How to Practice Mindfulness Meditation

There are many different meditation techniques available but we will use our body and breath as the focal point for this practice.  Bringing our awareness to the body and the breath is a well-tested method of developing concentration.  As a meditation and yoga teacher Swami Janakandana explains:

‘To feel and experience your own body is a fundamental and natural basis for meditation and relaxation...To be conscious about natural or automatic breath is a meditation technique.’ 

Feeling our body and breath helps to settle the minds and encourage us to feel grounded.

Body & Breath Meditation

What you may need:

• Chair or cushion

• Timer (you can use your phone but switch it to silent)

• Pen and paper – we will record how you are after the practice

You can sit on a chair, on a cushion or on the floor. Sit with your spine straight and make sure that your weight feels even throughout the body. Keep your chest opened and your shoulders relaxed. It’s possible to practice lying down but there’s a danger that you might fall asleep so try to stay vigilant and relaxed. 

Set your timer for 10 to 20 minutes. You can start with 10 minutes and gradually increase to 20 minutes over time. I recommend that you use a nice sound so that it’s not alarming when it rings. 

Start to feel your natural breath and your body. Take a note of how you’re feeling right now – mentally, energetically, emotionally and physically - however it is.

Your mind may wander or experience fatigue, boredom, anxiety, aches and pains. You may also experience ease, openness, feeling of spaciousness and connection.

Try to feel and be with all the sensations that come and go, without creating too much commentary or analysis. Simply feel and observe the thinking mind without becoming lost in your thoughts. Notice what happens when you’re watching your mind.

Feeling your grounding points such as your feet, legs and hips can be a good way to come back to the body if you feel distracted. You can also try deepening the breath if your thoughts start to take over.

During the practice, you may feel overwhelming desire to move or to itch, be aware of these tendencies and try and stay with the practice as much as possible. If you’re in pain, you can gently change the position of the body. Once you’ve adjusted your position, try to settle back to the practice as soon as possible. Stay open to your experience and resist having too much expectation. Be kind and compassionate to yourself.

Once the alarm goes, slowly open your eyes and you can gently stretch the body. Notice how you’re feeling right now. As soon as possible, write down your observation from the practice. This could be a word, couple of paragraph or even a drawing.

Repeat the practice daily. At the beginning, it helps to do the practice at the same time everyday.

‘Attention is the beginning of devotion’

Mary Oliver, poet and a bird watcher

Winter Yoga Practice

Now that the Christmas season is over, people are eager to start something new and to try and stick to their New Year’s resolutions. There is a buzzing in the air that’s hard to ignore!

Around this time, we get lots of new students joining and although it’s a good time to start new classes, it’s important to slowly build up your practice. You may feel attracted to active yoga classes but it often makes sense to take your time and work more gently in the winter.

In nature, everything slows down: many animals hibernate and plants even die back to prepare for spring and the activity ahead. It makes sense to take a leaf out of nature's book and practice in a way that honours the season.

This should help to avoid ‘Blue Monday’ which falls around the third Monday of January and is said to be the most depressing day of the year. It’s believed that Blue Monday occurs because of a combination of factors like cold weather and failing our New Year’s resolution, but I believe one of the main culprits is exhaustion. Many people end up feeling like they need to accomplish lots of things at the start of the year and end up burning out. Instead of (literally) running around trying to do everything, it's best to slow down and focus on things that energise us.

After the festivities, I’ve also been feeling tired and dispersed. It was a lovely break with plenty of socialising with family and friends, but once I was back at work there was lots of catching up to do! I felt like I should be doing more, but deep down I knew that I first needed to slow down and rejuvenate.

So recently in my practice, I’ve been focusing on restorative postures and slow long held sequences that encourage concentration and grounding. I’ve also been doing more breathing and relaxation techniques to revitalise.

It’s really important to observe and adjust our practice to honour where we are. This can be challenging as we often end up doing things that we think are right rather than really listening to ourselves. Spending some time at the beginning of the practice to feel and reflect on our experience is essential. Our practice can then help us achieve more balance throughout the changing seasons.

What is your original nature, snow man?

- Natsume Soseki from Zen Poems

Happy Easter Practice: Bunny Hops

In my yoga classes this week, we had a spring theme. Spring is a great time of the year with hive of activities; flowers blooming and birds singing. It feels like everything’s opening into action after the long months of winter. We did ‘Brahmari’ (the bees breath) and practiced some spontaneous movements to open the body. Excitingly, we also tried doing some bunny hopping :)

It’s an exhilarating and fun way to learn jump back and it’s incredibly strengthening. ‘Jump back’ is often used in Ashtanga style of sun salutation sequence.  I found that people were less intimidated by bunny hopping, perhaps because of the name!

In this method, you will be coming into a posture called ‘Malasana’ (wide squatting position). Practicing Malasana is a fantastic way to open the hips and strengthen the legs, ankles and feet.

Preparation

I recommend that you warm up by doing movements that open the hips such as ‘Anjaneyasana’ (low lunge) and ‘Prasarita Padottanasana’ (wide-legged forward bend. Also try doing some ‘Half Sun Salutation and Modified Sun Salutation’, and release the wrist and ankles by gently circling through the joints in both directions.

How to do bunny hops

How to do bunny hops by Naomi from Everyday Yoga & Bristol Yoga Centre.

Start in ‘Adho Mukha Svanasana’ (downward facing dog).  Begin by stepping one leg at a time, forwards and back few times. When your comfortable with the movement, try hopping both feet forwards, just behind your hands, and gently hop back into downward facing dog. Repeat this several times. On your last go, try holding in Malasana for several breaths. Return back to downward facing dog and rest in ‘Balasana’ (childpose). Finish your practice by doing ‘Savasana’ (Full relaxation pose).

Finally take a few moments to feel the effects of the practice by sitting in a comfortable seated posture and contemplate on Haiku poem on spring by Osho, Zen master.

Sitting Silently,

Doing nothing,

Spring comes,

And the grass grows by itself.

Home Practice Over Christmas

I promised some of my students I'd provide some home practice sheets for them to use over Christmas and New Year while my classes are closed. I thought I'd post them up here so you can all have a go. I tried to create a short rounded practice that is accessible for everyone.

There are two sheets: ‘Balanced Home Practice’ and 'Half & Modified Sun Salutation'. It’s optional to do half or full sun salutation and the number of rounds you do is up to you. If you have trouble accessing these files, feel free to contact me.

Try to avoid drinking or eating prior to practice and wear comfortable clothes that enables you to move freely. Use whatever props and modifications which are necessary to suit your needs. Try to really connect to the body and avoid over-doing it. Remember to keep breathing slowly and deeply without forcing. One of the most common mistakes is to rush. Take your time and do your practice slowly and mindfully.

If you enjoyed the practice and are looking for more, there are many good online yoga classes available. I recommend https://www.ekhartyoga.com/ and https://www.gaia.com/yoga but both have a subscription fee. Alternatively you can use Youtube or use google search to find free yoga videos.

Whilst online videos are great, I think it’s also important to do home practice quietly so that you can focus and connect to yourself more easily. I have recently written two blogs on home practice and I recommend reading these as well. Also take a look at Yoga For Your Back and Restorative Yoga sequence for more ideas on home practice.

I hope you enjoy doing your personal practice over the festive season. I wish you all a very good holidays!

Developing a Home Yoga Practice Part II

In the ‘Developing a Home Yoga Practice part I’, I explored the benefits and importance of having a regular home yoga practice. In this second part, I will cover information and advice on how to start your home practice.

Benefits of home practice

There are many benefits from regular home practice. Over time, you will gain flexibility and strength not just physically but mentally. You will feel more relaxed and confident in your practice and your ability to concentrate will vastly improve. Overall you will feel more balanced and aware of yourself.

One key advantage of home practice is that you become less reliant on other people and you can practice any time you want. You don’t need to find a suitable class every time you want to practice and you can tailor the practice to suit your needs. As your practice develops, you will gain the skills to become your own yoga teacher and learn to look after yourself better.

Yoga Tools

Hopefully, by now you are wondering how you can start practicing yoga at home. In order to get started, it seems obvious but you need to get some yoga equipment like yoga mat and blocks. It’s not a must but you can also buy other useful yoga tools like eye pillow, yoga straps, bricks and bolsters. These tools can make your practice more enjoyable and they can easily be found on online yoga stores. If you don’t want to start spending money, you can use household items instead. For example, a scarf instead of a yoga belt. See my blog post on restorative practice for more ideas.

Place & Time

Ideally, you want to find a practice area that is clean, airy and quiet – preferably a place away from distraction.  If you have particularly busy house, you might consider practicing early in the morning before everyone gets up. Our muscles tend to be tighter in the morning so it might feel more challenging to begin with but your body will adjust in time. In fact, traditionally yoga is practiced very early in the morning and it is a wonderful time to practice. It will wake you up and you will feel great for the rest of the day. However if this time really doesn’t suit you, try different times of the day like after work or just before going to bed. It’s best to experiment and see what works for you.

Personally I tend to do my practice at the same time every day. Doing your practice at the same time makes it easier to create a regular routine. If you cannot do a regular time and find it difficult to stick to your practice, try making appointment with yourself. You could try writing it down in the diary or note it down on the calendar so that you keep this time free and mark it as something important that you have agreed to do. After all, you wouldn’t forget or decide not to turn up to an important meeting with some one.

How to begin

An ancient text, the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali[1] has the following advice on practice,

The practice of yoga will be firmly rooted when it is maintained consistently and with dedication over a long period - Yoga Sutra verse 1.14 (A Shearer translation)

To begin with, it’s best to try and do short regular practice - try doing couple of basic postures and sequences that you know well. At this stage, the most important thing is to establish the routine of doing yoga. It’s better to do 20 minutes everyday than to do an hour and a half practice once in a blue moon. You can then gradually increase the practice length over time. For inspiration, I recommend that you continue to attend your group classes regularly and take a look at yoga books and website for more ideas. It is said that there are over 840,000 yoga poses [2] available. Having this many choices can be great but it can also be confusing. Try not to do everything at once and take time to learn each posture well.

Coming up with a balanced yoga sequence can be challenging and it can be hard to know which postures to do and when to do them. Try to notice the effect of each of the asanas so that you can begin to know what postures work well together. Yoga sequencing can be likened to cooking. First of all, it’s important to learn the basics. You can begin by following a recipe (or other people’s sequences) and once you have learnt the basics, you can begin to experiment and come up with your own unique flavours and practice.

As a general rule, you want to try and have a definitive start, middle and end to your session. This will help to create a rounded practice. Try to spend at least couple of minutes settling and connecting to your breath. Do some warming up movements to limber the body especially before doing advanced postures like strong backbends or inversions. Towards the end of the practice, wind down by doing some more calming and relaxing postures. Make sure you always rest in Savasana at the end of your practice.

Keeping a practice journal can be beneficial. You can see your progress easily and it will encourage you to learn names of the poses and breathing techniques. This doesn’t have to be long. It could be just couple of sentences. If writing something doesn’t work for you, try recording a journal on your phone. Encourage yourself to reflect on how the practice made you feel. Note down things like how your body felt, the qualities of your breathing and how the mind reacted during your practice. Write down what worked and what didn’t and your energy levels during and after the practice.

Practice Tips

Instilling a regular practice can be very challenging so try and persevere.  It’s normal to have setbacks so try not to be too hard on yourself. Stay sensitive and notice small changes. Most of all enjoy your practice.

Finally, there are other creative ways of brining yoga practice throughout the day. You can practice simple breathing techniques like Full Yogic Breathing whilst you’re walking down the street or do Tadasana (Mountain Pose) when you’re waiting for a bus. You could also do few simple stretches at work.

I will leave you with a quote from K Pattabhi Jois, a renowned Indian Yoga teacher who developed Ashtanga Yoga, said ‘Practice and all is coming’.

Footnote

1. The Yoga sutra was written around 200 AD is considered to be one of the most authoritative texts on yoga

2. The Gheranda Samhita is a classic text of Hatha yoga. The text states that there are 84 basic poses but it also claims thatShiva taught 8,400,000 different asanas. Some people argue that they are infinite poses because people have infinite imagination and abilities to move the body. https://www.quora.com/How-many-yoga-poses-exist

Developing a Home Yoga Practice Part I

‘Home practice explores the exquisite relationships between the body, the breath and life itself. The whole reason for doing yoga is to enjoy this relationship, the natural intimacy with life itself’

 – Mark Whitwell, an internationally renowned yoga teacher 

Developing a consistent home yoga practice is one of the most rewarding and important activities for serious yogis but it can also be one of the hardest things to achieve. A regular practice requires motivation, creativity, discipline and confidence – all qualities that are really worthwhile to try and develop.

I’ve met dedicated students that attend taught group yoga classes almost every day and yet find it a real struggle to get on their yoga mat alone at home. This is important to remedy as it’s within a regular home practice that we truly discover and connect to ourselves. As Tara Frazer in her book ‘Yoga for You’ says, ‘Although you will learn a great deal from a teacher, you will experience most of yoga’s benefits by practicing alone. This is because, ultimately, yoga is a process of self-realisation and you are the best expert on yourself’.

No matter how excellent your yoga teacher is, they will never be able to feel and connect to yourself like you can. Instead of relying on other people, you can begin to look after yourself.

When we know ourselves better we are in a much better position to take care of our minds and bodies. One of the greatest benefits from my own practice is the ability to really listen and adapt my practice to suit my changing needs. I believe this is an essential point as no matter how strong or flexible you become, if you are unable to modify your practice when you have injuries or at challenging times then it’s severely limited. In fact, it’s during these times that our yoga practice should help and support us.

The yoga practice then becomes a therapeutic transformative activity for the individual. Gary Kraftsow, a senior viniyoga teacher said ‘...Yoga lies in the adaption of the practice to the individual, not in the adaptation of the individual to the practice’.  When designing a balanced personal practice, Krafsow says to respect our individual situations and requirements and take into account constitution, place, gender, time, age, capacities, aspirations and activities.

It is easy to ignore our personal needs and circumstances and set unrealistic aims and goals in our practice. Yoga is not something we accomplish but it is a life long development. You will naturally find that your practice will continuously grow and change.

Over time my own practice has changed to be more self-reflective and contemplative. It is now much less about achieving certain postures or complying with rigid ideals. I do my home practice to try and achieve greater harmony and balance within myself. I believe these important changes have come from my continuous personal practice.

In the next part of this blog, I will give tips and advice on starting a home practice.