Hi all,

 I look forward to welcoming you in my living room again this evening at 7.45-8.15pm. Under normal circumstances, I'd take a bit of time to introduce myself and what I do properly, but I want to ensure we make that 30min count, so here is a little more info about what we do in our practice, and why.

Some of you may have been to a yoga class before, or perhaps even have a regular yoga practice. There are lots of lineages, you may have come across them before - hatha, ashtanga, power, rocket...to name but a few. I am trained in the vinyasa flow style, which is a very popular type of yoga and what you'll most commonly find in open group/gym classes. What all types of yoga have in common is the underlying principle of calming the mind, and building both strength and flexibility in the body through mindfully linking movement with breath - that's what makes yoga different to other types of mobility programs and stretching regimes. In recent years, yoga has increasingly been gaining traction in sports, as sports enthusiasts of all kinds have started discovering the incredible benefits this type of practice can have on recovery.

I really enjoyed my initial teacher training and started teaching (on the side - I'm a construction professional by day) pretty much straight away. In CrossFit gyms (a fitness methodology in which I had been training myself for a couple of years by that point). Often cold or at least unheated, minimalist interior, lots of really strong but for the most part terribly inflexible people, many of the men. I quickly realised that a lot, or dare I say, most of the stuff I was taught didn't work for my students - they either couldn't do it, or could only do it with a great deal of compensation going on, and even in the rare event where I'd get a hypermobile specimen in my class, it didn't feel right. The more I saw, and the more I learned (about how the body works, and what good movement is) I soon realised that there were a lot of things, too many for my liking, within the traditional practice of yoga that I didn't agree with on several levels.

To cut a long story short, I radically changed my approach and was fortunate to be able to study under a few extremely knowledgeable teachers in the field of yoga for sports, and I can honestly say that I absolutely love what I teach now and that I am 110% behind it.

Everything we do in our practice is based on functional movement. No crazy contortions. We work within a safe range of motion, that you are invited to explore to whatever degree is available to you on any given day - every day's different, and what feels easy today might be killer tomorrow. I make a strong point of patterning movements, as our practice is a great opportunity of doing so without worrying about time, or reps, or load - the movements you know and love (or hate!) from the gym - squats, lunges, overhead position to name but a few.

It is essential to me that my students are able to relate what we do to their training in the gym so that it can inform their training. To help facilitate this, I use language that you'll be familiar with from your coaches' cues.

The biggest and most underrated game change however is that our practice can help facilitate the body's recovery process by shifting your nervous system into a parasympathetic state. In other words, the recovery mode. Don't be fooled - just because you're not training with a barbell at the moment, doesn't mean your HomeFit workouts are a piece of cake. Your coaches continue to make sure you work hard no matter what you're given, and you may even train more often during the lockdown as you may have a bit more time, or you may be worried about losing your fitness and therefore do more...whatever your current training schedule is, make sure that you allow for adequate provisions for rest and recovery so you keep getting the gains you're putting all this effort in for. This, of course, includes enough sleep, food in the right quantities and of the right quality - and our weekly practice can serve as another piece in this jigsaw of your general health and wellbeing. The class is for everybody no matter how flexible or inflexible you are - so if you haven't tried it yet and are on the fence, stop worrying about whether or not you can touch your toes, book in on TeamUp and find out for yourself.

If you are recovering from an injury that restricts your training and ability to move freely, please get in touch with me before the class so I am aware of what modifications to offer. Due to the nature of the Zoom classes, I am unable to speak to you privately during the practice, so please give me a heads up beforehand.

Righty, I'm going to finish with a quick overview of why you should give this class a go if you're still not convinced, and I look forward to seeing you this evening!

• Improve proprioception (i.e. joint position and motion in space)

• Develop an awareness of what it means to move well and within a healthy range of motion for your body, and how to work with restrictions and compensatory patterns

• Prevent injury

• Learn to breathe mindfully and practice different techniques, including abdominal breathing, which you can then apply in your sport
  -- 
  See ya on the mat!

  www.yogishapes.com