Yoga on the roof?

Are you an outdoor yoga type of person? Like nothing better than feeling the wind in your hair and the fresh air on your face during your practice? Well then, here's the perfect yoga class for you! 

During the month of June, the wonderful Naomi Reynolds will be taking Yoga on the Lane to a Dalston rooftop for your summery pleasure. Click here to see the gorgeous space in question. 

All the classes are drop in, £10 a session, or you can buy three classes for £24.

12.30 – 13.30 Tuesday June 12^th, 19^th, 26th

8.30 – 9.30am, Saturday 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd

For more info, visit the Yoga on the Lane website. 

Springing into the new season

Dear yogis

After a lengthy absence, I'm pleased to report that I will be back teaching over the next couple of weeks. Many thanks to those who sent kind wishes while I was unwell, it will be great to see you again soon. 

Inevitably there are changes and new things happening, I'll keep you posted about them all here and on Facebook. 

Class in Camden will restart on Tuesday April 10th at 7pm (open level dynamic) 

I will be teaching two new classes at the gorgeous studio Yoga on The Lane in Dalston on Weds evenings (level one 6.30-7.30pm and open level dynamic 7.45-9pm). 

Sadly I will no longer be teaching my Tuesday morning class at the Special Yoga Centre.

So looking forward to seeing you in class soon.

Aj x 

End of retreat

Well it's over - posting clearly got more sporadic as things got hectic!

Over the last couple of days we built a stunning Shiva yantra made of flower petals, shared an aarti ritual, ate dinner off a banana leaf under the light of the full moon, held a Tibetan Chod ritual at dawn, and on and on.

There have been some great learnings for me on this retreat, and I'm going to try to distill some of them over the next few days. In the meantime, I'd like to bow and scrape before the amazing teachers & presenters I've had the absolute joy of connecting with. So many beautiful shining lights, so much inspiration.

Day 6

It's all going to be over too quickly! After the intensity of yesterday, today was much lighter - I'm bouncing with joy again thank goodness.

This afternoon we had a philosophy session with Emil to wrap up all the leanings from the weekend. It filled in a few holes and raised some more interesting questions about our role in society and what it takes to make a fundamental shift in the collective conscience.

To cap off a lovely day (full disclosure - I've spent a fair but of time relaxing by the pool today!) Emil & Geoffrey gave us an impromptu performance of some of Lorin Roche's beautiful Radiance Sutras. With Emil reading, Geoffrey showed his amazing percussion skills by singing, humming, strumming, blowing, hitting & shaking every instrument he could find! It was fantastic, very meditative and moving but funny too.

Only a day and a half to go & with full moon & lots of ritual on the cards, I think it's going to be brilliant!

Day five

Sunday evening here in Goa and day five is over. There's always at least one day on a retreat that blows your mind and today was that and so much more.

We've just finished a (pretty ecstatic) kirtan led by awesome percussionist and singer Geoffrey Gordon, fab-u- lous! Great energy & enthusiasm from everyone involved, not entirely sure how we're supposed to sleep for our 5am alarms though!

This afternoon was both intense & deeply moving. We were supposed to have a presentation by film director Deepa Mehta but sadly due to the political sensitivities around her latest film, an adaptation of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, she was unable to attend. Instead Emil screened the director's cut of her beautiful work Water which is about child marriage, faith & conscience in 1930's India - I highly recommend it. The film led on to a pretty intense and heartbreaking discussion about the oppression & abuse of women, particularly in India, Nepal & Pakistan. It's simply incredible that in 2012 here are still burnings, rape & hateful violence happening every single day while we in the west are able to turn a blind eye because it's not happening on our doorsteps. As yogis and well educated socially conscious people in general we cannot continue to allow this to happen.

In the following discussion, Carroll Dunham told us a little more of her work in trying to secure basic rights & health care for women in the high Himalayas in particular. It was both shocking and inspiring and if I take nothing else away from this time (unlikely!) it will be a greater awareness and a little more understanding of some extremely complex & deep rooted problems.