I’m in London on an 8 day Yin Yoga Training with Norman Blair and 12 really interesting and amazing yoga teachers and have committed to sharing my thoughts here each day …
Day 7 (Tues 17th April)
I’m posting this on the morning of Day 8 because last night I went out with two very old school friends in Covent Garden for the first time since being in London.
Once upon a time I lived in London for 10 years. It’s now been 14 years since I was a Londoner and I’d forgotten how to be in London! I felt like I’d been dropped from another planet when I arrived at Wood Green station last Wednesday. Everything was alien, so many foreign languages and skin colours and strange smells and scary looking shops I didn’t dare enter.
How things change in a week. I felt like surely everyone must know, when I walked to the studio each morning, that I was a fish out of water. I was self-conscious and found it hard to get my bearings. Now, I have explored this little area, found shops, Greek cafes, Vietnamese restaurants, Tesco metros and joined the dots between Lordship rec and Turnpike Lane tube. I even walked home last night at 10:30pm from the tube and found myself remembering what it was about London that I loved. But I am also keen for the relative quiet, beauty and familiarity of Bath.
Anyway, musings over, here are my key learnings from yesterday:
– Insomnia is becoming the accepted face of depression
– Pain is an opinion of the nervous system. If the nervous system perceives it’s safe and sound, pain recedes
– There are many different ways of practicing and teaching yin yoga and many intentions we may have as begin a practice. What is it we hope that yin yoga will do for us? Perhaps improve joint mobility, reduce stress, soften our minds effort, reduce muscular tensions, alleviate certain symptoms, break old habits, illicit change, create peace of mind, look better, healing, connection, relaxation, for a deep stretch, to energise. They are all valid.
– Yin in in many ways a practice of developing patience. “Infinite patience brings immediate results” Waye Dyer
– I can’t remember who said this but it’s a great aphorism for life “what you can’t let go, let be”
– In our yin practice as in many yoga practices, we are seeking some sort of inner peace. We all want to feel connected, whole, relaxed with who we are and with our circumstances. The first step on the journey is greater presence. Yin yoga is one of the few yogas where we get the chance to turn up and dive deep. Because we hold relatively still in the poses for time. Yin creates the container for that possibility in contrast to more yang/movement based yogas. Not that one is better than the other. Yang needs yin and yin needs yang. It’s a complimentary thing.
