Garth McLean uses Iyengar Yoga to manage his multiple sclerosis and travels the world to share what he’s learnt.
How I learned to love Jathara Parivartanasana
Surprisingly to me, this is my favourite pose of the moment, jathara parivartanasana. Jathar means abdomen in Sanskrit and parivartanasnana is from parivartti, meaning turning around. As I prepared for my recent JI3 assessment I struggled with teaching this pose – there didn’t seem to be much to it! And it’s a struggle to do until you […]
Life lessons from a melanoma diagnosis
Iyengar yoga teacher Linda Apps talks to movement therapist James Walsh about his melanoma diagnosis. In 2009 my friend James Walsh was diagnosed with cancer – stage three melanoma. As an ex-rugby league player, James knew that when things get difficult you’re not supposed to hide. He tackled his diagnosis head-on, displaying an inspiring strength of […]
When is ‘enough’ enough?
I don’t know if you’ve tried to give away a TV recently, but unless it’s a flat screen, no-one’s interested. And even those, the TV repairman told me, are just being left out on the street. Must be a symptom of a well-to-do society. According to Bob Brown, Australians have never been richer than we […]
Earth is compassion
Again I want to preface this by saying these are my reflections on classes, and what I understand and remember from them. In the interests of full disclosure I’ll also say that I’ve succumbed to illness, so am feeling a little gloomy! (Might have been the triple sundae!) I missed Geeta’s orientation today, which apparently […]
Last Blog from India
Bellur exceeds expectations
Bellur was fantastic of course. We stayed in a run down but wonderful hotel – wonderful because it had monkeys, a waterslide and pool, table tennis and badminton. We met some lovely Americans, Russians, Latvians, Aussies, and Indians. Luke played water polo with some young Indian men and posed for lots of photographs. Bellur is a small village […]
The King is dead, Long live the Queen!
“You people,” (it’s a pejorative), “a grave mistake that you people make is to make the body narrow,” booms Geeta from the stage. And she is so right, as she is about everything at this Convention. Someone told me that she’s been practising all year to prepare for Yoganusasanum, and her teaching certainly has that […]
Spread your body like butter
Now that I’ve been sick I feel like my fear has gone and I’ve surrendered to India. I can stop fighting it and just go with the flow (so to speak!). After two days in bed I finally lifted the phone and whispered “doctor” to the guys at reception. The lovely doctor said “classic food poisoning” and gave […]
Dawn of a new era?
Prashant’s Class I’ve been listening to Leonard Cohen and reflecting how Prashant gives us the same permission to be mere humans – with all our frailties – that Leonard Cohen does in songs like “I’m Your Man”. Aspiring to perfection but accepting the reality of our human imperfection. In this morning’s class Prashant said […]