Yoga off the Mat

For most of us, when we hear the word "Yoga" we instantly think of the physical practice, for some of us we may picture fast and dynamic yoga classes, perhaps bodies contorted into pretzel shapes, or for others we may picture a room of divine yogis chanting in seated meditation, but the almost instant universal image of yoga is, physical.

The interesting thing is, that the physical practice is only one branch of many different parts of yoga, something that came as a surprise to me in 2018 on my yoga teacher training, as it's nothing I'd even considered before then.

And even after finishing my 200 hours, I still didn't totally understand this.

Of course, the breath is a huge part of yoga, whether that be through pranayamas (controlled breathing, and one of the main components of yoga), meditation (often used to start or finish a class as a way of centring), the moving meditation of yoga itself and this all round magical life-force we are all so dependent on.

But what else constitutes as "Yoga".

It's taken a few years, a shedding of my ego, drawing inward, exploring my thoughts, observing my emotions, and building a regular practice (yoga, as well as meditation) for me to truly understand this, and recognise and appreciate the other beautiful and nourishing elements you gain from yoga.

One of the first things we learnt on our teacher training was Patanjali's 8 Limbs of Yoga, which breaks down the more traditional branches of yoga as a non-physical and physical practice. But in this blog we'll be looking at it slightly differently.

We will be exploring healthy eating, the power of positive thinking, Ayurveda (the sister science of yoga), acceptance, awareness, manifesting, meditating, basically a whole array of topics which I have felt myself strongly connect to during my yoga journey, and will carry on exploring and enjoying, and hopefully giving you some part of this to take away with you too.