My Week in Yoga: Pottering Along

Some weeks there are lots of exciting things to say about my week of yoga. Breakthroughs or set backs or special events. This week was not full of those I’m afraid. But that is the practice most of the time, no? Pottering through, day after day…

Monday:  

Up early to practice before heading to Wimbledon for the day with clients. It’s a hard life sometimes! Ended up focusing on standing splits, which I like to call “standing-leg-somewhat-in-the-air-pose” because split my legs are NOT. Anyhoo, when the poses that you dislike magically pop into a practice, you have to embrace them with every ounce of your being. So for all intents and purposes I did a 40min standing splits flow. And loved it. Added 10min of pincha at the end of course.

Tuesday: 

My body was feeling the effects of one too many Wimbledon Pimms, while my inbox was showing the impact of a day without proper supervision, so no yoga today.

Wednesday: 

60min Iyengar at work, which happened to be all about pincha! Yay! Iyengar is all about alignment and it was great to get my teacher’s take on my pincha given I’ve mostly been working on it by myself for the past month. Moral of the story is keeping my hands from sneaking in towards each other. Easier said than done, but the last thing I want to do is injury these precious precious shoulders of mine (see here and here for why!) so I am taking this 

Thursday: 

Set my alarm for a pre-work practice, but turned it off and went back to sleep. So another rest day! 

Friday: 

60min Rocket class after work. It was another super hot day in London so this was a total sweat fest. Felt good to get all the wiggles of the week out however. Then came home and put in another 15min of pincha work. Because pincha is basically my life at the moment, in case you hadn’t already realised., ha!

Saturday:

75min Rocket yoga class that ran for 90min. I started going to this class in the run up to my YTT but haven’t been back since the week before I left, so early April. And I had totally forgotten why I loved it so much. The teacher, Austin, is really hands on when it comes to inversions so gets me into handstand 3-5 times a class, including pressing from crow! And now I can practice my pincha, it’s even more of a blast.

I cannot say again how game changing it is to find a teacher that works for where you are in your yoga journey. For the first 2 years of my practice, I went to a 90min Iyengar class on Saturday mornings. And loved it every single week. The teacher was (is!) amazing and the style of practice was exactly what I needed. I was struggling so much with even basic flexibility and had no idea what all the poses were meant to look or feel like, so the long holds and in depth cues of Iyengar were perfect for me. But as I improved I wanted more of a challenge, and that’s when I switched to this Rocket class. And again, it was/is perfect for where I am right now. So if you haven’t found that teacher yet, or what you are looking for from your practice has changed, go out and look for a new teacher. They are out there waiting for you, I promise.

Added a little 15min of self-practice in the evening. Half lotus & lotus flow. It was the weekend after all.

Sunday:

30min self-practice in the morning followed by a 45min mixed bag class in the evening (one that I hope will lead to some more public classes in the near future: watch this space!). Generally today was a day of taking it easy. We all need them every now and again don’t we?

• Self-Practice: 1hr 50min
• Dynamic Classes: 3hrs 15min
• Flex Focused Classes: 60min​ 
• TOTAL: 6hrs 5min