Yoga Bliss
  • Welcome
  • Why Yoga?
  • About Rachel
  • Classes & Prices
  • Workshops
  • Contact
  • Blog



​Blog

“I’d love to do Yoga but I’m not flexible enough!”

29/8/2018

1 Comment

 

Have you ever heard someone say this? Maybe you’ve even said it yourself! As a Yoga teacher every time I hear someone say this it makes me smile and want to tell them they’re missing the whole point of practising Yoga!

One of the many benefits of practising Yoga is that we become more mobile and flexible… we don’t need to be flexible in the first place! Yoga is for everyone, no matter what your age, gender, size, shape, mobility or flexibility. And these days there are classes suitable for everyone.

Unfortunately, the photos we see in the media of beautiful, slim people in seemingly-impossible Yoga poses make us think that if we can’t touch our toes or put our leg behind our head then we couldn’t possibly go to a Yoga class!

We tend to think that Yoga is just a way of exercising our body… but Yoga is so much more than that... it’s about our whole being…our body, mind and spirit and finding a sense of ease and peace within ourselves.

“Yoga is not about touching your toes. It is about what you learn on the way down” Jigar Gor

Having said that, for many of us the physical practice of Yoga Asana (poses) is our first experience of Yoga and this can start us on a journey of discovery into ourselves and our connection to our universe.

When we start to work with our body in Yoga poses we get to explore ourselves. We learn where we are flexible and where we are tight, which types of poses come more easily to us and bring a sense of joy and achievement, which types of poses are more challenging for us and bring up feelings of frustration or other strong emotion.

In this way, we get to know ourselves deeply. We get to breathe into the frustration that comes up for us in a certain pose. We get to feel the sense of relief when we move out of a pose we find challenging. We get to experience the great joy of finding our way into a pose we previously thought was beyond our reach. We get to break down barriers in our bodies and minds and experience freedom and ease.

“Yoga allows you to find a new kind of freedom that you may not have known even existed.” B.K.S. Iyengar

Finding the right class is vital as you start out on your yoga journey. It’s important to find a teacher with whom you feel comfortable and safe. There are many styles of yoga class available these days - ranging from very gentle classes where the focus is on relaxing and releasing tension, to strong classes where the focus may be more on building strength, stamina and flexibility.

“Yoga is the space where flowers blossom” Amit Ray

I hope you will join me at one of my yoga classes soon and start to see your flowers bloom!

Full class listings can be found here.

If you need any help in choosing the right class for you, please feel free to contact me by clicking here..

1 Comment

Winter Solstice Workshop - Yin Yoga and Deep Relaxation

10/12/2017

1 Comment

 
The Novara Centre, Bray Seafront
Sunday 17th December  6:30pm - 8:30pm


​As we approach the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, it’s the perfect time to turn inwards and spend some time in reflection… Reflecting on the year gone by… your successes and challenges… taking time to celebrate your achievements and to see what you have learnt from your more challenging situations… What skills have you learnt?  What worked, what didn’t work…? What are you ready to let go of…? And then turning your attention to the year ahead… What would you like to cultivate during the year ahead? What seeds can you plant now, in the darkness of winter, this time of incubation,  so that they will be ready to come to life in Spring?
 
With this in mind, I will be teaching a Winter Solstice workshop to help you come back to yourself, to turn inwards, to reflect, and to check in with your deepest self to find what it is you want to cultivate over the coming year. That might be a quality in yourself…happiness, kindness, gratitude… or it might be a new job or a new relationship…
 
Using the powerfully deep practices of Yin Yoga and Deep Relaxation we will come together in the candlelight on the evening of Sunday 17th December.
 
What is Yin Yoga?
The Theory of Exercise tells us that all the “tissues in the body require healthy, positive levels of stress to maintain their strength, resiliency and health” (Josh Summers). Too little stress leads to atrophy of the tissues and too much stress brings us to a breaking point. Most of the exercise we engage in is Yang in nature, focusing on building strength and flexibility in the elastic tissue of the muscles through rhythm and repetition. Our Hatha Yoga practice falls into this Yang style of exercise. Using our muscles like this we keep the joints stable and there is no “letting go” in the joints. Yin Yoga, on the other hand, focuses on the dense connective tissue around the joints. We do this by using long holds of yoga poses, in which we allow the muscles to relax, so that the dense connective tissue can be brought to a mild, gentle level of stress. This level of stress is therapeutic for the joints and brings more freedom of movement to the joints. The intention of a Yin Yoga practice is to maintain or regain natural, healthy range of movement.
Yin Yoga is therefore a wonderful complement to any Yang style of exercise.
 
These long holds of Yoga Poses will give us the opportunity to turn inwards, to meet ourselves, to reflect and to dream about what we want to cultivate during the year ahead.
​
We will finish this workshop with a Deep Relaxation to allow the body, mind, heart and spirit to rest deeply and integrate the work we have done during our Yin Yoga practice.

The Novara Centre – Sunday 17th December 
6:30pm - 8:30pm
Cost: Early Bird €25 before Wednesday 13th December, €30 thereafter
1 Comment

    Author

    Rachel Lee

    Archives

    August 2018
    December 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Welcome
  • Why Yoga?
  • About Rachel
  • Classes & Prices
  • Workshops
  • Contact
  • Blog