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Filtering by Tag: yoga teacher

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2021

Olivia Marley

Tbh I’m not amazing at keeping New Years resolutions. I normally make them at the beginning of the month and they gradually drift by about March. So this year I’ve taken a bit longer to think about them, and since today is meant to be Blue Monday (the depressing day in January, not the New Order classic 🎶) I reckon if they seem like a good idea today maybe these ones will last. I’m setting myself three, and have added the names of the wonderful teachers who they’ve been inspired by in case you want to check them out too:

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  • Do more training with teachers that don’t look like me and/or have different backgrounds to me - first stop will be Kallie Schut for part two of her course on decolonising yoga

  • Keep working on my teaching skills so that my classes are increasingly accessible for people with injuries/ conditions/ something that limits them, while still being interesting for those who like a challenge - for this I’m studying with Alexandria Crow throughout 2021

  • Stop saying ‘namaste’ at the end of class, after having listened to and read work by Susanna Barkataki.

And since it is Blue Monday, just a reminder that if you’re feeling blue and fancy joining class but can’t afford to atm, please send me a message 💙

What we'll be working on in 2021

Olivia Marley

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At the beginning of each new year I spend a bit of time thinking about where I want to take my students over the 12 months ahead. And, using a process I picked up from one of my own teachers (Jason Crandell), I’ll think about what mental, physical and emotional qualities I want to help people cultivate in class. Then whatever we’re working on throughout the year - postures, techniques or anything else - everything will be underpinned by those elements. So (only a few days late) here’s what I’m aiming to develop with you lovely people this year....

3 mental qualities

  • Agency – I got this idea from another brilliant teacher I’ve recently started studying with, Alexandria Crow (and who I’ll be training with for the rest of 2021 to help develop this point further). Through this theme I aim for students to genuinely feel like they can take any of the options I offer in class without being judged or pressured into doing something different, to choose to rest whenever you want to, or perhaps even leave class if you need to. The longer I do this job the more I realise how different people’s experiences of coming to class on any particular day are, and so how differently they each might need to approach (or choose to avoid) different postures or techniques. Also, if people feel empowered to genuinely do what feels best for them in a group class, might this make yoga feel more welcoming, inclusive and perhaps encourage more diversity among students (and so eventually teachers)...?

  • Attention – this one keeps building on a strand from last year because this is still something I’m continually working on (and that my phone/ laptop/ social media definitely doesn’t help with!). I also appreciate that for lots of students it’s even harder to focus on class right now, when we’re working online and they are at home with family/ pets/ housemates etc. But, to me, paying attention to what I’m doing and not thinking about the rest of my life for 60 mins feels like one of the key reasons why I feel better after practice. I think that effect is probably the same whether it’s been a 60 minute vinyasa class or an hour long savasana (which kind of backs up the fact that you should be empowered to rest/ take any option that suits you in class). And, since my cues are sometimes different to other teachers and I ask students to make shapes that aren’t always classical yoga poses, paying attention to class also means students hopefully following my instructions more easily! (You’re always welcome to filter out the jokes though 🥴)

  • Equilibrium – my hope is always that by the end of class you’re feeling calmer than you were when you walked in. But this is also something I’d like to cultivate during the more physically challenging parts of class… can you accidentally fall out of a balance without mentally beating yourself up? Can you watch a demonstration of something you don’t think you’ll be able to do without starting an internal monologue it?

3 physical qualities

  • Precision and sensitivity – These two are inextricably linked. When you begin practising yoga postures it makes sense that you notice the most obvious sensations first. But, over time, you might start to be able to feel what’s going on in other parts of your body. Developing this sensitivity and a higher level of body awareness will allow you to be more precise in your movements (eg is that leg doing what you think it’s doing..?) and notice the effects of what you’re doing more easily. Trying to work with precision and sensitivity also helps keep my mind from wandering, so I hope it will support your work on our second quality (listed above) of paying attention.

  • Evenness - I don’t mean by this that I want all of our bodies to be completely symmetrical by the end of 2021 (that would be weird, impossible, and probably pointless!). Instead, I’ll be thinking instead about even and steady breathing, and working your body relatively evenly. For example, in vinyasa yoga we tend to stretch the backs and outsides of your hips and thighs relatively more than we strengthen them – can we start to address this and perhaps pay more attention to the fronts and insides too? Or, in relation to your shoulders, we spend a lot of time with your arms overhead or in front of you (think plank, downward dog, high and low lunge, handstand etc). Can we add in anything to strengthen the muscles that pull your arms back?

3 emotional qualities (these all overlap with each other and probably give a reasonable insight to my state of mind atm!)

  • Patience – with yourself on any given day, with your body when it gets injured, with the process of turning up to class regularly or of constantly noticing your mind has wandered and bringing your attention back on to what you’re doing. And especially at the moment: with people/ pets/ neighbours at home that distract you from an online class! Although that last one might be selfish on my part because I love seeing the pets and kids joining for savasana in your zoom squares….

  • Compassion – for yourself when you’re trying to stay focused but your mind keeps wandering, for your body when it gets injured, for your loved ones if they’re being annoying, and for yourself if you need to rest more often than normal during class or if generally you’re having a hard time (we are still in a global pandemic after all)

  • Gratitude – for what your body can do and for still being here and able to practice after whatever you have personally been through over the past year or so.

So if you come to class/ a workshop/ a teacher training with me this year, this will underpin what we’ll be working on (and no, this isn’t a recent picture…. it’s from this time last year, in Oman). So if any of this sounds interesting I hope to see you in a Zoom square soon. And perhaps in person in not too long! 🤞

Options for arm position in revolved triangle

Olivia Marley

As part of our focus on the warrior one family of postures we’ve been spending a bit of time in this pose, revolved triangle. For most bodies it’s a tough shape to make: it asks for a lot of mobility along the back and outside of your legs and hips; it can be pretty wobbly so hard to maintain your balance; plus it’s a deep twist so it can be hard to breathe in! We already looked at the position of your feet in this family of postures in my last blog post (having feet hip width apart rather than one behind each other is likely to make twisting into revolved triangle more accessible). In addition, to help students find more ease while holding this shape, we’ve been playing around a bit with the position of their arms.

PLACEMENT OF BOTTOM HAND

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In the first picture here I have my fingertips on the floor on the outside of my front foot, which is the classical set up for revolved triangle. Even though LOTS of other postures don’t, twists naturally come fairly easily for my body and my torso turns enough that I can place my hand on the outside of my leg without having to reach for it too much. But for plenty of other people putting their hand on the outside of their front leg is a real stretch (no pun intended!). Their torso stops turning when their chest is still facing a little to the floor, so instead of just dropping their hand to the floor they have to reach past their leg to get their hand outside their foot - as seen in the second image here. That alignment made my chest feel kind of squashed and it was more difficult to breathe (as if it’s not hard enough to breathe deeply in a twist like this!).

So in class at the moment I’m bringing people into this pose with their bottom hand on the inside of their foot (as in the third image here), and then once everyone’s in the pose offering the option to put their hand on the outside of their foot. And I’d estimate that only about 10-20% of people are taking that option, so presumably the rest prefer having their hand on the inside!

HEIGHT OF BOTTOM HAND

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I can get my hand on the floor in this pose, but for me using a block on its lowest height feels ideal. For lots of students trying to place their hand on the floor can be a real struggle. Trying to force your hand to the floor can meaning having to round (or in anatomical terms: flex) your spine a lot, which doesn’t set you up for a comfortable or easeful twist that you’re able to breathe in (see photo 2). In the third photo here I’ve placed my bottom hand on a brick, and you can perhaps see how that may enable students to keep their spines straighter and stay a bit broader across their chest as they turn.

TOP ARM

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It’s really tempting in revolved triangle to throw your top hand back behind you as far as it will go, because it can feel like you’re twisting more. In fact what I often see happening when students do that it is their top shoulder shifts forward and their chest hasn’t actually turned any further (photo 2). So I’ve been cueing students to bring their top hand either directly over their top shoulder or a little forwards (where forwards in these images means towards the camera), and to imagine they’re pressing that palm into something solid like a wall. Then plenty of them have been able to shift their top shoulder a little further back (compare my top shoulder in image 2 to to it in image 3).

This approach is part of one of my wider aims for my students in 2020:

  • Encouraging students to test out slightly different positions within the poses, and to find what works for them

  • Letting go of the need to try and force themselves into a posture that looks a certain way, or of thinking that there’s only one way to do each yoga pose. Different bodies will look different doing the same postures!

Comment below with any questions, thoughts, or with your experience of revolved triangle or warrior 1 🙂