. yoga

The first thing we need to understand about the breath is that we have a myriad of choices in it... It is influenced by what we do, how we do it and moreover how we think and feel about what we are doing.
To open ourselves up to other options, the best way to influence our breathing choices is through the way we engage with what we do, which in turn is defined by our intentions behind what we are doing... The exploration begins.

In daily activity, if there is any stress in our systems, a common way of breathing is to lift ourselves with the spine... which we are most likely already doing in order to be active.The outcome is that the spine is left with the job of 'carrying our weight' when we let the breath go. In order to liberate the spine, the first thing we need to do is learn how to 'receive' the breath by surrendering our weight to the contact we make with it. Then and only then can more natural, stress free, breathing choices become available.

We have physical relationships to the space we occupy - There may be parts of you that you protect from the world, and others that you project outwards into it. These relationships become hardwired into our breathing patterns. Engaging directly with space through expression & breath leads to brand new possibilities...

When our breath can directly interact with the support beneath us and, through expression and intent to the sense of support all around us, we get the first real opportunity to notice and refine how WE respond to that support within. The activity has the quality of 'collecting' towards the centre, or 'gathering' into ourselves, but essentially it is the breath itself that defines our ability to receive support from without through ourselves to the centre of our being - the Heart.
When the breath is something that arrives in a way that gives us a sense of omnidirectional expansion into to the support that is all around us, its release, can dissolve directly in towards the centre of the heart, and from there, continue to dissolve into and through the axis of the spine - this is where true yoga begins.

When the release of the breath is centred in the spine, our outward actions can cease being the more common-place 'lifting and dropping' of the body's weight. Instead, outward movement becomes a 'through' action, anchored to and emanating from that central sense of axial support. There is lightness and ease to movement that masks the power of action that is supported and driven by the release of the breath.

Once we have learnt how to expand outwards through space with the ease that comes with release of the breath towards the centre, the next step is to learn how to 'float' on the arriving breath, so that we can remain expanded without having to hold ourselves there. This workshop invites a 'pause' as you float on the retained breath, so that you have time to refine the details of 'floating'. This will occur when you have found near to perfect structural alignment and balance, and the subsequent surrender of the breath within can become a moment of integration in release that is beyond description.

Exploring and liberating whole-hearted responses from our breathing and its release, whilst in direct relationship to the world and space around us (our environment), equally brings freedom and ease to our bodies. It becomes possible to return to a state of innocence - where intent is the only thing required for movement, and where movement is somatically experienced as a release... Just as it was when were were children. This workshop is an exploration of that possibility, but with the benefit of understanding what we can do when our bodies tell us about a difficulty. The difficulties become as unsubstantial as a single breath.