Emma Lovell Yoga

Photography from here – taken from Escape Artist and Self Portrait Suspended by Sam Taylor-Johnson.

I’ve just made a batch of these and they are delicious and really easy to make.

I found the following recipe here:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup soaked, pitted dates
• 1/2 cup soaked walnuts
• 6 tablespoons raw cacao powder  (I just used Green and Blacks Coco Powder and a bit of dark chocolate)
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil
• pinch of good salt
• pinch of vanilla powder (optional)
• 1 tablespoon orange zest

Topping

• 2 tablespoons turmeric powder
• 3 tablespoons hemp seeds

Preparation

1. Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender until combined. Place in the fridge for about 10 minutes to harden.

2. Roll into balls, and into turmeric/hemp mixture until coated. Chill for 15-20 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

I’ve just finished working my way through Katy Bowman’s Move Your DNA  and would highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether you do yoga or not.  Katy presents complex scientific research in a way that is easy to understand and engaging, with or without a scientific background.   Just as we understand a balanced diet as essential for good health, Katy argues that balanced movement is equally as important, especially in our more sedentary lifestyles, and the normalisation of increasingly common ailments such as low back pain and knee problems.  This book will not only make you rethink your idea of ‘exercise’, but also how you move in every sense. 

See the full post here.

Another interesting read about stretching and muscle length: ‘When you stretch your muscles, you increase your flexibility. But you do not do so through increasing the length of the muscles, you do so by decreasing your brain’s threat response – the brain “releases the brakes” and allows the muscle to stretch further.’

Here’s the article:  http://bretcontreras.com/long-lean-muscles-oh-irony/

This is particularly useful when thinking about this week’s themes: letting go; allowing the body to open; hip openers.  

while sitting, ask yourself

maybe you have been in this position

hundreds of times

but are you really unwinding…

opening the groin

are you giving the knee the possibility to open

without pain, without pressure?

are you giving the ankle the possibility

of rolling open

and the heel to turn?

and the foot to open?

From breath: the essence of yoga

Images from here and here and here.

Lovely pictures in the Guardian of the Township Yoga Project in South Africa.

**2014 classes: Lewisham Hospital class starts back Saturday 4th January 2014, 10-11am

LeSoCo class starts back Wednesday 8th January 2014, 7-8pm** 

**Class offers:  £5 for first class.

£5 for you next class when you  bring along a friend to their first class**