Tag Archives: Sweaty Betty

Jul8

Get Your Om Back

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Get Your Om Back

#getyouromback 31 Day Yoga Challenge from Sweaty Betty.

Here I'm showing some Cat / Cow Pose variations

Here I’m showing some Cat / Cow Pose variations for #getyouromback

Sweaty Betty’s 31 Day Instagram Challenge involves practising one pose each day (a different post for each day of July). I think this is a great way to start building a home yoga practice!

My philosophy behind U Can Yoga from day one has been and remains that you can find your own expression of yoga, that yoga is for anyone who wants to give it a try and experience its many benefits.

I am taking part and will be posting some pose variations and instructions on Instagram with the intention of sharing a few ideas to make these poses a bit more accessible along the way – e.g. some standing and seated versions for those of us who find getting onto the floor a challenge.

Find out how to get involved by visiting the Get Your Om Back page at Sweaty Betty’s website here. And find me on Instagram @ucanyoga1.

May17

Spreading the Yoga Love

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Spreading the Yoga Love

I feel like – scratch that – I know I talk about yoga a LOT.  I will happily talk about it with anyone who will listen (or not, as the glazed-over expressions of some friends and colleagues indicate…).   I even had a conversation about yoga with a stranger at a bus stop the other day.  In London.  Where strangers do not talk to each other.  In fact, like a little yoga-evangelist I’ve scribbled down the web address of my yoga home and pressed it into the palms of numerous folks from the sales assistant at Sweaty Betty who mentioned she was struggling to find a good class in the area to the actor who told me he wasn’t sure if he could do yoga because he wasn’t, in his own words, “bendy”.   (He even got down on the floor in a cross-legged position with his knees up by his ears to prove it.)

“But that’s exactly why you should go!” was my response. 

I’ve even pointed people who simply cannot make the journey to my yoga home to the likes of The Life Centre, Jivamukti London and The Alchemy Centre.  All welcoming, beautiful places in my experience. 

So, you could say I am somewhat enthusiastic about yoga….  I know how much it has, and continues to, benefit me – I just want to share how magical it is with everyone.  For someone who is usually not much of a talker, yoga is one subject I can’t seem to shut up about.  And NONE of my friends are into yoga.  So much so that I am 99.9 percent certain none of them will be reading this. Which technically means I could say whatever I like about them here… :)

It’s one of the reasons I started this blog.  To avoid becoming a yoga bore when I’m with my friends and also as a way to somehow process the things I am experiencing internally through my practice.   And, if another yogi or yogini with no yoga pals either happens to stumble across this blog along the way, just maybe some of this will reassure them a teeny bit that they’re not the only one feeling this ‘stuff’.  It’s another way of trying to Spread the Yoga Love, I guess…

Anyhow, I got a bit of a surprise when I received a message the other day from a friend to say she has, “started doing a bit of yoga” (!)  And the best part is that she is already experiencing some of the benefits in the form of stress relief.  I was (and still am) thrilled (THRILLED!) to hear how happy she sounded about this.  I have a feeling that she is going to keep going with it too.   I really hope so.  Her email practically made my week!

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that I can’t shut up about yoga after all.  It makes me want to Spread the Yoga Love even more.