Once again I am feeling remiss about responding to comments so a big big thank you to everyone who has followed me or found my new website and another big thank you for all your lovely comments about my blogoversary and our anniversary. All so much appreciated!

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So how are you all doing with your Spring into Yoga Challenge? What postures have you been working on? What have you discovered?

I have been working on Baddha Konasana and Janu Sirsasana, both of which are hip openers. I have tight hips (you can read more about my right hip here) and have always found these two postures particularly hard and often find myself skipping them during home practice.

But what we don’t want is often what we need so, with a little bit of love and a big dollop of Ahimsa, I have been trying to do one, if not both, every time I practice.

What have I noticed? That just because I have stiff hips doesn’t mean that I cannot get a feeling of deep release if I allow myself to breath and let go in these poses. That often I find myself holding on tight in both these poses, gripping, breathing like a rabbit, impatient for the posture to end. That to release allows me to go deeper into a posture than I thought I could. That neither posture feels as bad as my fear of it does. And that afterwards I feel so much looser, so much calmer, as though I have released emotional tension as well as physical. Clearly I hold tension, fear and emotion in my pelvis.

So I will keep practicing, keep reaching and continue to find the balance between strain and ease; between contentment and achievement.

I leave you dear readers with a 20 minute hip opening practice – I hope you enjoy. Any questions do drop me a line

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Hip Opening Sequence

Begin in Supta Baddha Konasana until you start to feel the hips release.

Come into Happy Baby Pose for a few breaths and then rock yourself up to sitting cross legged. Take a forward bend from here and then change the cross of the legs and repeat.

Come to all fours and take a few cat/dog stretches – inhaling upward cat, exhaling downward dog.

Hold your final downward dog for a few breaths and then step the feet between the hands into Uttanasana.

Tadasana

Step left leg back and come to Trikonasana on the right.

Step back to Tadasana

Step right leg back and come to Trikonasana on the left.

Step back to Tadasana

Step left leg back and come into Reverse Trikonasana on the right

Tadasana

Step right leg back and come to Reverse Trikonasana on the left.

Step back to Tadasana

Inhale, stretch up Exhale release into Uttanasana

Jump or step back to Downward Dog

Bring right leg forward into Eka Pada Rajakapotasana – hold this for at least 10-20 breaths to allow the hip to release. Then step back into downward dog and repeat with the left leg. Notice if you feel any differences between one side and the other.

Child’s pose

Janu Sirsasana – again holding for 10-20 breaths on each side to really allow those hips to release and to notice differences between the two sides.

Paschiomottanasana

Finish with a few moments in Supta Baddha Konasana before coming into Savasana. Allow the breath to fill the pelvic cavity and hips. Feel warmth and release there.

I don’t know about where you are but there is a distinct feeling of spring in the air here in Cambridge. The days are definitely longer and brighter, the bulbs in the garden are all poking their heads through the soil and the air feels lighter somehow, more oxygenated! This Yogini definitely has a spring in her step, awful pun very much intended.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of WoYoPraMo. World Yoga Practice Month is usually January and the yoga world all pledge to practice every day. I did not take part this year as I spent the first week of this January coughing up my lungs with bronchitis.

Besides I’ve never practiced every single day of the week. I believe in at least one rest day a week as a time to allow the body, mind and breath to assimilate the practice.  I also think that it is vitally important not to set goals that are unachievable.  It takes a very strong person not to feel a little let down by themselves if they have not achieved a goal that they have set.

A five day per week practice sits perfectly with my life right now, and so for the month of March I want to continue with my five days a week, but I want to focus specifically on poses that I have a tendency to avoid.   These include Baddha Konasana, Janu Sirsasana and Dhanurasana.  Those things we choose to avoid are often the things we need the most, so I will be working on these postures as mindfully as I can (rather than cursing myself in my head!) and keeping in mind my thoughts on 40 days of Ahimsa by being gentle with myself and not pushing or straining.  Just being in these postures that I so dislike.

Spring always reminds makes me think of the word “bloom”, as everything is just bursting, ready to bloom into life.  And that is exactly what I want to be happening on my yoga mat right now.

I would love it if you would join me dear reader.  No earth shattering goals, nothing you can’t stick to but if, like me, you practice regularly, try to practice at least one posture you don’t like (and we all have them) every day in March.  If you practice yoga but not as regularly as you’d like, try to put aside 20 minutes 2 times a week (my 20 minute practice might come in handy here!).  And for those of you who have never tried yoga before, why not go to a class, any class, just once sometime in March!


I’d love to know how you get on so do share!

I came across this term last week, I’m ashamed to say I’ve forgotten where because the lady who wrote it deserves credit. If it was you do tell me because that’s me, in a nutshell!

I have been vegetarian since I was 13 years old after staying with my aunt in Tasmania who took one of her sheep off in the front seat of her car and brought it back as a joint of lamb. I knew where meat came from of course, I’d just never seen it actually happen.

I was lucky. My parents’ embraced my vegetarianism completely. My mother became vegetarian as well and my father barely eats meat to this day. My brother was 6 at the time so had absolutely no choice in the matter (he has since rebelled by becoming a sausage eating carnivore).

On top of this I have always been lactose intolerant. Not in a “I will die if you bring cheese near me” kind of way, but more in a “spasming stomach and unpleasantly icky kind of way”. I have always used dairy alternatives where I can and my mother has always been magnificent at inventing vegetarian recipes that do not have cheese.

I originally gave up meat for very typical “teenage girl” reasons. I did not want the lovely little animals to die. As I grew older I learned things about farming methods and animal cruelty. I became unbelievably strict with my diet. I became a fully paid up member of the Vegan Police. I ate no meat, no fish, no dairy, no honey, no eggs. I wore no leather. I was a woman obsessed! And then a few years ago I got ill. Really ill. It was around the same time I met Himself (a man who will not be vegetarian-ised!). Together we researched organic, locally farmed meat and eggs and slowly I started bringing them back into my diet. Slowly as the protein did its work I got better.

This year I decided I was in a position to give up animal products again but sensibly, using alternative methods of protein. Obviously the dairy’s not too much of a problem. If I do eat some cheese I’m soon reminded why I shouldn’t.

But then we have the egg issue. You see I love eggs so much. I never admitted to myself how much I missed them when I was vegan before. I love golden mounds of scrambled egg on (non-dairy) buttery toast. I love two perfectly fried eggs between two pieces of homemade bread – I love biting into the yellow domes of yolk and letting it run down my chin…. Mmmm-hmmmm!

I don’t want to live a restrictive life anymore. Life has enough restrictions anyway. So I have found my compromise. I don’t use eggs if I don’t have to. I bake without eggs, I make batter without eggs, I make the best sweetcorn fritters ever without eggs. But then, once or twice a week I treat myself.

I do not condone farming and shopping methods in the UK. I do not condone what the large supermakets do to the farmers. I shop at farmers’ markets and organic delivery stores. But my shoes are now leather, they keep my feet dryer and Tasmanian honey is too good not to eat.

Ahimsa isn’t just about being kind to everything around us, it’s about being kind to ourselves as well. And that is something I have always been very very bad at.