Great Malvern Yoga

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6 signs you’re totally stressed out (funny)

We undoubtedly live in an era where most conversations with your friends being with, “Oh I’m so stressed!”  The 21^st century lifestyle means that everyone will have encountered stress somewhere along the line.  Unless of course you are one of those really annoying types who wears a coat made of Teflon, so the stress just slides right off you.

Stressed out Mary

All of the following are completely true.

1. You arrive at work, take off your coat, make a drink, turn on your computer, read some emails… then a colleague points out that your jumper is in fact inside out.  If you can get away with it, it’s best to pretend that it is supposed to be like that.  Otherwise you look like a complete flake.  You’re sh*t out of luck if said jumper has a huge washing instruction label on it though.

2. Having visited your local purveyor of fine produce and olives in little tubs, you carefully place your very expensive purchases in the boot of your car, ensuring that the olives remain upright, lest they spill their olivey goodness all over the boot (that’s trunk if you’re an American).  Your posh eggs from very happy chickens are reverently placed on the front seat so you can keep an eye on them.  You return your trolley to the bay and leave your handbag, containing your brand new phone and your wallet in the trolley.  Luckily I got it back.  And everything was still inside my wallet.  Honest people do exist… at least they do where I live.

3. You wake up in the morning only to find that during the night you’ve been digging the nails of your left hand into the palm of your right.  The resulting marks take all day to fade.  There is not a lot you can do about this apart from not waving at people across the office because then they’ll realise you’ve been maiming yourself in your sleep (again).  If this becomes a regular occurrence you need to keep your nails short and consider wearing gloves in bed.  Seriously.

4. You forget that you’ve promised to go to Hot Yoga with your Yoga BFF, and now you feel mortified and embarrassed and daren’t phone her because you are a total stressed out mess.  This comes from not really knowing what day it is.  A solution would be to try to keep a paper diary with your appointments in your handbag (providing it has not been left in a supermarket trolley), and then actually LOOK AT IT so you can see where you are supposed to be.

5. Going to bed seems like the best course of action, even though it’s only 3.30pm.  Cuddling up with a good book and the cat at 3.30pm in the afternoon seems like a good idea.  Where do you think I am while writing this?  However, if it happens too often you might need to have a think about why you are in bed.

6. Knocking over a cup of tea results in an apoplectic-raging-beast-screaming-crying-fit that causes you to nearly pass out in anger when you realise that was the last of the milk too.  Birds in trees get scared and take flight.  The cat runs out of the room at top speed, leaving a cloud of fur behind that then floats nonchalantly into the big tea puddle on the floor.  Each and every tiny, simple task just causes you more stress and inconvenience.  And so you sit sobbing in the middle of the kitchen floor, hot tea soaking into your eco-friendly yoga leggings until your poor long-suffering husband/partner/boyfriend concedes that he will go fetch some more milk from the shop.  Anything to get away from the noise!

Now for the serious bit.  If you have symptoms of stress, if you feel out of control, anxious, depressed and/or unable to cope, you need to get some help.  Talking to loved ones, doing something fun, getting a massage and attending a regular yoga class are all things that can help relieve some of the burden you feel you are carrying.  Don’t suffer in silence.  Try a little smile right now… go on, you can do it!

About friends

I love my friends.  My mates.  My chums.  My buddies.  The Kindred Spirits.  The ones who’ve seen me cry.  The ones who know my bra size (seriously classified information, people!).

My friends from school, the majority of whom I am still in touch with via Facebook.  It’s amazing to see us all grown up, with jobs and kids.  I honestly never thought that I would meet anyone else like them.  I like to think we were the closest knit group of friends ever and that the camaraderie will never be surpassed… and actually it probably won’t because we’re adults now and drinking Thunderbird on the school playing field on Friday nights is just not cool anymore!

Over the last couple of years I’ve met some amazing people.  Fellow yogis, business people, work colleagues, people from Twitter, people I’ve met through music, long lost family members on Facebook, the people who attend my yoga classes…  D’you know what though?  I hardly get to spend any time with any of them.

Recently I’ve become friends with a few really inspirational people who are more accessible to me, by virtue of the fact that they live in the same town as me!  But you just know when special people enter your life.  The sort of people who make you feel amazing, like you can do anything.  They believe in me, they get me.  They make me happy when I’m around them.

Don’t get me wrong, I carve my own path.  I don’t need the affirmation or admiration of those around me but what I do need is that simplistic good fun element you get when you’re with great friends… whether that’s getting high on caffeine with a fellow yoga teacher (seriously, 3 shots man!), being manhandled into Pincha Mayurasana by my Yoga BFF or tramping through a park in Vienna in heels and a posh frock… these are those priceless friend moments that everyone needs.

I have so many lovely people in my life right now, new friends and old.  I love each and every one of you.

I urge you to make time for your friends.  You never know when they’re going to move to Australia!

Up to good stuff in Claire’s yoga room
Image from http://travelswithmyyogamat.tumblr.com/

Farting and other stories (6 funnies from the yoga mat)

I am by no means a seasoned, veteran yoga teacher.  However, I’ve seen and heard some pretty funny stuff in my 15 months of teaching and I would like to share some of it with you.

1. Farting

Yup, if you are a frequenter of yoga classes, chances are either you or someone else in the class has farted.  What do you do?  Where do you look?  Do you pretend you’ve not heard?  What if it smells?  Luckily the folks over at DoYouYoga have made a helpful video to tell you what to do (funny).

Unfortunately what the video doesn’t tell you is how to hold in a fart if you are the teacher, or what happens when you hold in a fart for 90 minutes and then you sit down in your car and try to drive home…

2. The Fanny Fart

That’s right, the fanny fart.  This happens to me on rare occasions during shoulder stand or headstand.  It has never happened to me in Warrior 2 or Side Angle Pose.  In this particular instance, a lovely lady in my Tuesday class was in Warrior 2 when she let out what we all assumed was a bottom burp.  When it happened again and louder this time, she told us that it was what she believed is “commonly known as a fanny fart”!  Where do you put your face when this happens?  How do you rearrange your face into something resembling a composed Yoga teacher?  Perhaps the nice people at DoYouYoga will make another video…

3, The woman whose arms didn’t work

Sometimes at the beginning of class I like to do wrist warm ups.  Beginner students get tired wrists quite easily and I think it’s important to get the blood pumping into them before you start doing anything weight-bearing like downward dog.  Anyway, generally we do a few flexes of the wrist and some circles with the arms stretched out in front of us so that it works the deltoids as well.  One particular lady, fairly early on in my teaching experience, tried about two rotations, then said she couldn’t do it because it hurt her arms.  She then bent her elbows into her sides and proceeded to do the exercise like that.  It just looked incredibly funny… maybe you had to be there.

I find it really interesting that people often struggle to distinguish between mild discomfort and pain… but what do I know (see point 4)?

4. Being accused of being so bendy that yoga must be really easy for me

The only thing I can do is laugh when people say this to me… and it happens quite a lot.  Let’s get this straight, yoga is not easy for anyone.  The reason I am so flexible is I worked hard as a gymnast and a dancer when I was a kid and then later on as a yoga practitioner.  I have maintained my childhood flexibility BY WORKING HARD AND KEEPING MY BODY MOVING!  Being bendy is more of a curse than it is a blessing.  It is easy to over pronate and hurt myself really badly.  I work hard to develop my muscles in order to protect my flexible tendons and ligaments.  Injury is not funny.

5. The hardcore know-it-all Ashtangi

Again, this was fairly early on in my teaching career.  She put her mat right at the front of the class, scowled at me as I described ujayii pranayama as sounding a bit like Darth Vader (I had two blokes in the class, I thought it would appeal to them), her chaturanga was better than mine, she ignored my instructions and did her own things and her headstand was a perfect straight-leg lift.  At the time I was mortified.  I wanted to throw a diva strop and ask her to come to the front and teach the class instead of me.  She’s never been back to one of my classes since.  I don’t really care about that.  She taught me a very valuable lesson, not to let my ego get in the way of delivering a good, safe class for my students.  I think (I hope) that I now teach with a lot more grace and humility and I am confident in what I am doing.  My classes, taught my way.

6. Flower power pants

One of my lovely students wears black leggings that are somewhat transparent, especially in downward dog.  I have seen her flower power knickers quite often.  It always seems to be the same pair… maybe they’re her favourite pair for doing yoga.  Either way, it makes me smile!  I know some people have a problem with it (I’ve read enough blog posts about lululemon pants to have picked up that some people consider totally opaque leggings essential).  Who cares?  As long as you show up and do your practice, who gives a f*ck what you wear.  I do it in my pyjamas on Sunday mornings.

Whisperings

I’ve been having some treatment in the form of Cosmic Alignment Technique with my friend Sharon Richards who owns Power Blue Holistics.  Sharon is an amazing alternative and holistic health practitioner.  She has a great way of making you feel relaxed as soon as you walk through the door of her gorgeous little healing room.

Cosmic Alignment Technique is an energy healing system designed to nourish, calm, heal and relax you.  It’s a bit like Reiki, except that it’s not.  To me it seems to be a lot more powerful.  The treatment does a whole lot more than just provide relaxation.  If you want to know more about it, click on the link at the top of the page.

I wasn’t at all skeptical about the treatment, but I never expected it to be so profound either.  For example, I love all things holistic, but I’ve never been into angels.  Never seen one, never felt a presence.  Yet last Thursday, angels were whispering to me during my treatment.  No, I’m not schizo!  I was offered guidance, affirmations and reassurance about my true purpose.  To that end, on Friday I bought a pack of angel oracle cards.  Something told me to.  I did my first reading on Friday night when I came in from work.  More affirmations,  more help being offered.  It was scarily accurate.  The way is being pointed out to me, lit up with fairy lights and candles.  Fooook!!

Wheels have started turning.  Cogs are whirring.  Things are afoot.  Something big is about to happen for me.  Not only can I feel it, but I also know it.  Watch this space!!

This is the way!

(Image from dreamstime)

One of those days

I’m having one of those days. I wasn’t having one of those days this morning, but now I am and it’s really getting on my nerves.

I knew it. As soon as I stepped on my yoga mat and started to move, my whole body felt tight and tired. It probably didn’t help that I decided to do a Tiffany Cruickshank core flow on YogaGlo when really what I wanted to do was a nice restorative practice. I didn’t listen to my body and instead I told myself that I needed a good core workout. So I just pushed on through… and now I’m exhausted.

I’ve spent the afternoon curled up on the sofa trying to plan my classes for next week. I usually enjoy this, but today it’s been a chore. I also had in mind that I’d make a cake, do some online banking, write a blog post, do my class emailer…. and what have I done? NOTHING. A big, fat NADA.

And even now, even though I’ve accepted that I’m knackered, I still can’t stop beating myself up that I’m this, that and the other (mainly involving the word “lazy”).

So what to do:
1) Accept that I’m tired
2) Prioritise what needs to be done
3) Do what needs to be done
4) Then do something else that makes me happy, not something that I think I should be doing
5) Give myself a break and stop beating myself up

This is what I go on about in my classes – I talk about listening to your body, tuning in, working within your own limits blah, blah…. All very valid points, except that I am not very good at accepting my own advice!

I can’t expect to feel the same everyday. I have to learn to accept that some days my body will let itself be pushed and then pushed a bit more. Other days, it’s just not going to happen.

So, get off your arse, sit bones and RELAX, Kat. Be kind to yourself, Kat. Finish this post, do your banking and spend what’s left of the day doing something for you! Yes, YOU!!!!

New Year 2014

It’s a new year.  It’s here: 2014.  It’s pretty much the same as before, you just have to keep remembering to put /14 when you write the date.

Or is it the same?  Is this your opportunity to begin taking fairy steps towards making your life what you want it to be? So that, in January 2015 you can look back and say yes, I’ve made the changes that I want to make and I’m happy to be me.

You can do what you want with 2014.  It’s yours for the taking.

I don’t believe in resolutions, if you want to do something you don’t need to wait for a new year to do it, but I do believe in having a theme, a focus or a word for your year.  My word for 2014 is TRANSFORMATION.  I want to transform the way I live my life and spend my time. 

Anyone who knows me well enough will know that I complain about not having enough time.  Working a full-time job and teaching three classes for week has made me adopted this martyred approach to my week.  Well this year I have pledged to myself that I will use my time more wisely and make time work for me instead of it seemingly working against me.  In short, this means getting out of bed earlier on weekday mornings so that I can meditate and do half an hour of yoga.  I feel so much better when I am practicing daily instead of trying to fit in a couple of half-assed practices per week.

Of course there are other things on my list of transformations too.  Maybe I’ll share some more ways I am transforming my life in future blog posts.  I intend to write at least one blog post per week this year.  I was terribly neglectful of this blog last year and it doesn’t do my SEO any favours whatsoever!  So there, I’ve said it now, it’s here in black & white, so I’ll have to do it!!

Why not think about ways that you can transform your life?  It doesn’t have to be huge, sometimes the seemingly little things are the ones that can make the biggest difference to your life.

 

Feeling a bit philanthropic

So I’m feeling a bit philanthropic.  I’ve just been writing about Asteya, the 3rd Yama or restraint.  Asteya means non-stealing.  Not only does it mean not shoplifting or stealing tenners out of your husband’s wallet (I would never do that :-p)… but there are many deeper meanings too, that I may write another blog post about at some point.

Anyway, I got to thinking about what I give back.  Yesterday I took part in the International Women’s Day Celebration Get Together at The Grove in Malvern.  The whole day had been put together by a group of women who wanted to give something back and to help other women not as fortunate as themselves.  I just rocked up at the end with some yoga mats and candles and taught a Moon Flow class… but I didn’t really contribute to the day.

I’ve been toying with this idea for some time.  I was going to do it for my 40th birthday…and I still will, but I also want to do something now – well, in a few months.  To celebrate my 36th birthday on 14th August 2013 I am going to do 36 Sun Salutations on top of the Worcestershire Beacon.  At 425m, the Worcestershire Beacon is the highest point in the Malvern Hills.

I am hoping to raise £360 (£10 per Sun Salute) for the Hidradenitis Suppurativa Trust.  I have suffered from HS since I was about 15 years old.  It is a chronic, debilitating skin disorder estimated to affect around 1% of the UK population.  People often suffer in silence because the areas affected tend to be of an “intimate” nature and they are too embarrassed to seek medical advice about it.

The aim of the Hidradenitis Suppurativa Trust is to increase public knowledge and educate the medical profession on the symptoms, treatments and severities of Hidradenitis Suppurativa, and to provide vital funds for the purpose of research into causes, prevention and treatment.

So why 36 Sun Salutations?

I’m a Vinyasa Flow Yoga teacher.  I began yoga in the first place as a way to lose weight (something that can exacerbate HS), plus I found that yoga is an excellent way to manage stress (which also contributes to HS) and pain.  A flare-up of my skin can cause chronic pain that can last for days, weeks or even months.  Some people aren’t as lucky as me and they never, ever experience pain-free days.  Whilst HS is a recognised medical condition, there is no cure for it and the medical profession remains mystified as to how to control it.  I hope that by doing my 36 Sun Salutations and raising £360, I can contribute in a small way to the work done by the HS Trust.

Please give generously to help raise awareness and to help end the silent suffering.  Thank you.  Namaste. xxx

 

 

The Time is Now!

The lovely ladies from my Wednesday evening class are all busy this Wednesday, apart from one!  So rather than cancelling the class and because I want to encourage more people to come along and give it a try, for this week only (06/03/13) if you come along and bring a friend, both of you only pay £2.50…

That’s right – £2.50!!  That’s less than the price of a sandwich.

And if you need any more of an incentive, read this article.  It speaks sense about why it is a good idea to practice yoga and why yoga is accessible to anyone, regardless of age or ability.

Tell everyone!  This offer will not be repeated on a regular basis!!

The Time is Now

Bird Karma

Everyone knows I love birds.  I will stop mid-conversation to watch a buzzard soaring majestically above me.  I have narrowly avoided driving into hedges having been distracted by a kestrel or formation-flying geese.  I even have Emma Bridgewater Bird Fabric covering my dining chairs!  Bird poses are my favourite yoga poses: pigeon, king pigeon, bird of paradise, heron, eagle…

In the last week I have killed two blackbirds in separate incidents.  One whilst driving to work and the other on the way to orchestra.  Each time I’ve been utterly mortified and howled my way onward to my destination.

Ahimsa, meaning non-violence, is the first Yama (restraint) in the first of Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga.  In my mind it means kindness and respect for all living creatures.  I showed neither kindness or respect when I ploughed my car into my winged friends at 50mph.  On the one hand, the birds were flying very low across the road, but on the other hand I would perhaps have been able to brake if I’d not been going so fast.

I racked my brains to think of something I could do to put something  into nature as a tribute to the poor creatures whose lives I took.  I even spoke to my sister about it.  She thinks I’m a bit mental.  My friend Melanie understood, which spurred me on and I finally decided I was going to join the RSPB and pay a monthly fee to try to ease my conscience.  Something still didn’t feel right though…

I related all this to my husband the other night who came up with a much better idea, one that would actually involve some effort from me and that I would be responsible for.  He’s very clever, my husband.  He’s one of the most zen people I know.

He suggested that we consciously enhance our garden to turn it into a proper bird haven, as opposed to assorted feeders hanging off trees and hoping that the birds will come.  We are lucky enough to live by St Wulstan’s Nature Reserve on the slopes of the Malvern Hills.  We have various bird visitors at all times of year and some daily visitors who can keep us distracted for hours.  As I write there is a chaffinch in the bird house eating pink suet pellets.  We have three cats, but that doesn’t seem to bother the birds.

My husband’s idea is to put some nesting boxes high up in the trees, away from the cats, in time for spring nesting.  We want to place the feeders more intelligently and get the squirrel his own feeding platform so he stops having to vacuum seeds from one of the feeders.  We’re going to have plants and shrubs that attract birds so they get a wide variety of places to roost and different berries to eat.

I feel much more positive now that I can give something back to the birds in a personal way and contribute to their well-being, at least in our little corner of the Earth.