Yoga is for everyone not just the flexible few. It can be adapted or done from a chair, despite any ongoing health issues. It is what you can do, not what you cannot. Adapting gentle movement and stretching enhances the healing process, it is about learning how to work with your body to bring it back to wholeness in an enjoyable manner. Age should be no barrier.

Yoga is ease of action and ease of Being, each person working to their own comfortable capacity

and finding the joy just to be in a living, breathing, moving body in the moment

YOGA IS NOT JUST A PHYSICAL EXERCISE IT IS A WAY OF LIFE. This whole website bears testimony to this – it is the ‘Art of Living’. You start at the beginning with the asanas (postures) reaping  benefits on every level of your physical, mental and emotional being. Those that are drawn to yoga want to feel healthier and fitter, often dealing with a specific health concern.  Yoga tackles this and much more, I use yoga in the self healing class as it is available to all levels of mobility and can easily be done in a chair. It is always to your comfortable capacity, never forcing just using the breath to soften the body when in a posture. Yoga is ease of action and should be enjoyed never forced.

Every part of the body, as well as all the systems of the body is worked -Musculoskeletal, Respiratory, Cardiovascular, Digestive, 
Endocrine, Lymph/Immune, Urinary, Nervous system.
 

Organs are squeezed/released to allow fresh blood and nutrients to flow into them.

Muscles, tendons, ligaments are stretched and lengthened.

The spine is stretched, flexed and twisted to maintain its health 
               (a healthy spine means a healthy body).

The digestive trait is squeezed to aid digestion (eliminate gas and move food).

Synovial fluid is pumped in joints such as knees, ankles, hips and neck.

Spinal discs are plumped up by movement increasing their efficiency
                 (they rely on movement for nutrients).

The fascia is released and expanded, allowing easy of movement and eradication of bad posture habits.

Each asana comes with its own whole list of benefits to numerous to mention here. 

Not one part of the body gets left out, there are even eye exercises to improve sight. Asanas are done slowly and with care yet sometimes you can use some for aerobic exercise such as the Sun Salutation or Up/downward dog, this is used to flush out the circulatory system. 

Throughout all the asanas the breath is used to cleanse and purify on the exhalation and energise on the inhalation. Increasing the efficiency of every part of the body.

Yoga anatomy is about:

Exploring your yoga practice and seeing how you can be lighter within the movement.
Looking at the structures/joints that create lightness and the spring loaded potential there.
How the different parts of the body inter-relate to each other.
How to eliminate bad posture habits which lead to pain.
Use gravity to aid ease of movement.
Attain more space in the joints and spine, increasing the fluidity there.
Get to know our fascia. 

Anatomy

Whilst doing the asanas it is useful to understand how the body works and move with it. To learn where habitual tension is held, how it effects the body and what can be done to eliminate it. Habit and tension lead to ongoing problem areas and unless this is recognised change will not be possible. Yoga is all about releasing tension in the body – it is ease of action. Harmonising the body, mind and breath with the movement.  Yoga means unity on all levels.

We each have our own unique body, let us love it and learn to work with it. With yoga you are learning ways to improve the body’s health, to nurture and nourish it, it is the only one you will have.

Ageing is an interesting point

We have our chronological age of how many days and years we have been living on this planet – this we cannot change.

We have our biological age of how fit and healthy our physical body is – this we can improve on.

We have our subjective (psychological) age – how old we think we are.

Society’s labels of pensioner, elderly does nothing for the over 60 image but we do not have to believe them. You are as young as you think you are. I attend workshops whereby the majority of other students are half my age. Yoga is not age specific, it is for any age.  Nor is it just for the flexible, it is for all abilities. It will improve your biological age and by making your body healthy, your subjective age will be challenged.

As a Hatha Yoga teacher, I have been teaching for 15 years and practising for 30 years.  I feel a continual student as there is so much to learn, I recently attended a Yoga Anatomy course for Yoga Teachers, which bears witness to this.  My focus is the gentle form of Hatha Yoga, which I  incorporate a meditative quality to it, whereby the focus is on the breath and movement, which quietens the mind.  It is always within ones comfortable capacity, to be joyful in a living breathing body.  I have taught people from the ages 15 -74, I myself am 67. Again I believe yoga is for everyone not just a selective flexible few, it can be done from a chair to one’s own ability. Yoga means unity, being in the present moment with the body and its movement.  Yoga is a Science and was first written down 5000 years ago, it is harmonising the body, mind and spirit – the ancient teachings give guidance on this.

As I felt the gains of regular practice, my interest grew into the health benefits of yoga; as it works on all the internal systems of our body - musculoskeletal, nervous, respiratory, cardiovascular, lympathic, immune, digestive and endocrine – what other exercise does that?

My enthusiasm was fired when I took a Yoga Anatomy Course for Yoga Teachers.  I learnt how the body works and understood how to work with our structure to increase space, fluidity and elasticisity within it.  To work with gravity and levity encouraging a spaceous ease of movement especially in the spine and joints. Plus moving anatomy can be fun whilst being informative. I am continually updating my knowledge on health issues through Future Learn courses ie. dementia, Parkinsons, cancer, mental health concerns etc.

Body Alignment, as covered in the Yoga Anatomy Course, informs my practice and what I teach.

Yoga brings anatomy to life, in the moment in the body. It is fun, informative and life enhancing.