An anatomy-informed, thoughtful approach to yoga in Bromley
A deep understanding of anatomy
Did you know that the average yoga teacher training is 200 hours long? This includes 100 hours of hatha yoga practice (that is, actually doing the physical practice of yoga). Usually, it includes about 10 hours of anatomy which allows only for a very introductory look at how the body works and moves. This often means teachers end up relying on cues they’ve heard elsewhere, rather than grounding them in an understanding of the body.
I have a degree as an allied health professional. This means I have hundreds of hours of study, and years of practice working with people (and their very real physical bodies). This is why I avoid cues like “tuck your tailbone” as it puts the body into an alignment that isn’t supportive for most people. I also won’t give you incorrect instructions like telling you that we are “going to stretch our muscles, fascia and ligaments.” This really happened to me in a yoga class. Ligaments, in case you don’t know, hold a joint together and stabilise it. The last thing you want from a yoga class is to stretch your ligaments or your joint won’t hold in place any more.
It brought home to me how easy it is for yoga teachers to repeat cues they’ve heard without fully understanding them. If we’d really been doing what that cue suggested, it could have caused real, long-term harm. Thankfully we weren’t, but it highlighted how important it is for cues to match what’s anatomically safe. You, the student, don’t necessarily need to know what a ligament is. But it’s important your yoga teacher understands what’s safe to stretch and what isn’t.
A focus on inner awareness
The way I teach, is to tell you how to get your body into each pose with clear instructions. I then give you more instructions to help you work out if the pose feels okay. I provide suggestions for ways to adjust the pose so that you can find a more suitable position for your body. Yoga is not “one-size-fits-all” and not all poses look the same in all bodies. But there are ways of aligning that support your joints and ways that put unnecessary strain on them. I will help you to keep your body in a “good” alignment, meaning your joints are safe and you aren’t stretching in a way that is going to cause you harm.
We all have different bodies, so I am not expecting a particular look on the outside. I’m keen you find what works on the inside instead. And if I see something that may not be serving you well, I’ll come over and offer you a way to adjust.
Thirteen years of teaching experience
When I sat down and worked out how many hours of classes I’ve taught it came to something like 2,000 hours. That’s time spent working out how to best convey the different things I want you to do and feel in a practice. Time spent watching how bodies move and observing how people respond to different instructions. It’s time spent breathing and moving with others. I want you to come to know your body from the inside out – to recognise what feels steady, what feels spacious, and what feels like too much. Over time, the aim is that you trust those inner cues more than anything I could say.
A love of philosophy and meaning
Yoga teacher training involves about 10 hours of yogic philosophy, which, for me, was never going to be enough! I love philosophy!
For much of my life I have been interested in the question of how we should live and what it means to live a meaningful, fulfilling life. This question has led me to pursue both yoga and Buddhism. Buddhism is my main spiritual path, and I’ve spent a number of months (years?) of my life in meditation retreats coming to slowly understand my mind and calm it (a little – this is definitely still a work in progress).
I love nothing more than finding a quote or a poem that expresses something universal, or that guides us in some quiet way towards a good way to live. And I collect these poems and use them to inspire my classes – sometimes subtly and sometimes explicitly with the whole class themed around them.
If any of this appeals to you, I’d love to welcome you to class. You can find out more about my classes here.