One of my core beliefs is that our yoga practice should be real. It should serve us, support us, and help us move through life with more ease. It should give us more moments to feel good in our bodies and to enjoy what we love for years to come.
In the next term of yoga classes, we’ll come back to the heart of this idea. In my upcoming course, Yoga for Real Life, we’ll focus on the seven functional movements.
What is a functional movement
These are the movements that we do every day, such as lowering ourselves to sit on the sofa, taking a glass of water from the counter beside us or walking to the shops. There are seven of them – squat, hinge, lunge, push, pull, twist, and gait – and they all require coordination, stability and strength.
With age we often see that these movements can become less efficient, less confident, and less automatic. That never happens overnight, it’s a gradual process of decline that’s usually due to less movement. With time we can slow down and limit our activities. As a result strength declines, joints stiffen, balance becomes less reliable and we lose our confidence.
The good thing is that we can largely prevent these processes by moving more and moving in different ways. So we will take it a functional movement at a time. Each week we will look at how yoga can help us improve the way we move and build practical mobility, strength and agility that we can use not only today but to protect our independence for a long time to come..
So join me for the new term of yoga classes. We practice in St. Leonard’s Church Hall in Streatham on Monday evening and Wednesday morning. I am so looking forward to sharing these practices with you.
