I'm currently enjoying chilling in Chiang Mai in North Thailand, it is a great city, firstly because it doesn't feel like a city even though it is the countries second biggest after Bangkok. Nearly every street has a beautiful, golden Buddhist temple and oranged robbed monks stroll contentedly. Thai food is one of my favourite cuisines and Chiang Mai without doubt has the the most delicious variety of vegetarian, organic Thai food and cool cafes serving an amazing array of fruit shakes. Chiang Mai has a really international community, with many expats chosing to work from here or use it as a base part of the year and not suprising as it's extremely cheap for a good quality of life (dorm room less than £2 per night, Thai meal from 50p).
If that wasn't enough Chiang Mai also has a great yoga community attracting excellent international teachers and offering an astonishing array of types of yoga rivalling London. Having only been to a a handful of yoga classes in the last two and half months I was glad to have the opportunity to attend a good class as a change from my self practice.
I was very happy when arrived at Wild Rose Yoga, its a beautiful wooden, intimate shala and I attended a workshop called Intuitive Flow Yoga with Christophe Cappon. Christophe explained that the session would be very different to a regular class as rather than him teaching and leading us through the practise it would be a session for each of us to intuitively experiment within parameters and guidance he would provide. The aim is to break our habbits and try new things.
Christophe encouraged us to ignore the regular rules of our practise, it doesn't matter if you don't do the same thing on both sides, it's ok to go into a pose which isn't a traditional posture, don't be confined to the mat explore the space, get lost in the movement, get creative and be guided by intuition. I had previously considered my practise to be creative as it is always different and ever evolving, I experiment with music and work on different focuses but I realised that actually I am very controlled and disciplined at sticking to the rules and never just let myself fully go and just enjoy pure movement on the mat.
I typically have an idea where a kramic sequence is leading and am very attentive to the number of breaths on each side etc which is very important when planning and teaching a class. However I had forgotten that's it's ok to sometimes just put on a song you love and dance on the mat, to be playful and try new things, to push to edge and fall and to explore movement beyond the asanas.
The next day I attended another of Christophe's classes, this time it was a more traditionally led class but continued from the previous workshop focusing on Change. Christophe challenged us to do things differently. For example rather than going into the adho mukha svanasana/downward facing dog pose we know so well and love really back off and finely attune the connection to the core, taking the gaze forward and keeping the shoulders strong rather than allowing them to open and roll down the back.
Here's some tips to get creative in your yoga self practice:
Freedom from your yoga mat
Don't be confined to your mat during the practise but move off it acknowledging how different surfaces feel and don't be limited to practising to the 'front' of your mat but move around and face any angle. Or why not ditch the mat altogether.
Practise outside
If you always practise in the same space at the same time, try somewhere new. Why not do it in the garden or local park? If you are worried about people looking and thinking you're strange then challenge yourself to tune in and focus on practise anywhere and enjoy sense of liberation this creates.
Turn up the music and rock out
Choose a favourite song which is as far away from your typical yoga music as possible, turn up the volume and move. For example it can be fun to use duration of one song to explore urdva dhanurasana/full wheel by pulsing in time with the music, lifting one foot then the other on to tiptoes and trying transitions into and out through wild thing etc...
Try new postures and alter the old
Choose a focus in the body such as the hips and just move intuitively to open this area, circling the hips and spiralling the legs without any concern about forming a traditional yoga posture. When you come into a familair posture such as agnistambasana/double pidgeon then change it by adding a twist or choose a different focus in a pose for example find the subtle heart opening in a forward bend. Or change the stance of postures, making them shorter or longer and acknowledge the differences.
Push the edge and fall
I'm not asking you to fall really hard and hurt yourself but it is good to sometimes go beyond our edge. Don't be scared to try that impossibly challenging arm balance even if you end up flat on your face. There is something in that moment of falling which is actually really freeing, it takes us back to being a child, it's humbling and stops are ego taking control of practise.
If this all fails to mix things up then get a radical new haircut!
http://christophecappon.com/
http://www.wildroseyoga.org/
If that wasn't enough Chiang Mai also has a great yoga community attracting excellent international teachers and offering an astonishing array of types of yoga rivalling London. Having only been to a a handful of yoga classes in the last two and half months I was glad to have the opportunity to attend a good class as a change from my self practice.
I was very happy when arrived at Wild Rose Yoga, its a beautiful wooden, intimate shala and I attended a workshop called Intuitive Flow Yoga with Christophe Cappon. Christophe explained that the session would be very different to a regular class as rather than him teaching and leading us through the practise it would be a session for each of us to intuitively experiment within parameters and guidance he would provide. The aim is to break our habbits and try new things.
Christophe encouraged us to ignore the regular rules of our practise, it doesn't matter if you don't do the same thing on both sides, it's ok to go into a pose which isn't a traditional posture, don't be confined to the mat explore the space, get lost in the movement, get creative and be guided by intuition. I had previously considered my practise to be creative as it is always different and ever evolving, I experiment with music and work on different focuses but I realised that actually I am very controlled and disciplined at sticking to the rules and never just let myself fully go and just enjoy pure movement on the mat.
I typically have an idea where a kramic sequence is leading and am very attentive to the number of breaths on each side etc which is very important when planning and teaching a class. However I had forgotten that's it's ok to sometimes just put on a song you love and dance on the mat, to be playful and try new things, to push to edge and fall and to explore movement beyond the asanas.
The next day I attended another of Christophe's classes, this time it was a more traditionally led class but continued from the previous workshop focusing on Change. Christophe challenged us to do things differently. For example rather than going into the adho mukha svanasana/downward facing dog pose we know so well and love really back off and finely attune the connection to the core, taking the gaze forward and keeping the shoulders strong rather than allowing them to open and roll down the back.
Here's some tips to get creative in your yoga self practice:
Freedom from your yoga mat
Don't be confined to your mat during the practise but move off it acknowledging how different surfaces feel and don't be limited to practising to the 'front' of your mat but move around and face any angle. Or why not ditch the mat altogether.
Practise outside
If you always practise in the same space at the same time, try somewhere new. Why not do it in the garden or local park? If you are worried about people looking and thinking you're strange then challenge yourself to tune in and focus on practise anywhere and enjoy sense of liberation this creates.
Turn up the music and rock out
Choose a favourite song which is as far away from your typical yoga music as possible, turn up the volume and move. For example it can be fun to use duration of one song to explore urdva dhanurasana/full wheel by pulsing in time with the music, lifting one foot then the other on to tiptoes and trying transitions into and out through wild thing etc...
Try new postures and alter the old
Choose a focus in the body such as the hips and just move intuitively to open this area, circling the hips and spiralling the legs without any concern about forming a traditional yoga posture. When you come into a familair posture such as agnistambasana/double pidgeon then change it by adding a twist or choose a different focus in a pose for example find the subtle heart opening in a forward bend. Or change the stance of postures, making them shorter or longer and acknowledge the differences.
Push the edge and fall
I'm not asking you to fall really hard and hurt yourself but it is good to sometimes go beyond our edge. Don't be scared to try that impossibly challenging arm balance even if you end up flat on your face. There is something in that moment of falling which is actually really freeing, it takes us back to being a child, it's humbling and stops are ego taking control of practise.
If this all fails to mix things up then get a radical new haircut!
http://christophecappon.com/
http://www.wildroseyoga.org/
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