On Saturday 16th January 2016, yoga teachers across the country will be offering free yoga classes and holding events to celebrate National Iyengar Yoga Day. Experienced Iyengar Yoga teacher Hannah Lovegrove will be offering free classes for Beginners in her new yoga studio at Saddle Street Farm Studio, Thorncombe, TA20 4PY.
If you have a medical condition or physical injury that is preventing you from starting yoga classes, don’t be put off – there is now a great deal of evidence to show that regular yoga classes with a good teacher can alleviate many general aches and pains. There are also many specific health problems that can be addressed with the help of an experienced Iyengar Yoga teacher.
Named after BKS Iyengar, one of the key figures credited with bringing yoga to the West, Iyengar Yoga is the world’s most widely practised method of yoga. National Iyengar Yoga Day is an opportunity for people of all ages and levels of fitness to discover the benefits of Iyengar yoga for themselves. His international bestseller ‘Light On Yoga’, published in 1966, is still considered an essential guide to yoga postures today. BKS Iyengar’s legacy is Iyengar Yoga, an internationally standardised method of teaching, popular with students everywhere from Rejkjavik and Rio to Beijing and Boston. Characterised by precision, teachers of Iyengar Yoga practice and study for a minimum of five years before they can instruct students. This rigorous training has made Iyengar Yoga one of the most trusted and widely practiced forms of yoga in the world.
Where a student has back or shoulder problems, yoga helps them to recover mobility and to reduce overall pain levels. Chronic muscle pain (fibromyalgia) can be alleviated by specially tailored yoga sessions. Physical injures such as broken bones, muscle strain and joint injuries will respond better to conventional treatment (such as physiotherapy) when combined with yoga to manipulate inflexible areas and strengthen injured areas during the process of healing. Yoga has also been shown to reduce the severity and frequency of asthma symptoms, and so improve the quality of life for sufferers.
Yoga can help people to cope with psychological problems. The practice of yoga postures is intensely physical. Concentrating on your body has the effect of calming your mind and working in this way has the effect of bringing you into the present, ‘being in the moment’. This helps dispel past troubles or future worries, reducing stress and making daily life more manageable.
Yoga has an important role to play in complementing conventional therapies for depression and anxiety, which is often characterized by unusual breathing patterns. The focus on steady breathing can help to alleviate the symptoms and offers a toolkit to help manage anxiety attacks whenever they occur.
Weight loss is an interesting area, and one where the evidence is more anecdotal but regular practice will certainly tone and tighten the muscles. In addition, there’s some evidence to show that inversions have a beneficial and balancing effect on the endocrine system, which in turn helps to stabilize your weight at a level suitable for you.
If you would like to try a yoga class, bear in mind that in order to notice a real difference, you will need to attend regularly for six weeks. The body takes time to heal, to stabilize and balance itself. Having said that, many people are delighted by the benefits they experience in their first session. My advice to any of my students who develop an injury or illness is, “Keep up with your practice. Some poses may be ruled out but many are still accessible to you and can actually help.”
Classes for Beginners are available at The Studio, Saddle Street Farm, Thorncombe TA20 4PY on Tuesdays at 9.30 am and 6 pm. A Gentle class for older people or those with medical conditions is at 11.30 am on a Tuesday. The 2 hour class for Intermediate students is on Wednesday at 9 am. Once you have established your practice, there are opportunities to try day workshops and weekend events with visiting teachers. See the web site www.hannahlovegrove.com for more details or email [email protected].
