Thank you to everyone who made the day so enjoyable.  It was lovely to see so many familiar faces as well as meet new people – yoga is such a great way to meet and make friends!  The morning session was packed with not much space to spare and we worked on our standing poses with the back foot at the wall for stability and strength and to create a strong foundation from which to extend.  Some students who had not experienced an Iyengar Yoga class before, had not worked in shoulderstand (sarvangasana) with a lift under the shoulders, let alone a belt around their elbows, but all were open to working in ways unfamiliar to them and all benefited as a result.  There was a feeling of more space in the neck area, better lift and less compression.  The relaxation (savasana) at the end was most welcomed after a hard mornings work.

In the afternoon we had a smaller group who stayed for another two hours of posture work. Supine poses to start with to allow for the digestion to settle and then we worked on forward bending poses, learning how to create more extension and length in the trunk (“extension not tension!”) whilst keeping again a firm foundation to work from.  After a lot of forward bending postures, it was sensible to do some twists to release the spine, again, with a focus on the foundation, rather than the end result.  Relaxation came as a welcome end to the day and students left smiling and perhaps slightly taller!

The next workshop at BALANCE is on 28th November but next week, 7th November, I travel to Lyme Regis to my sister Hannah’s neck of the woods for a day of yoga by the sea.  For further details, please contact me at rachel@orangetreeyoga.com or visit my sister’s website on www.hannahlovegrove.com.