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I'm just home from a morning at the studio. First a short strength practice myself, followed by two busy strength sessions and then a very chilled somatics and yoga. Sometimes it feels wild to ride the polarity between the energy of the different sessions on a Saturday. The strength sessions have a purposeful and determined air to them. People are there to challenge themselves, and have a chat along the way. Then the feeling changes as somatics starts. People are there to relax and drop inward. To be with the ease in their body rather than the effort. Yet somehow the contrast feels right. There are times in our life to challenge ourselves. There are times to chill out. Rather than them feeling opposing, they should feel supportive. Strength isn't actually built when we are lifting weights, but in the recovery time between our sessions. We all probably know the feeling of needing to rest and chill out and then getting the craving for getting out and being active again. The question is which do you need now? I find peoples default is to say they need to do more all the time. But if we are always doing more, we get exhausted and don't have the time to recover and get stronger, fitter, more creative, whatever it is that we need to be in our lives. Getting clear on what you need and when is a skill and one I encourage everyone to get in touch with. Sometimes we need to experiment and see, if I do movement do I get more or less tired? What kind of movement do I need, chill or strong? Or do I need to truly rest? When it comes to resting, is it easy to take time to rest? Or is there a sense of distraction or a to do list pulling you away? Maybe even guilt? I think of my Restorative Yoga workshops as a space to let all that go. The distractions of life can fall away a little bit more when you know you have carved out 2.5 hrs to be with your body and your breath. We do some gentle somatics to get you ease in your body, and then the deluxe treatment begins! With each restorative posture we use a multitude of blankets and bolsters to support your body so you can fully relax. My job is to help you find as much comfort as possible. One of the people in the workshop once said that it was like flying yoga first class! To be able to have that kind of care, the numbers for the workshops are small. So if that sounds like just what you need the next session is coming up on Saturday Aug. 23rd 2pm4:30. You can book your place here. I hope to see you on the mat soon, Nicole
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Maybe you are one of the lucky few to never have back pain. Or maybe it comes and goes. Maybe it is more of presence in your life than you would like. I've been chatting to lots of people in studio who have dived back into the garden with the good weather we are having and are feeling sore backs because of it. I absolutely know the feeling. Back in lock down I built a veg garden and in the process of putting up a poly tunnel and moving 10 tons of compost I got a bulging disc and sciatica. So whereas previously I had the occasional niggle and sore times in my back, it became a constant presence in my life. I'm happy to say I found a way out and my back is stronger than ever and it wasn't with pain killers or avoiding things that seemed hard. The key was slowly and methodically building my backs strength and resilience. So often when we are in back pain we just want the quick fix and then ignore what got us there in the first place. I want to give you hope that you can change that cycle and find the ability to do all the gardening (or whatever fun things float your boat) you like by building yourself up again. Join me in June for a three part workshop where I show you what I did to rebuild and then we make a plan and get to work for rebuilding what you need to get strong again. These workshops get you into my Rebuild Your Back club where you can attend future workshops as well as have whatsapp support from myself and other club members on the journey.
Orla shared some lovely words in her newsletter this week about Mindfulness and I thought I would share them here so you get a taste of what she explores in the course. "When we cultivate compassion within ourselves it expands our capacity to hold the suffering of others, and it also helps us generate energy to take action. When we practice together we see how we can use this collective energy to create change and transformation. In the Mindfulness tradition transformation happens on an individual level first. For example, We may be watching or hearing about the suffering of the people of Gaza or Sudan (I could go on and on with this list) and be so disturbed, that our natural reaction is to fall into despair and turn away feeling hopeless to help. The Mindfulness tradition suggests we turn toward the feeling in ourselves first, we allow ourselves to hold the feelings, just as a mother holds and soothes a crying baby we can learn to do this for ourselves. Try repeating, ‘May I be safe, May I be happy, May I be peaceful may I be free from suffering’ this trains your brain to be more compassionate towards yourself and others. Once we have soothed ourselves then we have more energy to connect with other people and take action."
It's been great practicing at the studio this week with the sun streaming in. There is something about these longer and warmer days that seems to be lifting peoples energy. We have been having some great classes in the studio with good chats and lots of energy. One of the topics that came up before a yoga class was just about this feeling of movement getting harder as we get older. I wish it wasn't true but the concept of use it or lose it does hold up. That is because our body is constantly adapting. If we don't use a range of motion or challenge our muscles our body will adapt by letting go of those abilities. So often I see people just let go of their abilities and strength and blame it on aging. I get it, as we get older things change and get harder. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way! That constant adaptation also can happen in a positive direction. We can build muscle at any change. We can work on our range of movement. It can happen even within one hour a week of intentional training. There can be this message out there that as we get older we should do less, relax more and no longer challenge our bodies. I've come around to thinking it's actually the opposite! One of the surprising things for me though has been that as I challenge my body more, I have more energy, range of motion and strength. The first and most important step in this is reframing how you think about movement.
We are through the darkest part of the year and it's delightful to be getting 4 minutes more of daylight each day now. There is even the hint of spring bulbs coming up. Something about the promise of spring can be so energising and it's been lovely to see so many new faces in the studio, as well as people returning to their practice. A new student to the studio was asking me about the different classes and what might be a good fit. First off, all our classes allow you the space to do what you need to take care of yourself. I like to think of the different classes not so much on difficulty levels, more like energy levels. So the Morning yoga, Saturday Somatics and Beginners are all fairly chill, with time for transitions. Margaret likes to adapt her Wednesday Somatics and Yoga class to suit the spectrum in the class, but also give a challenge if you are up for it! Yang/Yin are half dynamic and challenging and half slower stretches. Johns Vinyasa on Tuesday will offer more complex poses with the time to break them down workshop style. Its good to remember though that if there is a certain day that suits you to come to a class, as long as you don't have injuries you are working with, it's worth coming along and trying the class on that day.
Why Sing? Did you know that singing in a group releases endorphins; oxytocin and serotonin and generally helps people to feel more connected.* These ‘happy hormones’ are a good part of why singing together in a group is so good for us. There is lots of evidence now available about the benefits of group singing for example linking singing to boosting our mental health and improving our immune system*. Researchers also now know that our hearts synchronise and our blood pressure lowers when we sing together in groups*. (*Voices Now Big Choral Census 2017) Starting on Sunday April 21st with a taster session we will be having a Sing to Relax session with Una McCann at Abhyasa. After that will be a five week block of sessions. Book in for both the taster and course here. What if I’m not a ‘good’ singer? The amazing thing about voices is that most of us can sing, even if many of us were told we weren’t good at it at one stage or another in our lives. Sadly, having worked in the singing world for many years, Una has met many people who’ve had the confidence knocked out of them. However, once we take the judgement out of it, we realise how good singing feels and like any set of muscles, we get stronger and more confident the more we use them. If singing feels so good and is so good for us, why miss out?
We have all had some sort of injury at some point in our lives. Sometimes they can stop us in our tracks with pain. We might stop our normal activities for a while when that happens. Maybe seek support as to how to recover from that injury and pain. Something I see a lot of though is letting that initial recovery period continue indefinitely. Not going back to your activities. Doing less and less from the fear of reinjury and pain. I certainly did just that when dealing with issues with my back over the years. But avoiding the area and movement won't improve its resilience. Living in fear of pain as well erodes confidence and takes away getting to do the things we love. We need to get back to moving and challenging our areas of injury, finding the weak spots and making them stronger. It's slow and takes a lot of patience. Finding a plan to work with helps, as well as supportive people who have been on the journey as well. I've been working with a coach online specifically to strengthen my back for 8 months and it has been incredible to feel strong and not move with fear. I'm happy to say that you can get stronger at any age. There is always some movement available to you. We have space in our strength training sessions for new students on Thursdays evenings and Saturday mornings. Get in touch if you are interested.
I've been thinking a lot about what things we do to soothe and settle ourselves. Mostly because I have been calling on my basket of techniques to do exactly that. We had to say goodbye to our lovely cat Fibo last week, so it has been essential to use the tools that help me feel resourced. Really the first step with all of this is just noticing how I feel. Do I feel tired? Is it a mental or physical tiredness? Do I feel like I need more or less contact with people? And then once you have a sense of how you feel it is easier to take steps forward. Maybe seeing a friend. Or going for a walk. I sometimes like to choose a small project that has been lurking in the background and tackling it (the key here is small project!). Then once you have tried something, check in again, how do you feel now? Has it helped or do you need to try something different? The goal with all of this is to get yourself back to a sense of being grounded, resourced and able to take on what you need to in your life. It may be what you need is to take a pause and intentionally rest! Here are some options for what might bring balance to you. On Saturday December 2nd is the last Restorative Yoga session of the year. It is often hard to let ourselves drop into rest in the busy-ness of life. My intention with these sessions to create a space and practice where you can really find rest away from distractions. Someone one the last session told me afterwards they had the best sleep! Book here. We are coming up to a year of having strength training classes for women at the studio and I'm truly blown away by what the women involved have achieved. Beyond just seeing how their strength physically has grown, it has been amazing to have so many moments of these women recognising that getting stronger has affected them mentally and emotionally. This has been the case for myself as well. As I get stronger I feel more able to take on the stresses in my life. The next course starts November 30 (only a couple spots left) and the course after that will start on January 4th.
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Nicole MinogueArchives
August 2025
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