Emma Lovell Yoga

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Monthly Archives November 2015

The ground

Be interested in your body’s relationship to the ground.    Lie on your back on the floor and explore the curves of your spine, the curves of your feet and wrists.  Where does you body touch the ground and where does it lift away from the ground?  First explore with your mind, visualising the curves of the body,  and then use your hands to see if your your mental imagine was the same.   Is there anything you could let go of to feel more grounded, less tense?

‘…gravity draws everything towards the centre of the earth.  The ground interrupts us.  It also gives us something to resist, in order to stand up or make adjustments.’  Joanna Sarah Avison, Yoga, Anatomy, fascia and movement.

How we react against the ground and interpret gravity is written in our bodies, our posture, our movements- we can tread heavily or step lightly.  Without the ground, without something to react against, our bodies cannot function properly:

 

 




Finding space

‘Our bodies are beautifully plastic and can adapt to our lifestyles and compensate for our postural habits in a variety of ways. Similarly they can gradually grow into a better alignment if we find our own space for expansion through movement, the space to grow into.’  Full article here

 




Winter news

‘Summer is for holding hands, winter for holding tight.’  Annu Subramanian

  Dear all, 

I will be taking a break over Christmas with my final class of the year on Wednesday 16th December.  I’ll be starting back on Monday 4th January.  Here are some goings-on in the next few months.

 

 **Restorative yoga**

 Next dates for restorative yoga will be …

 Thursday 26th  November 2015, 7-8.15pm at All Saints Church, North Baddesley

Wednesday 2nd December 2015, 6.30-7.45pm at St George’s Church Hall, West Harnham

Wednesday 6th January 2016, 6.30-7.45pm at St George’s Church Hall, West Harnham

Thursday 28th January 2016, 7-8.15pm at All Saints Church, North Baddesley

 

All classes £12 to be paid in advance.

Places are limited so please contact me beforehand to reserve a spot.

 

**New class**

 I will be starting a new class at Neal’s Yard Salisbury on Fridays at 11.30-12.30.  The first class will be on Friday 8th January.  As with the other classes at Neal’s Yard, each 6 week course costs £42.  Please contact me if you are interested in attending.

 

**Workshops**

  I will be running a series of workshops throughout next year, involving a more detailed look at specific themes.  The first workshop will be on the theme of balance.  Here are the details: 

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 Finding the feet: A balance workshop

When: Saturday 20th February 2016 10am-12pm

Where: Neal’s Yard, Market Place, Salisbury

Cost: £20 

We’ll be exploring balance of all kinds, appreciating the feet, using the breath, and thinking about our relationship with the ground.   Here’s some inspiration!

Class limited to 6 pupils, so please contact me to reserve your spot.

 

Finally…

 Thank you all for your support and attendance throughout this year- it is so fulfilling to watch others catch the yoga bug!  Keep asking questions, and keep moving!

  All the best,

 Emma




In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver




Untucking

‘Even though we now have only the beginning of what was once a real mammalian tail, it behaves the same. Untucking the tailbone opens the pelvic outlet, tucking it closes it — tightening the pelvic floor. The dog with his tail down between his legs is an equivalent of you sitting on your sacrum, the back supported by a chair or a couch. If you spend multiple hours a day in this position, your pelvic floor doesn’t really have a chance to release and allow the muscle fibres to regain their natural length at resting state. So gradually it shortens.’  From Yoga with Ivana blog




You eat how you move

Really interesting article from Katy Bowman on the relationship between how you eat with how you move:

‘In the natural world, how you eat is based on your ability to get and prepare your food. By being directly involved with your food at every step throughout your life, you maintain the skills and physique necessary to continue to eat. In the natural world, you eat how you move...Historically the work (forces created by human movement) necessary to eat included not only the hunting and gathering bit, but also the mashing, banging, rubbing, beating, tearing, pounding, soaking, spreading, turning, hanging that it took to make nature edible. Said another way, most of the food you use to make your meals–even the “whole ingredients” like nut and coconut flours, oils, milks, and syrups you pour with ease, meats cut with precision, and veggies clean and separated for your convenience–has been processed. Not like in the “I just made this food by putting different chemicals together” kind of way, but a “hey, we performed 14 hours of labor so you could have these whole foods to now cook for your meal, you’re welcome,” kind of way.’  Full article here

Having spent basically a whole day trying to make apple juice from scratch, my movements included picking, pounding, pouring, grinding, pressing, lifting, among other less violent ones.  I could have bought the apple juice and saved myself a lot of time, but when looked at from a movement perspective, if I had  just skipped to the end bit, my movements would have probably just been pouring and sipping.

Here’s a couple of foraging recipes I’ve tried recently:

Hawthorn fruit leather

Ingredients: 1/2 litre hawthorn berries (you can add any hedgerow berries like sloes and rose hips- just improvise, but make sure you use approx half the volume of water to fruit.), 2 dessert apples (chopped), 1/4 litre water.

Method: put all the ingredients in a pan and bring to a slow simmer for 15 mins. Mash with a potato masher then rub through a coarse sieve onto a parchment-lined baking tray (approx 25 x 35cm). Spread out evenly with a spatula then put in oven at the lowest temp until dry. In a fan oven this may take around 3-4 hours. Or use a dehydrater if you have one. Discard the parchment paper, cut the fruit leather into strips and store in an airtight container.

Recipe from Native Hands

 

Nettle soup

Image result for nettles

Ingredients: Half a carrier bagful of stinging nettle tops, or fresh-looking larger leaves, 50g butter, 1 large onion finely chopped, 1 litre vegetable stock, 1 large potato, peeled and cut into cubes, 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped,sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, 2 tbsp crème fraîche, a few drops of extra-virgin olive oil, a few drops of Tabasco.

Method:  Wash the nettles and drain in a colander. Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the onion and cook gently for 5-7 minutes until softened.  Add the stock, nettles, potato and carrot. Bring to a simmer and cook gently until the potato is soft, about 15 minutes.  Remove from the heat. Purée the soup and then season with salt and pepper to taste.  To serve add a teaspoonful of creme fraiche on top. As this melts, swirl in a few drops of extra-virgin olive oil and Tabasco.

Recipe from River Cottage