Yes that’s right. Tuesday was a very good day because I got offered the job I was interviewed for on Monday! And miracle of miracles, it was, out of all the gazillion jobs I applied for, the one I wanted the most. Which goes to show if make enough affirmations, something will happen

It is working as office manager for a charity called Inspire who basically promote art and music and performance as holistic healing for people with chronic illness and disability. Yesterday they had a ton of kids with Downs Syndrome in making rock music. They also work with people with Alzheimers, Parkinsons, Chronic Fatigue, depression and even Fibro – so you see it’s right up my street. Maybe I can get them all doing yoga too! The hours are pretty flexible (so hopefully I can fit yoga teaching in around it pretty well, when I start up again) and best of all it is just an eight minute drive away!

I haz teh happy

=

I am going to spend some time flitting around various yoga classes in Cambridge, working out what I like, what I don’t, leaving my resume wherever it may need to be left and seeing what come of it all. I have a couple of masterclasses coming up with my teacher in the next few months also.

I went to a good class on Monday night – the first flow class I’ve been to in a while. Although someone came in ten minutes late and then left before savasana. Seriously?? I wouldn’t never allow that! Maybe I am too strict? :/

Also I have been working on Eka Pada Rajakopotasana. It’s something I have been practicing against the wall for some time. Well earlier this week I managed it without a wall!!! Only for a few breaths and my head is a looooooong way away from the sole of my foot but yay for balance!!!

So yeah, all good stuff!

I’ve been working on a lot of hip opening practices recently, both in my own practice and in my teaching. Most yoga asanas work on the hips and pelvis in one way or another, but by focusing particularly on hip opening practices we are, on a physical level specifically working into the mobility and strength of the hip joint.

It seems incredibly important to me to work this part of the body. The hips are the point in the body where the upper and lower parts meet, securing our spine to our legs and providing the beginnings of both the grounded feeling through our feet and the lifted feeling through our torso neck and head.

We all move the hips forward and back. It is called walking, most of us do it for long periods of time every single day. But how often to we use the full rotation of the hip? How often in daily life do we sit cross-legged or squat? And the reason most of us don’t – because it’s too difficult.

The hip joint is extremely solid – it has to be to hold us up, to provide that connection I was talking about before. This means that working through the hip joint is a slow process. We cannot force the joint – that will just cause knock-on damage to the knee; so we have to cultivate patience and a sense of inner awareness to slowly, slowly work through the tension towards release with compassion, without judgement, without comparison to others. Hip openes need to be practiced regularly, daily if possible and maybe, maybe you will one day be sitting in full lotus position (see picture)!

As any student of mine will tell you, my hips are notoriously stiff. I’m afraid sitting in full lotus is not for me in this lifetime. You see, our hips joints are set a certain way in their sockets. For some people this means hip opening practices will develop into half lotus at least, for others this means they have been able to sit in lotus since they were kids. But when bone meets bone in the socket you cannot stretch any further. If you try it will only twist into the knee.

Just because I know I will not sit in lotus does not mean I shouldn’t bother with hip openers however. We carry and awful lot of tension it the hips and pelvis, and therefore a lot of unrealeased emotion. Slow and patient release is key. And a healthy hip joint will carry a healthy body!

Like every Yogini I have yoga asana that I love and yoga asana that I hate.

My personal nemisis are backbends. Strong backbends such as chakrasana and full unmodified utrasana are big no-nos for me because of my scoliosis. These asana put too much pressure on my thoracic spine and end up doing more harm than good.

However, I do need backbends within my practice to open up my chest — one of the problems with thoracic scoliosis is a tendency to slouch into the chest so chest openers rather than strong backbends are the way forward. Whilst I really do have to persuade myself into them I do find a gentle Setu Bhandasana or Salambhasana very helpful. Some days I’m even up for a modified utrasana (with my hands on my lower back rather than my heels).

Working through modifications for back problems such as scoliosis and fatigue problems such as CFS and Fibromyalgia has been one of the highlights of my career thus far as a yoga teacher – I cannot tell you how liberating it is to find a way of modifying a posture to gain the benefits without putting the body under strain.

But what are my loves when it comes to yoga asana? Well I love anything that works on elongating the spine and sides of the waist and works on lifting out of the hips whilst grounding through the feet:- balances such as vrkasana for example, or vertical standing poses such as virabhadrasana 1 (although personally I would say the stance in that picture is way too wide!)

But my all time favourite yoga pose has to be Downward Dog. I am happy to hang there for breath after breath, releasing and releasing and releasing into my crooked spine

Sometimes it’s good to think about those poses we dread – very often the body needs what it least wants.

Namaste!