Yoga Now studio

A day to celebrate yoga - a lifelong enquiry!

Lucienne Vidah is teaching a class on Saturday 4 July, 10-11.35 am.

This class is suitable for Intermediate students and beyond. Lucienne will guide us from familiar asanas towards some of those we don’t visit so often. Join us to enjoy a journey off the beaten track of your practice to explore pastures new! It’s always good to get a different view of the familiar and to visit new places - Lucienne is the best yoga tour guide!

Buy your 10 classes pass before 21 June and get a big discount - just £95, instead of £120.
What’s more, you can start using it as soon as you buy it and you can share it with friends, family or visitors. You must use the credits before it expires on 30 Aug.

There are still a few places left at this year’s Summer School with Katie Rutherford

Friday 24 July, 6-7.45pm Pranayama £17.50

Saturday 25 July 10.30-4 pm and
Sunday 26 July, 10.30-3.30 pm £120

Book via the Timetable on the YN website - please note the Friday class must be booked separately.

The teaching this weekend will be inspired by Shrineet - yoga is a process of clearing the blockages within us to uncover our inherent knowledge and intelligence.

Katie was talking about this in her teaching last night. Wonderful class!

Lovely photo! So glad they got to meet up again

Lovely reunion for Birjoo and Elaine on this beautiful warm and sunny day. Lots of heartfelt reminiscing about Guruji.

Yoga-edinburgh.com

Sunita’s last class of the year addressed insomnia – sleeplessness which can become acute for many people. She pointed out there are several things that can cause insomnia and one of them is when your mind just won’t switch off. She talked about the importance of exhalation and a natural bahia kumbhaka – that pause at the end of the exhalation when you are not holding your breath - it just gets quietened. And softens the abdomen – she said “no sleep – hardness in the abdomen. Sleep – abdomen soft”. And she talked about the connection between the thighs and the brain – Geeta’s answer to the question “Why did Guruji always start with standing poses? To give stability to the thighs so that the brain becomes stable. Restful thighs will give restful state to the brain.” Which led us to half halasana – Guruji has given us the answer – do 20 minutes every day half halasana, thigh support, and you will feel as though you have had 8 hours sleep. “Pranayama is implicit in asana. Implicit pranayama is easier to understand than actual pranayama but definitely not as easy as half halasana!” God bless you, Geetaji and Sunitaji.

Words Katie Rutherford

Edinburgh sky and my cat’s big foot. No reason.

Another of our roughly monthly practice sessions in the studio today. As ever, I was too involved to take any photos until near the end but I got this lovely one of Yoriko in Urdhva Paschimottanasana on the ropes. Also we built these huge Sarvangasana platforms, using ALL the blocks, to try the variations from Raya’s class on 8 April. Arm stuff!

Srineet sessions last weekend were entitled “Iyengar Yoga – Exploring the Roots” and he began by revealing something super interesting. Gurujj never set out to create a system called “Iyengar Yoga” – he would have said it was regular yoga that he taught which has been there since time immemorial. So the obvious next question is – did he teach from the texts, from the yoga darshan codified by Patanjali? No, he started teaching BEFORE he had read all these texts. He wasn’t formally educated in the shastras and he still started teaching. So what is Iyengar Yoga? It turns out, marvellously, that there is a wonderful correlation between what is taught in the various texts and what was taught by Guruji. It was not intended - it came through him almost magically. Iyengar yoga then becomes “facets of the ancient true subject of yoga as illuminated by what Guruji experienced, what was revealed by Guruji and what was taught by Guruji”. It is almost as though the aspects of yoga were revealed to Guruji even before he was familiar with what is in the texts. Unbeknownst to him he was revealing things that are at the very core of the ancient subject of yoga. Through his profound understanding of the body, mind and soul he was able to make yoga accessible to people of all ages, abilities and walks of life. “Iyengar Yoga” continues to inspire millions – thank you, Srineet, for teaching us with such clarity, grace and humility. It was a wonderful four days.

Katie Rutherford