There’s a sentiment in our modern world that yoga practice should be perpetually enjoyable. This sentiment is spawned and propagated by the way in which yoga is used to sell us things. When regular people think of yoga they think of a beautiful individual sitting in a calm, uncluttered, bright space looking perfectly serene and at peace with themselves and their glistening surroundings. We’ve seen this scene on bus shelters advertising life assurance, on television advertising vitamin pills, in magazines advertising wearable fitness trackers, on social media advertising clothing ..read more

I hope you made the most of those four glorious weeks between the last existential crisis and the current one. Just as we Europeans were allowing ourselves to feel cautiously optimistic about the receding threat of Covid-19 and its effects on our lives, we’ve had to face up to the possibility of being plunged into World War III. The worries we had in 2019 about the effects of Brexit on Europe seem quaint by comparison. It seems that we have been cursed to live in interesting times. When we think about practising yoga during times like these it can sometimes feel&n ..read more

My attention span is slipping. I can feel it. And my working memory. I can’t hold a thought in my head for as long as I used to. There are too many distractions. Too many other things to draw my mind in other directions. There was a time when I didn’t need to write anything down. I didn’t need a diary. I didn’t need to make a to-do list. Before we had mobile phones that saved contact details for us, I used to even remember most people’s phone numbers without having to write them down. Those days are gone, and maybe it’s because I’m over 40 now. We all know that young people are like spong ..read more

I’ve never been a morning person and, despite 15 years of getting up early to practise ashtanga yoga, I’m still more alive at night than I am first thing in the morning. Notwithstanding my predilection for the evening hours, I never had a problem getting out of bed; excited, as I was, to start my yoga practice that day. That is until I had children. These days I cling to the pillow, wanting just a few more minutes of sleep, then a few more, and then a few more. I’m bleary-eyed and I feel like an old man when I finally drag myself to the bathroom and on, to the kitchen to ma ..read more

Whilst practising last week, I experienced something that felt like a small insight into the nature of yoga practice and why it works. This small insight arrived into my consciousness without any precursor. I had just realised something that I actually already knew on an intellectual level but hadn’t fully appreciated on an instinctual level. Bearing in mind that it is probably impossible to fully describe a thought, feeling, or emotion so that the listener will experience the same thing as the teller, I’ll try to describe what it is that I came to realise. This is it: Yo ..read more

Suzanne was playing in the orchestra in the National Concert Hall just before Christmas for a children’s show called “This Way to Christmas”. I brought our daughters, aged 6 and 8, along to the first show, which started at 10.30 am. We’d been to the show in previous years, a few times. I’d even played in the orchestra for it myself a couple of times a few years back. So we knew what to expect, a good bit of fun, some nice Christmas tunes, an appearance by Santa Claus himself (the actual real one I think!) and finishing off with that lovely Christmas animation, The Snowman, with the music ..read more

The blog didn’t happen on the Moon Day last week but I felt that I should send something out nonetheless; partly because it’s good for me to continue the writing habit; partly because it’s nice to stay in touch with you all; and partly because I’ve been getting grief from our friend and student Virginia that she didn’t get an email in her inbox on Friday! So thanks to Virginia for the motivation to send this out. And also a big thanks to those of you who have deemed my blog worthy of a donation of the price of a cup of coffee each month. You’re very kind. The main reason there was no emai ..read more

The news on the radio paints a grim picture. Across Europe, Covid-19 cases are increasing and, while we’re being told that another lockdown is unlikely in this country, the fact that we’re even having that conversation again is cause for concern. The vaccines are mostly doing their job of keeping people from developing severe illness and from dying and I’m happy to have had my two doses, but there’s still this niggling fear in the back of my mind which is making its way forward. Could I, or my children, pass on the Delta variant to my Mother or another elderly (or immuno-comprom ..read more

Yoga is a radical path. The dedicated practitioner of yoga has made a decision to take full responsibility for their own physical well-being, their own emotional and mental health, and has decided that these things are important enough to spend time cultivating. To one who doesn’t practise yoga, it may seem that a yogic life is one of many restrictions (getting up early, restricting unhealthy foods and alcohol, spending many hours on yoga practice) but once they practise yoga for a while they start to realise that true freedom comes from the ability to control one’s own impulses ..read more

I would consider myself somebody who has relatively strong willpower. If I really want to do something then I will usually stick to it. I’ve been practising yoga for 16 years, I’ve mastered a musical instrument, I’ve been eating a healthy, vegetarian diet for well over a decade, I exercise regularly. I’m not saying I’m perfect – far from it (just ask Suzanne!) – but I’m, thankfully, not someone who has huge issues around impulse control. I’m becoming increasingly alarmed, however, by my inability to truly moderate the amount of time I spend looking at a scree ..read more