Posted on by — Leave a comment

Happy International Yoga Day 2017!

Today is the third International Yoga Day, 21 June 2017!

The idea of international Day of Yoga was the first proposed by the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi during his speech at the UNGA, on 27 September 2014. 

He beautifully described Yoga in his speech as follows;

Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and the nature. By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help in well being. Let us work towards adopting an International Yoga Day.

— Narendra Modi, UN General Assembly

So wherever you are, do some Yoga today! Honouring our practice of Yoga and all of the teachers that brought it to us and continue to.

Remember that your Yoga practice is personal to you and can be anything from taking a few deep Yogic breaths during your day to completing the full Ashtanga Primary Series. We have our Hoylake Yoga class this evening from 6:45pm at Hoylake Parade Community Centre, so please come along and practice with us and celebrate International Yoga Day 2017.

Let us all spend a moment for ourselves today, on International Yoga Day. Connect with our breath, anchor ourselves in the moment through our breath and allow ourselves to witness and experience the union (Yoke) of breath, body and mind.

Be mindful, be Yoga.

Namaste

Paul & Steve

Did you like this? Then please share!
Posted on by — 1 Comment

West Kirby Pop-up Beach Yoga – Thank you!

pop up beach yoga

We want to say a big thank you to all of the lovely people who came this morning to our Yogasmiths pop-up beach yoga session!

We had a great group and it was a pleasure to be able to lead them through a yoga practice overlooking the beautiful Dee Estuary on a perfect sunny summers day.

We had a fun nautical theme to the class and the postures that we practiced.

A small forest of perfect palm trees;

palmtrees

We had surfing beach warriors;

surfingbeachwarriors

Channeling our inner Kate Winslet’s and Leonardo DiCaprio’s in Titanic Warrior pose aka King of the World pose;

titanic pose

Here is rowing the boat / rowing Navasana;

Building up to our own individual expression of full boat pose, Navasana;

boat

And finishing our sunny morning practice with a guided relaxation on the beach, a perfect end to the session!

beach relaxation

Thank you to all who attended and stayed tuned to our Facebook page for further pop-up yoga sessions. Namaste Paul & Steve x

Yogasmiths Facebook Page

Did you like this? Then please share!
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Wirral Summer Solstice Yoga Festival Sunday 25th June 2017 @ Thornton Hall Hotel and Spa

Hi Everyone,

We are really pleased to announce that we have been added to the Wirral Summer Solstice Yoga Festival taking place on Sunday 25th June 2017 at Thornton Hall Hotel and Spa.

This will be a great event and an opportunity to try out different types of Yoga and different teachers.

We will be teaching Gentle Yoga and meditation in the afternoon from 13:35 – 15:00 and there will be tea / coffee and cake available directly after we finish the session, sounds pretty good to us!

18839751_10154478035367019_8093674637565870155_o

I’ve included the link to the event on Facebook below where you can find further details.

Facebook Event link for Wirral Summer Solstice Yoga Festival

Tickets can be purchased at www.yogahealthwirral.com.

Yoga Health Wirral

Hope to see you there for a day of pampering and Yoga!


Paul & Steve

Yogasmiths

Did you like this? Then please share!
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Thank You – Charity Yoga Class for the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund

Thank you to all those who attended our Charity Yoga Class this morning in Ashton Park, West Kirby, Wirral from 11:00 till 12:30. We had a great turnout, thank you for all of your support. It was wonderful to see both familiar faces from our weekly classes and to also welcome new friends to practice with us.

We took our practice into the Secret Garden part of Ashton Park where we were able to practice in nature. We were privileged to be surrounded by beautiful bird song all morning as well as a few cheeky little dogs checking out what we were up to!

We started our practice with a breath visualisation exercise and a dedication to all of those affected by the recent events in Manchester.

18765262_278993702571630_1157524951_o18788969_278993695904964_1403282167_o

Moving through mobilisation and core work we launched into some strong Warrior poses and our peak pose was Vrksasana (Tree Pose). The secret garden had plenty of additional strong trees this morning! We closed our practice with a guided relaxation and Namaste.

18765087_278993859238281_529778897_o18788984_278993655904968_177820823_o

Attendance was by donation to the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund. We counted up the money when we returned home and are extremely pleased to announce that together we all raised £215 to send to the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund! Thank you so much to everyone for their very kind generosity.

We have sent the money to the British Red Cross We Love Manchester Emergency Fund via their Just Giving campaign page. We’ve set up our own Yogasmiths part of this campaign to allow anyone who could not attend to contribute, the link is below;

Just Giving Manchester Emergency Fund Yogasmiths page

Again thank you all for attending, it was a joy to practice in nature in the park and to start our Sunday in such a beautiful way. We were overwhelmed by your generosity and support.

Namaste

Paul & Steve Yogasmiths

18745382_10150897944044980_1111277088_o

Did you like this? Then please share!
Posted on by — 3 Comments

One to one Yoga Sessions – Spotlight on Catherine

I have just got back from teaching a one to one Yoga session to our lovely yoga student Catherine in the sunshine in Ashton Park, West Kirby. What a perfect way to spend the afternoon!

Catherine was completely new to Yoga when I started teaching her in January this year. She has made fantastic progress in her practice with each session and has established a home practice from the handouts and guidance that we provide.

18765149_10150896863804980_587656831_o

Catherine allowed me to take a picture of her (above) in Halasana (plough pose) this afternoon. This posture shows the progress she has made and demonstrates perfect form with strength, stability and ease. Catherine has noticed her strength and flexibility improve and has found the breathing techniques and relaxations beneficial in dealing with life in general!

18766981_10150896863744980_1510176914_o

The second picture above is how we end our practice, with a guided relaxation. Today we had the pleasure of being able to relax in the warmth of the afternoon sunshine in the beautiful natural surroundings of Ashton Park. We had a curious little blackbird wandering around whilst we practiced!

In addition to our weekly group classes we provide private one to one yoga sessions. For more information please check out One to One Yoga

Did you like this? Then please share!