Yoga is not about touching your toes

Welcome to the new year! Or indeed, welcome to a new day whenever you are reading this.

I hope you are feeling well, have a little space in the day for yourself, and are ready for any opportunity that comes your way. That's how I'm looking forward to my year, and each day that it brings.

How are you looking forward to yours?

As a yoga teacher of course, yoga and its many aspects, from breathwork to movement, meditation to learning, figures highly in my week. The time I carve out for my yoga, and the opportunity that time and space brings to me in terms of self-care, ideas, balance and perspective are all important.

I've been studying and practicing yoga for over 20 years. I'm a student first. Whatever I'm learning at the time, from my practice to my study, I share the gems with my students.

Through all of the classes I teach I learn more, more about how yoga works differently for every individual that comes to class, more about how to share alternatives, more about the importance of encouraging students to listen to their own body and mind and what it needs at each individual class or each time that they step onto the mat. I learn more about how to teach more clearly, more joyfully. I plan my classes for those I teach from the experience I gain every time I practice yoga and every time I teach it.

What I have always known is that yoga is not about touching your toes, despite the images we see of yoga in the media. There's a famous quote 'yoga is not about touching your toes, but what you learn on the way down'. Being flexible is not what yoga is about (although you might become more flexible in time) you might never be able to touch your toes (and it's fine whether you can or you can't) but yoga will teach you about where you are in your body. With each pose/position (done in the way that suits you best) you learn more about what your body can do, what it can't do, what it likes to do, what is a challenge to do, what is calming, what is energising, what feels good, what doesn't feel good. And that might change each time you step on your mat. It might change over time. And that's the magic of yoga. It really does meet you wherever you are and whatever you need.

I aim to teach all of my students to work where they need to be in their body and mind. Each pose is an invitation - 'try it, try this variation, adjust this, adjust that, see how it feels. If it's not feeling good stop, pause, go back a step, do an alternative pose - maybe this one... ' I aim to teach my students to know their body. Yes to have a go, yes to see which variation works best, yes to go deeper if it feels good. Yes to stop if that's what's best.

I teach from an alignment background of study and practice. I teach students to be safe in how they do their yoga. But there's not one way suits all. Exploring yoga - breathwork, poses, meditation - is what it's all about. I hope my students feel they have the confidence to own their individual practice and enjoy their yoga each time they come to class knowing they are fully able to participate, do each pose in their own safe and enjoyable way and support their own body and mind whatever it needs that day.

'Your practice is yours and yours alone. There is no-one to impress, so just enjoy your practice and the process of learning about your body and mind.

Considering that this is your practice focus on the things that you genuinely love. Don't let guilt, shame, expectation or some other nonsense dictate what you do on the mat'

-Jason Crandell

Recently I've been exploring and teaching poses from different perspectives. How can the pose change with a chair to support it? a bolster cushion? the wall? What if it's lying down rather than standing up? It's fun. Sometimes it changes the pose a lot, sometimes it allows focus on a different part of the body, sometimes it changes the pose from a balance to a stretch or vice versa. Sometimes it opens up a way to do the pose that a student couldn't do in it's traditional form, sometimes the alternative is challenging. This is exciting. It opens up space, opportunity.

So if you can't touch your toes, maybe just bend your knees or use yoga blocks as arm extenders.

Yoga for me is about listening in to body and mind, opening up space to take an opportunity. That opportunity might be making an adjustment or using a variation. It also teaches us that we might just be able to do this in our daily lives off the mat too. How can we change our perspective, are there other ways to do something, meet a challenge, make space?

So this new year, or this new day, how are you making a little space in the day for yourself? Are you ready for any opportunity that comes your way?