"So when I first became pregnant I had been doing Iyengar Yoga for 15 years. Iyengar Yoga is characterised by precise and prescriptive alignment, discipline and long holds. This approach had suited me very well until I found myself incubating another human being, and all of a sudden I found myself throwing up in Downward Dog and feeling pain in Sarvangasana ... I was living on Lamma Island in Hong Kong, looking after a couple of dogs, doing Yoga every day on the beach. Though true to my Iyengar teachings in many respects, I found myself starting to spiral ... the lines of my practice were no longer straight, but looped and turned, fed one into another; it was not comfortable to hold standing positions for a long time and as for Downward Dog - I left that to the dogs, who dug holes in the sand while I spiralled like the morning glories which swarmed up the trees at the back of the beach. And that is how it started. Twenty one years later I can talk about the softening effect of the hormone progesterone, the challenges faced by the arteries returning the blood up the legs, the difference the position of the placenta makes ... but then, all I had was my instincts to guide me, and they were often at odds with what I had been taught about Yoga hitherto." - Wendy-
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 08:48:57 +0000