered as the master ke

What a strange month March was , snow fell not once but twice , a major espionage/ international incident engulfed a sleepy town in Wiltshire and Stephen Hawkings moved on to explore his next universe. What about your life, did you have any un-expected events? We often react to unexpected events in a negative way and ask ourselves : "Why me? Why now? Why are you doing this to me universe?" Humans have always toyed with the idea of something invisible playing with their lives

As yet another Christmas approaches I am compelled to reflect on the real meaning of the biggest festival in the Western (if not the entire) world. I have been thinking about writing this post for a while , in fact since I was on holiday in Tenerife last Summer. It seems such a long time ago and yet it was just a few months ago that we were on the island for a week and spent a day at a large water park there. I had been before but not in high season and throughout the day I c

With Christmas approaching I see more and more billboards advertising food to share with friends over the festivities. Most of them depict a turkey or a joint of some kind surrounded by festive colours and heart warming scenes. Amongst the many thoughts about the commercialisation of this Christian festival and the modern take on what it means in an age where abundance of food is slowly eroding our health, I find myself reflecting on the amount of meat we consume every day an

Welcome to September ! Many people choose this time of year as their time to make a fresh start , try new things and establish new habits (normally healthier ones). As people try to decide if yoga is for them I receive many e-mails and calls which are often charged with doubt and even anxiety about joining the group classes or beginning a personal plan. To help you decide if yoga is really for you here are some common Yoga myths debunked. 1. I can't do yoga , I can't even tou

In March I started collaborating with Studio41 , a privately owned functional training gym with several workouts a week dedicated to make your heart race and help you tone up and loose weight. I should probably mention that I had not set foot in a gym for at least a decade, when I turned up at my first evening class a little early and was greeted by loud music and sounds that I can only describe as grunts, a few people were standing outside throwing large and heavy objects ar

When I was contemplating living my corporate job, one of the driving reasons was that I didn't feel like I was fulfilling my call. Apart from helping my team achieve their goals on a daily basis I didn't feel like I was truly making the world a better place or making a difference to anyone's life. Do you ever feel like that? Back in those days I had a post-it note stuck on my screen that read "Be kind , for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about". As I

This weekend I lead my first Sun Salutations Mala (Click here to find out more about Malas) . For a number of weeks I have been training and as I trained I started finding out more and more about my body AND especially my mind. I must first of all say that the thought of doing even 10 sun salutes has always been met with a little apprehension. Whatever sequence you decide to apply and whatever variation you decide to take , performing the same movements for a number of time

In just over 2 weeks (11th and 12th February 2017) I will be leading my first ever Sun Salutations Mala ( 108 salutes to the sun , or surya namaskaras) click here for details of the event. A mala is that string of 108 beads that you often see around the neck of yogis and yoginis around the world. Very similar to a rosary the malas are used to keep count of silent mantra repetitions ( Japa). The mala also has a Meru bead, which is a larger bead, not part of the 108. This is