Ancient practices for a modern world. Traditions and Celebrations. This important point in the sun's cycle has been celebrated all over the world for thousands of years. For the Britons, it was Winter Solstice, for Norse, Yule, for the Romans, Saturnalia, and it has now been Christianised into Christmas. But all these celebrations have the same theme in common - the rebirth of the sun (or 'the son' in Christian terms). Our ancestors were very keen to honour this time of the

Ancient practices for a modern world. Lammas / Lughnasadh - 1st August 'Gratitude'. Late summer is an important transitional season, a time to re-centre, create stability, balance and comfort, in preparation for the cooler yin stages of autumn and winter. In yoga we focus on core stability, connecting to the earth and feeling centred. The first harvest; and the corn is being brought in from the field and apples are ripening. During the season of harvest, we take time t

Ancient practices for a modern world. Early Summer End of April – Mid June The energy for early summer is of calmness, feeling relaxed, joy, positivity, having a clear mind and having a feeling of wanting to be more social. An imbalance in energy creates the opposite of wanting to over work, shy away from social events and anxiety. Assess your energy levels, re-balance and find that happy medium where you are busy but not over-worked. TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine)

Ancient practices for a modern world. Imbolc - February 1st (Candlemas / St. Brigid)​'Awakening'. Winter into Spring Between now and the Summer Solstice in June the light will be expanding. The world is waking up after winter sleep bringing transformation and regeneration. Life is beginning to show again with new shoots and flowers popping through the cold ground. This is a time when the first lambs are born and ewe's milk is available again after the long winter. The year

Relaxation Therapies mostly involve techniques and tuition that can be learned and applied at home or as one off treatments or a course of treatments and tuition. YOGA THERAPY Yoga Therapy / Yin Yoga and Restorative yoga - a very slow meditative form of yoga for specific healing. Restorative and Yoga Therapy are usually done as 1-2-1 session or as course. --- BREATH THERAPY Breath Therapy - Is done as 1-2-1 tuition and although techniques can be learnt in one go, it may take

Safely improve strength and flexibility Learn simple sequences using a chair Develop balance, focus and stability Ease stress and anxiety Relieve aches and pains, especially in the neck and shoulders This class is for EVERY body. Seniors, persons with limited mobility or injuries, office workers, individuals with disabilities, weight issues or inflexibility. ​ Looking for a safe and gentle, yet effective yoga practice that doesn't have you performing those “pretzel-like" yoga

Yoga Tuition Private yoga sessions can be tailored to your needs - either as yoga therapy for specific needs, either sports related or health related and mixed with other therapies or can be just simply be a tailored yoga programme to be either suited to a complete beginner, a physical practice, a more spiritual practice, a gentler practice or more demanding - it's entirely up to you and what your needs and goals are for YOUR practice. Can be held at your home throughout the

Happy Feet, Happy Body, Happy Mind. A foot consists of 26 bones, 33 joints and over 100 muscles, ligaments, and tendons. This is one massive clue that our feet are meant to move and be moved. They are designed to walk barefoot over uneven ground, not to be squeezed into pointy shoes and walked over concrete. I could get quite anatomically geeky at this point, but I will spare you for now. But, please remember that everything in the body is connected, and our feet play a big

Sciatica and piriformis syndrome is usually caused by abnormal movement in the sacroiliac joint (pelvis to spine attachment), which generally is an immobile joint. This movement has then caused the Piriformis muscle surrounding it to become over protective and thus pressing on the sciatic and possibly other nerves on the left side. We will only know if this is the case by testing out the stretches, manipulations and possibly massage to see if this helps the symptoms. Nerve im

What is yoga therapy? Yoga therapy is a truly holistic modality in that it recognises that our health and well being depends on a complex interplay of physical, mental, emotional, environmental and lifestyle factors. What is the difference between a yoga teacher and yoga therapist? A yoga teacher often has only one 200 hour training course to their name with maybe some specialities via extra training, but usually their main 200 hour training is very limited on using yoga for

I’m now an Associate of the Newson Health Menopause Society set up by Dr Louise Newson @My Menopause Doctor. I always want to try to keep up to date with the latest evidence-based research and information along with offering fitness, lifestyle and therapies to support women through menopause and have been doing this long before the media frenzy around it in the last year. It’s good that people are talking about it, but some headlines haven’t been entirely accurate. Along with

People keep asking ‘why Zumba all of a sudden, don’t you like yoga anymore?!’ So, here is my blog post about that. I have always liked to dance or at least attempt to! As a kid I would often be outside in the garden with my Walkman on or jumping about in the living room playing music pretending to be some singer or another and dancing. If it wasn't that then I was pretending to be drummer and air drumming! At most of my schools I hated PE and sports days, but loved performan

So here it is, the things I have noticed and learnt from having a broken foot. Some are serious, some are tongue-in-cheek, some are odd and random and some obvious. This was written back in 2017 but I found it the other day in my drafts and decided to post it. 1) How much we take our feet for granted and how bloody difficult it is to walk even upright when the foot doesn't bend. I have a new pigeon posture. 2) The feet even help to open heavy doors. The weight change and di

Therapies for anxiety and depression. Breathing techniques to aid sleep, digestion and calm and balance both hemispheres of the brain and...

Why do yoga? Because, in short, it does this stuff! (And if the below wasn't reason enough, then continue reading further down to find...

The ancient Indian art of yoga has become increasingly popular over the years, with people from all walks of life from pop stars to...

A lot of new age mysticism and therapies have added to the chakra philosophy over the years, so there are many different viewpoints on this subject. This is a collection of different findings over the years as my own opinions and research has gone back and forth on the subject. --- Here is a basic overview of the chakras and the use of crystals and yoga to balance them. These are said to be naturally occurring energy centres in the body, that produce life force (Prana, Chi

When you cut down on food, your body feels deprived and starts conserving food and storing it for when it may need it. If you eat only when you are hungry, your body learns that when it is hungry, it will get fed and this doesn’t mean shoving anything in when you want as often as you want just because you think you are hungry. Sometimes hunger occurs not because we are hungry but because we are dehydrated and it manifests itself as hunger pangs. By doing yoga 10 minutes a d

Original Post: May 2010 If you suffer from any form of pain, whether chronic or acute, it may not be necessary to rely on traditional medicine such as pain medication to relieve it. There are many natural pain management techniques that are available to try so it is just a matter of finding the best one for you. Some of the most popular are outlined below. Pain Management Technique #1: Acupuncture In acupuncture, fine needles are inserted into the skin in order to u

Introduction - Ayurveda Ayurveda is the sister science to Yoga. Ayurveda is India’s traditional, natural system of medicine that has been practiced for more than 5,000 years. Ayurveda is a Sanskrit word that literally translated means "science of life" or "practices of longevity." Ayurveda was the system of health care conceived and developed by the seers (rishis) and natural scientists through centuries of observations, experiments, discussions, and meditations. For sever