For those of you who don’t know, I’m now 23 weeks pregnant. Over the past few weeks I’ve started to get a lot of pain around my pelvis – a condition known as symphysis pubis dysfunction (spd) or pelvic girdle pain (pgp).
I had this when I was pregnant with my son, Jacob, but not to this degree and it began much later during my pregnancy.
I’ve seen an osteopath a couple of times and today while she was moving me around, she said, “ You are very mobile in your pelvis – maybe too mobile.”
Now, I know this. I have a naturally flexible pelvis. I’ve never really had to work to sit in padmasana (lotus pose) and other hip-related poses come relatively easily to me. But what good is that if, during pregnancy, you lose the strength to contain that flexibility? And what good is it when you’re in physical pain getting up the stairs?
Very often people are in awe of flexibility in yoga, fuelled by images on social media and other channels. Bendiness is something to strive for and if only I had a penny for every time I’ve heard someone say, “I can’t do yoga. I can’t touch my toes.”
The curse of flexibility in yoga has been well documented – London teacher Jess Glenny writes a lot about it and my teacher Norman Blair has written this piece from a yin perspective.
I know that my pelvic pain will go away once I’ve given birth but I wonder if my practice has exacerbated the problem. I know of other yoga teachers who’ve had similar issues during pregnancy. Or perhaps it’s purely down to the pregnancy hormone relaxin opening my body and the pelvic ligaments being stretched from my previous labour and childbirth.
Who knows? But for now, it’s cat/cow, chest openers, pelvic tilts and hip circles for me.
For this reason, the 2 March yin yoga workshop at BAYoga Studio will be my final one before I meet my second child in June.
Kate Atkinson will provide cover until I return in October/November.
Yin yoga is an excellent practice for many types of people – from those who struggle to find time to do anything, to those who run, cycle and do more active types of fitness. We all need to take time to be still, quiet and more contemplative. Yin yoga provides this.
Here are six reasons why yin yoga is great companion to sport and fitness:
1. Stretching to create space
Most people know that having a stretch before and after exercise is good. A freer range of movement allows the body to find the most efficient path and use less energy.
When we sit or lie in a yin pose, we create space in our bodies, in our minds, and in our day-to-day lives. On a physical level, the connective tissue surrounding our joints starts to become more malleable, improving our flexibility.
When you ask someone to sit down and be with themselves they go, “I can’t. I don’t have time for that.” Now you and I may realize that there actually is a problem. Most people don’t think there is a problem.
We run our kids in the same way—and it’s destroying them. The soccer practice and the music lesson and three hours of TV and homework—it goes on from the minute they get up until they go to sleep. They never have an opportunity to experience silence. Psychological development requires periods of solitude.
Anthropological psychology—studying other cultures, as well as our own—shows that when children do not have completely unstructured time, when there are no parental expectations looming over them, they actually can’t develop normally.
Most injuries are from overuse. Imbalances in your body can cause inflammation and excessive wear on tissue. A regular yoga practice brings your body back into symmetrical alignment and corrects flexibility and strength imbalances.
You may have heard of the terms ‘yin’ and ‘yang’ from Chinese Taoist thinking. Yang is about movement, creating energy and heat in the body. Yin is about finding stillness, being calm and cooling the body. HIIT sessions, running and cycling are all yang activity. Focusing just on the yang can lead to fatigue and burn out.
Having both allows the body to come into balance and stay in optimum condition.
4. The power of the breath
People think that yoga is about contorting the body but it’s actually a breathing practice.
Your breath provides you with energy and power to carry on and reach the finish line. Yoga teacher Donna Farhi explains all:
Doctor and triathlete John Hellemans recommends that the best breathing for top athletic performance is deep diaphragmatic breathing… Dr Hellemans also notes the importance of getting into a rhythmic flow with your breathing and synchronizing your breathing with your movement.
You can do that by taking a breath when you plant your foot during a stride or when pedalling on a cycle. Find a rhythm and speed of movement that allows you to work within the confines of your breath capacity so that you are not building up an oxygen deficit.
Donna Farhi, The Breathing Book
5. Staying power
In yin yoga we spend around five minutes in each pose (all are seated or lying down). This builds mental stamina. I’ve heard a yin practice being compared to a marathon.
This stillness allows us to become more in tune with our body, and naturally you’ll find that you start to watch your mind. We notice our thoughts – whether they’re positive or negative, linked to the past or the future, and whether they’re recurring. It allows us to connect within.
6. Accepting rather than competing
Yoga teaches that there’s more to life than going faster or further. It’s about accepting where you are today – not comparing yourself to before you had that hip/knee replacement, or thinking about how much fitter you were ten years ago. If we’re able to accept our bodies as they are today, we’ll be happier individuals.
And over the duration of a yin pose, your body will open and you’ll naturally go deeper. No pushing, no judgement, just accepting.
You can now practice a 25 minute yin class with me on YouTube as part of Fluxus Fitness’ Great in 8.
You may be aware of the issue currently being discussed in the global yoga community. It’s around abuse allegations made against the ‘godfather’ of ashtanga yoga, K Pattabhi Jois.
In this #metoo era, there are many women speaking out about him sexually abusing them while he adjusted them in poses, and there’s also a lot of discussion around injuries sustained by him too.
I’m not going to comment on the allegations, but I strongly recommend you do some reading. Here are some excellent pieces:
[box] Articles on K Pattabhi Jois abuse allegations
Matthew Remski is a fantastic writer on yoga issues:
However, I do want to say a few words about being adjusted in class – primarily in an ashtanga class, but equally in any yoga class where you receive adjustments.
In ashtanga, in particular, there is a culture – or even an expectation – of strong physical adjustments. Teachers provide adjustments to help a student feel the correct alignment or to help a student go deeper into a pose.
I know there can be a ‘no pain no gain’ mentality in ashtanga but we must be kind to ourselves – there’s the yama ‘ahimsa’ meaning non-harming or non-violence.
A good adjustment doesn’t have to be forceful. A good adjustment will:
facilitate an opening in the body, allowing perhaps a little extra length to be found
create a more solid foundation in a pose.
Many adjustments can be intimate. There’s a lot of body contact. Here are some examples:
Clockwise from top left: Paschimatanasana, Marichyasana C, Upavishta Konasana (balancing), Adho Mukha Svanasana (down dog). Thanks to April Nunes Tucker for featuring in the photos with me and Carli Spokes for the photos.
So if you’re receiving an adjustment and it doesn’t feel good or you feel it’s overstepped a boundary, you must tell the teacher. I know it can be hard to speak up but it’s your body and you know it best.
If you don’t want to receive adjustments, that’s ok. You can tell the teacher or perhaps they have some sort of consent process – Norman suggests using playing cards.
This is a biggie: A teacher also needs to know if they’ve injured you.
There’s a lot of talk in yoga about the importance of paying attention: how your feet feel on the floor in samastitihi, how the weather impacts nature, how your actions and words affect others. It also means paying attention to the darker issues facing the yoga world.
We must be aware. We can’t bury our heads in the sand. And we must be empowered practitioners, in control of our own body and practice.
Do you have anything to add? Any observations/experiences to share?
If you teach, feel free to share this with your students.
Have you got Netflix? If you have, I highly recommend a film on there called ‘On Yoga: The Architecture of Peace’. It’s about a bloke called Michael O’Neill who used to photograph Hollywood stars. In a nutshell: he got injured, was told he’d never use his arm again, found yoga and meditation, his arm recovered.
As a result, he decided to devote his time photographing yogis. The film features interviews with teachers talking about yoga philosophy. They are wonderful. The kundalini teacher Gurmukh talking about fear of death, Eddie Stern on community and peace. Swamis explaining how we are not our body and how yoga is every minute of the day. I particularly remember one teacher saying that we’ll only be happy when we let go of desire. It’s the wanting that makes us unhappy.
Not so great are the clips of him taking photos of young yogis doing extreme poses in front of beautiful scenery – silhouetted against a sunset, a grafitti’d wall, the New York skyline. Skimpy clothes. Why do it? Why conform to a yoga stereotype? If these teachers are saying yoga is so much more than the physical body, why bring it back to that?
Kumbh Mela, 2010
Anyway, it was good to watch. He visited the Kumbh Mela – the massive Hindu pilgrimage that takes place at different locations along sacred rivers. I had the honour of being part of the Kumbh on Ma Ganga in Haridwar, India, in 2010 – something I’ll never forget.
I finished the film and took a moment to consider my current life with a one-year old baby and how my life has changed since I took my dip in the Ganga eight years ago. I felt that I had drifted away from yoga somewhat. I’m struggling to get on my mat and there are a lot of pooey nappies.
But then I thought a little more: this is my yoga at the moment. It’s not the beautiful asanas but it’s the day-to-day grittiness of life. One Swami in the film explained Bhakti yoga – the yoga of devotion. I’d also say it’s Karma yoga – giving without any expectation of reward. I am devoting myself to my son and my family.
Can I care for him in a way that is kind and caring? We do our gratitude practice while he has his bedtime milk. We chant along to Swami Vishnudevananda in the car on the way to the local soft play centre.
And while I haven’t managed an unaided headstand for over a year now, it’ll come back at some point. I’m happy if I manage a few sun salutations and standing poses.
So if you have Netflix, watch it. But please pay more attention to the words of wisdom than the cliched contortions…
Have you seen it? What are you thoughts?
(Thank you to my Berkhamsted buddy Laura for suggesting I look it up.)
With me starting to teaching monthly yin yoga workshops at Jen Day’s pilates studio near Wheathampstead, we thought it would be nice for you all to learn more about her.
So, here you’ll find a little interview with her, and on her website there’s an interview with me.
The first workshop of 2018 is on Saturday 20 January. View details.
Hello Jen. Why Pilates?
Because it works! I, like many people discovered Pilates due to a knee injury 17 years ago. I fell in love with the method immediately. I found it challenging and inspiring and I still do today! Pilates keeps me connected to my body. It keeps me focused, strong and without it I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have run injury free for 16 years or competed in triathlon up to half Ironman level. Joseph Pilates was absolutely right when he said: “Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness.”
The Studio is at Mid Herts Golf Club. Why there?
Besides it being next door to my home?! It’s a beautiful calm space, oak beams and white walls with a view that is spectacular all year round. I wanted to create a space that you walk into a feel completely at ease, it’s a sanctuary, I can see that in my students faces sometimes. I adore teaching in the space and my commute is just wonderful!
What does practice mean to you?
Practice to me is acknowledging Joe and his wife Clara’s work every day. There are movements that still challenge me, movements that delight me and some that elude me! Practice also frees up my mind which is an awesome thing for an over thinker! So practice is about creating space, in mind and body. Its about constant learning and reflection.
Thank you Jen. Jen can be found at The Studio on weekday mornings. For information about her classes and the yin workshop, visit www.i-pilates.co.uk.
You can read her interview with me on her website. We hope to see you at The Studio soon!
I was talking to a neighbour this week about how I’d cried on my mat that morning. “You’re so not selling yoga to me,” she replied.
I’ve just done a week of Ashtanga Mysore practice with Lucy Crawford at BAYoga in Berkhamsted. Since giving birth to Jacob almost seven months ago, I’ve managed to get to a handful of Mysore classes. My home practice has mostly involved soft bolsters and cosy blankets.
Lucy was wonderful as always. She talked a lot about coming into relationship and how to live and practice according to the yamas – the yogic principles for right living or ‘observances’.
This resonated deeply. I have a new body and I don’t recognise it. Looking after a baby takes its toll physically, let alone coming to terms with the physiological changes that happen during pregnancy and breastfeeding. My rib cage has expanded outwards in all directions, my shoulders and hips are broader. I’ve lost a lot of strength and a friend called my breastfeeding boobs “magnificent” the other day. I’m doing my pelvic floor exercises as I type this.
Lucy talked about ‘sukha’ or joy. Was I able to find joy in my practice? The first three days felt distinctly lacking. It was all an effort – sorting childcare drop-offs and pick-ups, getting to Berko for a 9am start… and then I had to do sun salutations?!
She spoke on ‘satya’, the yama relating to honesty. I feel really tired at the moment so why push it? As a result, my Monday practice was surya namaskars and standing poses followed by some yummy restorative poses. Lucy: “Right Clare, this is what we’re going to do with you. Let’s put this bolster here…”
And can we let go of the grasping – the yama ‘aparigraha’? The wanting: wanting to be ‘better’, wanting the pre-pregnancy practice. Lucy spoke about when Guruji would give her a new pose, she’d feel anything but excited (“Ugh, not another one!”). She said she’d much rather hang out in restorative poses although she knows her body needs to move. I can relate to this.
On Wednesday morning the tears came even before my first surya namaskar A. Steamy tears falling silently down my face during our breathing practice. More tears after attempting purvottanasana – feeling like I’d left my cervix on the mat as I lifted my hips up. “You’re very wobbly around that whole area,” said Lucy with loving eyes and a gentle smile. “That’s to be expected. Give it time.” The yama ‘ahimsa’ has various translations including non-violence and non-harming. Essentially it’s about being kind – to ourselves and others.
I was trying to explain the tears to my neighbour. I said about how we move and breathe in the poses. The emotions we’ve been holding in our bodies are released. It’s almost like a wringing out of all the stuff we’re carrying around. It’s cathartic. There’s no hiding on your mat. Everything comes out. It’s very positive.
My yin teacher Norman is fond of saying “shift happens”. And it certainly did for me. After Wednesday’s tears, I found my rhythm. There was a lightness, I had more energy both during and after practice and I was smiling more (sukha).
I had come into relationship with myself. I found ‘me’ again. My body is more open and I am less creaky. My thoracic no longer feels stuck. My jaw has softened. There’s a spring in my step. I feel stronger picking Jacob up and my happiness makes him happy. This body is slowly recovering.
I have so much gratitude for this practice. I bloody love yoga.
Two more yin workshops in 2017 before I go away on a little adventure:
Sat 2 Sept at BAYoga, Berkhamsted: info
Sat 9 Sept at The Studio, Mid Herts Golf Club, Wheathampstead: info
I’ll be back teaching regularly from January 2018.
The other week I was asked if I’d be able to write an article for a yoga magazine. The subject was how yoga could help women who’ve recently given birth. The deadline was in three days.
Now if I didn’t have a six month-old baby, I’d have cracked it out in an afternoon, no problem. But instead I declined saying that if I did have the time to write it, my advice would be: childs pose and savasana are your best friends and that every new mum needs a bolster.
Here are some of observations about yoga from my experience of having a baby from zero to six months:
– Post-natal yoga classes with your baby are great but very different. When the lovely Laura at The Yoga Hall says, “…and back to your breath…” it can be anything but calming when surrounded by bawling babies. During savasana you may be the only mum in savasana because others are doing the baby bounce/sway or feeding. I loved the classes though.
Jacob ‘enjoying’ a class at The Yoga Hall
– Practice with your baby on your mat: prepare to have your hair grabbed with such intensity that down-facing dog must be aborted.
– Doing any amount of practice at home needs to be congratulated.
– Mula Bandha – Using your pelvic floor to gain lift and lightness: Ha! Not a chance! I practice my pelvic floor exercises while cleaning my teeth (that tip is thanks to Josie Raison. Her baby yoga classes in St Albans are great).
– My time for yin is when I’ve put him in his hammock and he’s drifting off to sleep. No eye contact, on his bedroom floor. You’re still able to sing Twinkle Twinkle if required.
– Ujayyi breath can calm him (and me).
– I asked teacher Lucy Crawford when she thought it would be ok to return to an Ashtanga practice. She suggested at around three months but it’s a long journey. It’s like you’re a beginner again, with an entirely different body. You approach poses as if you’ve never done them before… because it’s a new experience in this new body. It keeps your mind present, exploring the possibilities of body.
– Acceptance is a huge thing. Accepting this is your practice for now with this body.
– Making comparisons: There’s enough comparing going on when you have a baby: who’s sleeping, teeth vs no teeth, who’s got a routine. I was given Yes Mum cards. They sit next to his changing mat and I turn a new card every day. One of my favourites reads: ‘I do not need to compare myself to other people’.
Yes Mum cards
But I wouldn’t want it to be any different. I love being a mum to Jacob.
What are you experiences of yoga with a baby? Anything you’d like to share?
Last Monday morning I threw up shortly before leaving the house to go and teach. At 24 weeks pregnant, I haven’t totally put aside the sickness I had earlier, but it’s much better than it was. The tiredness remains and I need a daily nap.
I arrived at the venue feeling less than great and tried to start preparing the room for class around groups of mums and toddlers glued to the floor chatting at the end of their children’s weekly dance class. I found myself sweeping grass and mud that had come loose from one toddler’s shoes. An awkward conversation with the dance class teacher followed.
As my students settled into the space and found their breath, I sat at the front of the room preoccupied. Is this all really worth it? Why am I doing this?
And then it was a lovely class. Two women had come for the first time, new to yoga, and their smiles and kind words at the end provided answers to my ponderings.
The future of my weekly classes
But having spent time this week thinking things through, I have decided to stop teaching my weekly classes at the end of this month, coinciding with the start of my third trimester.
It hasn’t been an easy decision. I’ve been teaching for over six years now, firstly in London and then locally in Hertfordshire for almost three years. It takes time to build classes and reputation and I am attached to all my students. I love teaching you. I feel a duty of care towards you. I enjoy hearing about your daily lives. But I need to let go. I need to make space for the next phase of my life.
At the end of Monday’s class, one of you said to me that I shouldn’t continue teaching on your account. I know this is true.
I had previously thought I’d take a maternity break but I’ve decided to wholeheartedly hand the classes over to another teacher. I don’t want the pressure of thinking that I need to get back to teaching every week after x number of months. I know I’ll come back – but in what form and where – who knows?
Yoga teaching is what I know. I know what I’m doing. It’s safe. But caring for a baby human? Many of you have told me how wonderful motherhood is, and I can try my best to be prepared, but it really is totally unchartered water. I need to accept that my future life will be very different. I need to make space to prepare and focus on my own practice.
My teacher Norman Blair talks about how we must stay at our ‘growing edge’: if we’re behind our edge, we get bored. Things are predictable and comfortable. Go beyond our edge, and we panic and become fearful as we’re way out of our depth. We need to stay at this edge in order to grow as a person. We need new experiences and challenges to push ourselves. Hello motherhood!
Teaching/class plans post October 2016
Niki Clark and I
The lovely Niki Clark will take over teaching the Monday and Thursday morning classes from 31 October onwards. I know you’ll be in safe hands. I will no longer teach the Tuesday Mysore Ashtanga class fortnightly. April will go back to teaching this weekly and has her own plans for this class.
I will however continue teaching my yin workshops at BAYoga in Berkhamsted for the rest of the year (Saturday 5 November and 3 December) and you are very welcome to book a place. April will cover the yin workshops at BAYoga from January – May 2017 and I plan to resume teaching these from June onwards (fingers crossed).
April and I will continue to send our email newsletter so please look out for this for updates. If you don’t receive this and you’d like to, email April.
We will go for a cuppa after my final classes on Monday 24 October and Thursday 27 October so please feel free to come along if you’re local and available.
Thank you to everyone who’s come to class over the past few years and let’s just simply be open to what the future holds.
The Open Door by Danna Faulds
A door opens. Maybe I’ve been standing here shuffling my weight from foot to foot for decades, or maybe I only knocked once. In truth, it doesn’t matter. A door opens and I walk through without a backward glance. This is it, then, one moment of truth in a lifetime of truth; a choice made, a path taken, the gravitational pull of Spirit too compelling to ignore any longer. I am received by something far too vast to see. It has roots in antiquity but speaks clearly in the present tense. “Be,” the vastness says. “Be without adverbs, descriptors, or qualities. Be so alive that awareness bares itself uncloaked and unadorned. Then go forth to give what you alone can give, awake to love and suffering, unburdened by the weight of expectations. Go forth to see and be seen, blossoming, always blossoming into your magnificence.”
A quick search on Google produces various definitions of this familiar idiom. My favourite is:
A pause that gives the impression that it will be followed by something significant. (www.en.wiktionary.org)
I am now 15 weeks pregnant and I paused for nine of these. I’m now coming out of the other side and safely into my second trimester.
During my nine-week pause, I didn’t teach a yoga class. Making it into London for my freelance work felt less like a step too far and more like an entire staircase out of reach.
My world shrank. On a good day, I had the energy to make cheese on toast and who knew it was possible to throw up so unexpectedly and forcefully!
I found myself sharing the contents of my stomach with a motorway hard shoulder and then refuelling at a service station with an emergency Nando’s.
When I told this to a friend and yoga student, she said how she’d thought she’d be doing a modified ashtanga practice and drinking green juice during her pregnancies. Instead, she found herself lying on the floor eating peanut butter on white bread and bags of crisps.
And the changes your body goes through! In the very early days, I had such intense muscular sensations across the sacrum and back of pelvis, I could feel everything stretching and moving to make space for what was to happen over the coming months. The only thing that helped was child’s pose with a hot water bottle across the area.
At ten weeks I looked pregnant and I’ve been told that my ever-expanding boobs are now the temperature of the sun – by my fiancé, Rob, I hasten to add.
Although anything more than child’s pose and the occasional cat/cow eluded me for the length of my pause, the lessons of yoga were ever-present. Never before had listening to my body been quite so important. If I tried to get out of bed before 10am, I was sent running to the toilet, head over bowl, and then straight back under the duvet and my ginger oatcakes.
I concentrated on my breath when any pregnancy fears rose to the surface and the ‘what ifs’ threatened to take over.
I had to accept what was possible for me on that day as there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. This beautiful little being inside me has been totally running the show, gradually making its way through bigger and bigger fruit-based size comparisons (‘this week, your baby is the size of an avocado’).
In the ancient teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, on a battlefield, Krishna teaches Arjuna to do his duty. He’s a warrior facing a battle that doesn’t appeal. My duty right now is to do what’s best for our baby. And that has nothing to do with trying to advance through advanced ashtanga poses.
Now I’m able to leave the house more, I am appreciating the little things. I’ve made it to a yoga class and enjoyed being back amongst familiar faces. Just being able to move with my breath in a sun salutation has been an utter delight.
“The practice helps me to process things in life more effectively; that is important, as during pregnancy and the aftermath there is a lot for us, as mothers to process. The changes in our bodies – the hormones alone – can alter our perceptions and experience of life enormously.
… We are all so lucky to have this practice as a central and stable resource, bringing awareness and light into our lives and into our being.”
I am so grateful to Celia, Louise, Niki and Sam for covering my weekly classes. I’d also like to say thank you to my regular students who’ve known I’ve been pregnant for what feels like ages! All your emails and texts of support and congratulations have meant so much.
I will be back teaching from Monday 8 August. View the classes schedule to see what’s going on with classes during the summer.
In light of being in bed by about 9pm every night, I have decided to give up my Thursday evening yin class at The Yoga Hall, St Albans. It hasn’t been an easy decision and I thank all of you who have attended the class over the years. I have enjoyed our after-class natters over tea and fig rolls. I hope to see you soon and keep up the practice.
If you’d like to get an extra dose of yin, ashtanga or gentle yoga, Cathy and I have places on our October retreat near Bedford. View details.
For those of you who don’t know, I’m now 23 weeks pregnant. Over the past few weeks I’ve started to get a lot of pain around my pelvis – a condition known as symphysis pubis dysfunction (spd) or pelvic girdle pain (pgp).
Yin yoga is an excellent practice for many types of people – from those who struggle to find time to do anything, to those who run, cycle and do more active types of fitness. We all need to take time to be still, quiet and more contemplative. Yin yoga provides this.
3. Yin vs yang
