Meditation Workshop February 25th, 3 – 4.30pm 2012
THoY Meditation Workshop
Date: Sat February 25th 2012
Venue: St Barnabas Hall, Corner of Merton Rd/Lavenham Rd SW18 5EP
Time: 3 -4.30pm
Cost: £15
Meditation is the art of mindfulness, paying attention and listening to your heart.
In this workshop you will learn the tools to experience and practice for yourself the beauty of meditation and the importance of living fully in the present moment. Simply having an awareness of our patterns of thinking can lead us not only to totally new inner experiences and insights, but help us to transform our day-to-day life into a more meaningful and fulfilling journey.
Give yourself the gift to go within and tap into a clarity and stillness you may never have experienced before.
please email info@thehouseofyoga.co.uk or call Jason on 07793541602 to register your space.
Listening to the language Of The Body – Avoiding Injuries.
Hello its Kim here,
First I would like to express how much I enjoy teaching you Yogins at THoY on a Monday night and the satisfaction I achieve both introducing and making accessible Power Yoga to absolute beginners PLUS undoing old habits (we all get in to) with the more established Yogins.
Yoga undoubtedly connects us to ourself, we leave class feeling centred, aligned and present. There are times when find ourselves getting carried away and the body and mind are not quite so in synch with each other- YES even in the midst of our Yoga practice! We can compare the mind to a curious puppy, it’s attention running ahead of it’s owner as the owner tries to keep up. It just takes a little training to keep them side by side.
We may try to attain the perfect paschimottanasana, we sneak a peek at the super supple Yogini next to us who has her head buried in her knees and we convince ourselves that we ought to achieve that “perfect” pose and until we do, we are not fit to call ourselves a Yogi! So we push and strain our body in to a “better” pose (sometimes whilst we are in pain) until OUCH something snaps! We wonder why we hurt ourself when Yoga is supposed to promote the opposite.
Our bodies are unique, there are no two bodies which are identical, and what may be beneficial to one student may be harmful to another, so it is vital that we listen to the language of our own individual body because it absolutely knows what is best for us. This year I have suffered numerous injuries, and as you can imagine I was a little perplexed- I am a Yoga teacher, how on earth can my body be suffering so much? I discovered I have hypermobility, which means that my joints move beyond the normal range of motion which can damage joints. This is a condition I was born with but had not recognised, nor would I have known the potential of damage through entering poses within my full range. The next question was ‘How do I continue to practice Yoga?’.
Through this experience I have learned to honour the needs of my body, to play with my edge and really allow my body to guide me, the body does speak and it speaks honestly. I learn my limits every time I practice, as they change daily I revel in the physical challenges that strengthen the surrounding muscles that protect my joints and overcome the ego-driven traps which may tempt me in to a pose not suitable for me-. Yoga is not about how the pose looks but how the pose feels, close your eyes, watch the breath, feel the physical sensations of the pose and ask if your body is happy.
Namaste
Kim
Yoga Jam Fundraiser Event
We are thrilled to announce we will be holding London’s first Yoga Jam fundraiser on Friday November 25th!
To watch a short video of past yoga jam events visit www.yogajamevents.com
Enjoy a funky and uplifting 90 min vinyasa class, taught to music and by some fantastic teachers who will be sharing their love of yoga in a fun and energetic way.
We will finish the night with some nibbles, drinks and great conversation. All proceeds go to the Africa Yoga Project (www.africayogaproject.org).
Time: 7.30 – 10.30
Cost: £15
Venue: St Barnabas Hall, 146 Lavenham Rd, Southfields, London,SW18,5EP
Email Info@thehouseofyoga.co.uk to book your place.
Namaste – THoY
Feature Friday – Jason Pooley
My yoga journey began back in 2002 whilst teaching tennis in Hong Kong. I grew up in a small town called Newmarket in Suffolk, England but was soon travelling the world at the age of 16 playing junior tennis tournaments. My childhood dream of being a Wimbledon champion like so many other talented tennis players started to become unachievable so I turned my focus to coaching and was lucky enough to have coached at some of most the prestigious tennis clubs both in London and Hong Kong.I walked into Pure Yoga HK and knew as soon as I settled onto my mat that this was the place for me, a feeling of being at home. The reason why I decided to try a class was because I had to many niggling injuries from playing and teaching tennis at a high level over the years. It didn’t take too long to see and feel the healing process through a consistent practice, sometimes twice a day as I was hooked on this amazing workout which became a fun and sometimes scary work inwards.
My pre-yoga life was simply cluttered, unbalanced and prone to injury. There was a stage in my life where I lived with a lot of anxiety and this seemed to manifest itself through body aliments, panic attacks, anger and fear which led onto a disruptive path.
I noticed very quickly that my yoga practice started to shift and peel away these disruptive patterns I was living with and I started to feel pleasantly comfortable again in my own skin which was very liberating and to this day is such an amazing feeling. It all started to make perfect sense that the preparation work I was doing on the mat and moment by moment process was surely what this journey was all about rather than attaching to results and outcome which I was so exposed to for many years. It made perfect sense for me coming from a teaching background to deepen my knowledge and yoga journey so I took my first 200hr yoga alliance teacher training with Fred Busch from Miami yoga and this was the start of something really special.
It is the freedom and flow of power Vinyasa that led me to the teachings of Baptiste yoga, a very powerful system where tapping into the source of transformation and authenticity is the intention both on and off the mat. I continue to train with Baron and will be travelling to Texas in September 2011 to further my studies with the Baptiste institute.
I returned back to the UK in 2003 and have been based in Wimbledon, London for the past five years where I live with my wife and two adorable kittens.
So nine years down the road, I now have my own yoga business in London called The House of Yoga, where I teach private, corporate and public classes at various London studios as well as growing a strong community in Southfields, Wimbledon. I love sharing my passion, experience and knowledge to all my students and it is so rewarding watching students grow, having fun and shining bright both on and off the mat.
I still find time in my busy schedule to teach and play some tennis and I put that down to yoga. I am able to hit some tennis balls every week which is fantastic simply because I found the path of yoga. If you are a tennis player at any level and interested in how yoga can help you both on and off the court you can check out Tennishead the UK’s leading tennis magazine where I was interviewed in Volume 1, issue 2 April 2010.
We all know that yoga is good for us on so many levels, for me it started as a work out that helped heal long term injuries but the real fruits and fun parts of this journey has been the work in a place of new and endless possibilities where we all have the right to experience and be.