Dear Yogis.

I got an email this week that pleased my heart. The yogi said: ‘Maybe a class focusing on core strength and the good old six-pack might be popular... with all the lock down working from home – static sitting at my desk – strengthening the stomach muscles feels like a good move’. I couldn’t agree more. Let’s do it! I have exactly the thing for you.

Isn’t it funny that yoga teachers (like me) repeat ad nauseam that yoga is about meditation... yet classes are all about the postures! We site the Bhagavad Gita as the foundation stone of practice which describes yoga’s goal as to connect with the supreme. Even Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, also a bible for yogis, has no idea how hard Rotated Side Angle Posture is or what to do with an Uddiyana Bandha! So how did yoga move from wanting us to merge our conscious with the divine to our present-day pretzel practice?

I have to say, I absolutely love teaching online. There’s some really great yoga practice happening in the Zoom boxes on my conferencing screen! Is it my imagination or is your yoga improving in the more relaxed, home environment?

My wonderful book by James Nestor, Breath, has this bombshell line: 'The lungs are a weight-regulating system of the body'! How? Nestor says that exhalation has weight! He says: ‘for every ten pounds of fat lost in our bodies, eight and a half pounds of it comes out through the lungs; most of it is carbon dioxide mixed with a bit of water vapour’.

Back to my book about breathing by James Nestor, I'm afraid! I'm unpacking more and more fascinating stories about the power of the inhalation and exhalation. Nestor talks of a character who 'expanded lungs and extended life spans', Carl Stough. He was a pulmonaut, a 'choir conductor and medial anomaly'. He trained opera singers, athletes and emphysema patients.

I’m reading a book about breathing. The un-put-downable Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor, says that 90% of us breath incorrectly which is 'aggravating a laundry list of chronic diseases'. As I read this book I think about all the people I want to give it to!

Do you practice Mantra? Do you sing? Do you chant? Sacred sounds have long been practiced to change states of mind and elevate consciousness. It is part of the yoga practice that has been passed on to us. Sound and song capture something vital in our being and you can feel a physical change. Watch a gospel choir. They know it.

Do you hear teacher instructions about engaging bandhas (Mula, Uddiyana and Jalandhara) and tune them out? It isn’t a surprise if you do. Using bandhas is very much like getting used to postures: they reveal themselves only when the body is ready, that is, when you gain enough openness and steadiness in a posture to spend five breaths exploring it. To recap, Mula Bandha is the pelvic floor lift, Uddiyana Bandha is drawing in and lifting the lower abdominals, Jalandhara Banda is lowering the chin and lengthening the back of the neck.

A yogi told me after a stretchy class that she gets bored in Downward Facing Dog. She always goes to classes that don’t include sun salutations! Quelle Horreur! And yet, secretly I know exactly what she means.... but isn’t that the point? We’re trying to conquer the chattering mind, not give in to every whim and reluctance.

Did you know that you’re not supposed to drink water during Ashtanga practice? It made me laugh this week that a yogi who never drinks in class, or pauses in any way before Savasana, drank copiously. Well! If you’ve just tumbled out of your Peloton class, that’s understandable. However, it recalled a yogi who stopped every three-to-five minutes for a drink. It made me wonder why the prop was needed; what in the mind was so strong that practice had to stop so often.