Laxmi Yoga Teacher Training

Blending The Art Of Teaching With The Science Of Yoga

I have been fortunate enough to learn with some great teachers and have done some wonderful teacher trainings including courses with the Sitaram Organisation and Centred Yoga in Thailand. I loved what I learnt on these courses and felt that it would be fantastic to have a yoga teacher training that blended elements of Sports Science and Pilates principles with yoga asana practice, philosophy and Auyerveda, along with sharing effective teaching and communication techniques I have learnt along the way. And if I could also assist student teachers to set up as self employed teachers and actually earn a living doing what they love, even better!

if a client were extremely flexible, Laxmi yoga would work to create strength and stability within the joints 

My Journey In Yoga

After several years of hard gym workouts and in fitness instruction and personal training, I had knee and shoulder injuries as well as persistent back pain. So I started attending a weekly class the gym I used to work at. I was instantly hooked and yoga asana practice soon replaced my daily gym workouts. Over the next three years or so I healed my injuries and built a solid practice in both Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga. I also fell in love with the spiritual side of yoga and really feel that should be at the heart of our daily practice. I have been practising and teaching yoga asana and pranayama in earnest for 10-years now, and am still really blown away with how life changing a simple daily yoga practice can be.

It is a comprehensive, all encompassing, thorough and honest approach to yoga and how to teach both Hatha and Vinyasa 

My Journey To Laxmi Yoga Teacher Training

I have been fortunate enough to learn with some great teachers and have done some wonderful teacher trainings including courses with the Sitaram Organisation and Centred Yoga in Thailand. I loved what I learnt on these courses and felt that it would be fantastic to have a yoga teacher training that blended elements of Sports Science and Pilates principles with yoga asana practice, philosophy and Auyerveda, along with sharing effective teaching and communication techniques I have learnt along the way. And if I could also assist student teachers to set up as self employed teachers and actually earn a living doing what they love, even better!

And So To Laxmi Yoga….

And so after much thought I put together Laxmi Yoga 200 hour teacher-training. Named after the wonderful goddess of abundance, Laxmi yoga is a new teacher-training program, which after running successfully at the Dru Yoga centre in Snowdonia, is now heading to the beautiful mountains of the Andalucia and will be held at The Hacienda Retreat Centre. It is a comprehensive, all encompassing, thorough and honest approach to yoga and how to teach both Hatha and Vinyasa. It is both rooted in yoga philosophy and subtle anatomy, as well as including the latest research in exercise physiology and anatomy, and demonstrates how certain approaches to yoga can be used to marry traditional yoga techniques and approaches with modern day exercise science.

As a teacher-training provider, Laxmi yoga promise to:

• Treat all teacher-training students with love and respect.
• Deliver both traditional and new approaches to yoga asana and pranayama practice.
• Teach traditional yoga philosophy and Ayurveda.
• Provide on-going support and provide work placements where possible.
• Provide students with solid and effective teachings and the tools to ensure they are the best teacher they can be.

Testimonial from a current Laxmi Yoga student:

For me Laxmi Teacher Training has been transformative. I am already teaching yoga so I came to this course having attended other teacher trainings. This training delivers what it promises and more! Sally’s depth of knowledge, wealth of experience, inclusive and non-dogmatic style has encouraged each of us to find our unique voice and develop our own style, and also the ability to adapt to teaching different markets. Added to this, with Sally’s ongoing guidance and support I have gained invaluable advice on the business of yoga and actual teaching work – teaching on Sally’s retreats and gaining work with clients. I am incredibly grateful to have found this course and shared this experience with a wonderful group of fellow yogis! Paula Hines. 

Applications for 2013 training courses are now open. For enquiries please visit sallyparkesyoga.com 

Early bird discount: Book now and save £300!

As featured in the January 2013 issue of Yoga Magazine www.yogamagazine.co.uk

Yoga for a healthy spine

As featured in Ultra-FIT magazine, August 2012

A strong back and a healthy spine are essential for our general wellbeing an they literally provide the back bone to our resistance training. When we feel strong on a physical level we are generally more active, more sociable and our self-confidence is enhanced.

On a more spiritual level, a healthy spine is also a sign that the energy centre that grounds us, called our Root Chakra (or Muladhara in Sanskrit), is well balanced. This offers us feelings of stability, clarity and contentment, which in turn allow us to lead a more fulfilled life. When there are problems with the spine however, the opposite can occur and the spine literally becomes unstable, having a huge effect on our health. A spine that is not functioning properly can have a huge knock on effect to our daily life by greatly affecting us on a physical, mental and emotional level. Therefore keeping it healthy is paramount to our health.

As we know, the regular practice of yoga asana can keep us physically healthy and in great shape. However, to maintain the health of our back and spine and to achieve a healthy and balanced movement pattern, our yoga asana practice needs to include movement that stretches, rotates, extends and strengthens the spine and its surrounding muscles and connective tissue. These are all natural movements of the spine but even in our yoga practice it is easy to do too much of one movement and not enough of others, leading us to physical imbalances and eventually injuries caused by overuse. Articulation of the spine for example, such as that shown in ‘Rolling Down’ below, is an important movement as it helps to keep healthy mobility of the middle (thoracic) spine.

The following asana sequence will help you maintain the health of your spine by creating a healthy and balanced movement pattern:

Rolling Down

Stand with the feet hip-width apart and parallel to one another. Bend the knees slightly, lightly contract the abdominal muscles and tuck the pelvis under slightly. Allow the neck to completely relax, drop the chin to the chest and start to roll down through the spine with the arms completely relaxed. Move slowly throughout. When the hands are in-line with the knees (or lower if your body allows it), start to roll back up to standing, keeping the knees slightly bent. A visualisation that may help you with this movement is to imagine you are un-stacking the spine and the restacking it as you roll back up.

Repeat 3-4 times.

Benefits:

It mobilises the spine, in particular the thoracic spine. It stretches the muscles of the back, especially the spinal extensors and the hamstrings and improves body and postural awareness and is a mentally calming movement.

Ardha Chandrasana: Crescent Moon

Stand in Mountain Pose with the feet together and arms down by your side. Now reach the arms up over head, interlace the fingers and extend the first finger. Tuck the pelvis under slightly to encourage a neutral alignment and drop the shoulders down away from the ears. Contact the legs including the glutes. Hold your chin level with the floor and keep the legs strong and stretch the entire body upwards. As you exhale, bend sideways to the right whilst maintaining the lift through the spine, especially in the lower back area. You will feel compression through the right side of the rib cage and oblique muscles and a strong stretch through the left side. Hold for five breaths and repeat on the other side.

Benefits:

This posture encourages a sideway bend (lateral flexion) of the spine. This is not a movement we do often other than in asana practice, but is useful to keep healthy mobility of the middle spine and rib cage and its surrounding connective tissue in particular.

Utkatasana: Chair Pose

Stand in Mountain Pose. Exhale and bend the knees so you are in a squat position with the feet together. At the same time sweep the arms upward so they are in-line with the ears. The hands are shoulder-width distance apart or wider if the shoulders feel tight. Press the thighs together and lengthen the spine by keeping the chest lifted and the chin parallel to the ground. Spread the toes and maintain even weight distribution through the feet. Draw the shoulders downwards, away from the ears. Hold for five breaths.

Benefits:

As the spine is extended in this asana, the entire back is both stretched and strengthened. Also, by raising the arms in this posture, the muscles of the back have to work more strongly.

Bhujangasana: Cobra

Lay face down with the legs together and place the hands on the ground inline with the chest with the arms pressed against the rib cage. Press the tops of the feet into the floor to activate the legs and gluteal muscles. Lightly press into the hands and lift the head, chest and shoulders away from the floor. Actively draw the shoulders down and away from the ears and keep the chin level to the floor. Think about lengthening from the navel to the chin whilst the spinal extensors contract strongly. Hold for five breaths.

Benefits:

This asana stretches and extends the spine, increasing both its flexibility and strength. Cobra is also beneficial for the digestive system it applies slight pressure to the abdomen and helps to massage the internal organs.

Parivrtta Trikonasana: Revolved Triangle

Step the feet approximately one metre apart and place the hands on the hip bones. Turn the left foot in forty-five degrees to the right and the right foot out to the right ninety-degrees. Ideally align the right heel with the left heel but if that restricts the rotation of the pelvis, then step the left foot out to the left 3-4 inches/10-12cm. Turn the torso to the right and extend the spine forwards until the upper body is parallel to the ground. Reach the left hand down to the shin or onto a yoga block (positioned against your inner right foot). Extend the right arm up and rotate the torso so the right shoulder stacks on top of the left shoulder. Keep the chin in line with the sternum to avoid strain in the neck. Hold for five breaths and repeat on the other side.

Benefits:

This asana rotates the spine strongly, especially the middle spine. As there is an element of balancing in this posture, the spinal stabilisers are also strengthened as they work to support the spine. It also strongly stretches the hamstrings and calf muscles.

Please note this yoga sequence is intended for those with severe back pain or injury.

Photography by www.aliwphotography.co.uk

Peace, love and chocolate

Paula Hines finds peace and good chocolate on a yoga and cookery escape to the Sussex countryside

As featured in OM Magazine www.ommagazine.com

You can tell the food is good when the dinner table falls silent. The meal is asparagus and pea risotto expertly whipped up by chef, Lucie. The dinner table is in the dining room at the beautifully cosy and charming Marsh Farm House near Arundel, West Sussex. It’s not my usual Friday evening. I am on Sally Parkes’ yoga and vegetarian cookery weekend retreat (sallyparkesyoga.com). Just moments ago the table was buzzing with chatter and then…the food arrived.

I love yoga and I love food, so what better than to combine the two? I’ve been lacking inspiration in my own cooking and with certain food sensitivities revealing themselves last year, working out how and what to eat has at times been a challenge. When I heard about this retreat it sounded like a perfect opportunity to come away with some new recipes (and eat some very tasty food, of course).

Added to this, being on a tight budget, getting away on a yoga retreat seemed like a pipe dream, but the added beauty of this was it being a pocket friendly weekend away in pretty surroundings – great for those of us who want a retreat experience but aren’t able to jet off to far flung places.

As we tucked into our risotto, the itinerary for the weekend was explained. There would be yoga early (but not too early!) on Saturday morning, before breakfast. Then after some free time we’d have our first cookery workshop where we would make our lunch and later on help to make the dessert to accompany our dinner.

All the recipes in our workshops would be vegetarian, as with all the meals at Marsh Farm over the weekend. Lucie said she could also offer alternatives, taking into account any additional dietary requirements (vegan, wheat/gluten free etc). It all sounded good, but one pressing question remained: could we get the recipe for that risotto?

Saturday afternoon sushi

I awoke feeling incredibly rested on Saturday morning and noticed something different: birdsong. Actual ‘not being drowned out by city traffic’ birdsong. I hopped out of bed to check out the view of Marsh Farm’s garden from the window and in the field beyond I spotted a horse. Getting this excited by ‘nature’ showed me just how overdue this break away from the city was. Just as well I was in the ideal place for some rest and renewal. During a hearty breakfast from the range of options on offer (I went for the gluten free bircher muesli), I soon realised that the catchphrase among us for the weekend would be: ‘can we get the recipe for this as well?’

All the recipes in our workshops would be vegetarian, as with all the meals at Marsh Farm over the weekend. Lucie said she could also offer alternatives, taking into account any additional dietary requirements

With a bit of a wander around the garden I could appreciate, up-close, all the spring blooms out in force and the Alice in Wonderland-style hedge, which made me smile. Taking advantage of the gorgeous weather, we brought our ingredients out to the big garden table where Lucie taught us how to make vegetarian sushi – much easier than I expected and a lot of fun. Now we knew how to make California rolls with the best of ‘em. We rewarded ourselves by eating said sushi out in the sun.

Our free time after lunch allowed for exploring the ‘secret garden’ I had failed to spot earlier around the back of the farm house, while some of the group took a walk to the village. I opted to curl up with a book, something I rarely allow myself time to do at home. So, I sat in the garden with my horsey friend from earlier over the fence for company.

Our afternoon cookery workshop was making chocolate orange and avocado tarts, every bit as delicious as they sounded. And vegan too.

Sally’s mellow yoga class before dinner was the perfect way to round off the afternoon. Her classes welcome beginners and cater for all abilities so it was lovely to see the range of ages and yoga experience among our group from regular practitioners to those whose first ever yoga class was that weekend.

Some yoga nidra from our instructor put us all in a sufficiently chilled state for the evening ahead and our delicious meal of shepherd-less pie with wilted greens. Oh. And chocolate orange and avocado tarts. Happy taste buds all round.

Sunday spelt scones

Sunday morning brought more gorgeous Sussex sunshine, so after breakfast I stepped out into the garden, feeling the dew underfoot and taking the opportunity to soak up the stillness. A real reminder of how little I (like many of us) allow myself to pause during my day-today hustle bustle. Another bonus of this retreat: having some time and space to reflect.

Our last cookery workshop: surprisingly quick and easy to make spelt, sundried tomato and spinach scones. They accompanied our roasted tomato and lentil soup, roasted vegetable salad and carrot and sultana salad for lunch.

After we were all packed up and ready to go there was a surprise. Some of the chocolate orange and avocado tart filing was left over. A few spoons came out to help rectify that situation. Chocolate is a terrible thing to waste, after all.

Before we said our goodbyes, a learned member of our group of yogis translated the Latin phrase above the door in the dining room: “Divine help remains with us always”. I often feel in need of divine help in the kitchen. But Lucie’s explanations and demonstrations throughout the weekend made all the recipes so accessible. And with store-cupboard advice and even tips on knife skills too, I came away feeling that I could recreate all the recipes with confidence.

I’d arrived frazzled on Friday but returned home feeling frazzled no more, armed with some inspiring recipes and memories of delicious food, laughter, great company and of course, lovely yoga.

The business of yoga….how to get work….

Hi there,

This weeks blog is aimed a yoga and Pilates teachers but is also useful to anyone that teaches in the health and fitness industry. I have been asked quite a lot lately by fellow teachers that if I hear of any teaching work that comes up to please let them know and to put a word in for them at various studios I work at. Whilst I’m happy to do that it as I think it’s great to help each other out, it did make me wonder what teachers who don’t have enough work are doing to get it. I have found that whether working in the fitness or yoga industry the only way to get work is to be very proactive and to keep your foot on that gas! Freelance teaching is like any other freelance work, you have to constantly put the energy in until you are happy with what you have. Work will not fall into your lap if no one knows about you.

So what can you do? There are loads of ways to advertise your business for free (all freelancers are a business, yes even yoga teachers).

Here are a few tips:

Get a logo. If you can’t afford to have one designed see if any clients would like to design one for you in return for one or two free one to one lessons.

Get your CV out there. I put mine of www.gumtree.com when I first moved to London and had my first class within a few days. Email it out to all the yoga schools, health clubs, colleges you can think of. Many work places are offering yoga top their staff now too so consider writing to various companies that have the space for a small class. Explain the benefits, less sick days, increased productivity etc. Get a friend to proof read your CV before you send it out.

Always have business cards on you. You can get these free at www.vistaprint.com

Advertise your services for free on some of the many yoga listings websites. There are loads of these out there now but I find the best ones to be:
www.yogafinder.com and www.yogapages.co.uk

Facebook. If you have a FB page that you want to use for work, ensure it is just for work. No drunk pictures or friends tagging unprofessional pictures

Twitter. I’m just getting into this myself but am finding it useful. To save time you can connect it with FB so whatever you ‘tweet’ goes through to FB and vice versa.

Find a local business to connect with. Why not ask a local beauty salon to keep some of your cards in return for adding a link to their website from yours?

These are just a few ideas and there are many more. I would love to hear of any ideas you may have or things that have and haven’t worked for you so please email me at info@sallyparkesyoga.com so I can share. Thank you.

Have a great day!

Nameste

Sally

Walking to a healthier you

When was the last time you went for a walk? I’m talking about a walk that got you breathless, put the colour in your cheeks and made you feel alive?

As we know Yoga and Pilates is a wonderful discipline with many health benefits, physical, mental and spiritual but when combined with hiking the benefits are endless. As an impact exercise walking is aerobic meaning that your heart rate is raised, pumping blood through your body at a faster pace improving your overall fitness and health. Alongside the physical benefits, walking allows the mind to clear and absorb the surroundings and provides a blank canvas for new thoughts and ideas to blossom.

I’m heading off to beautiful Snowdonia in May to hold a yoga, pilates and walking retreat. The last time I went we had an amazing four days, taking in the beautiful landscapes, Welsh mountains and clear air. It was the perfect place for relaxation, meditation and yoga – uninterrupted nature and breathtaking scenery. The walks combined with the yoga and pilates classes gave everyone the opportunity to stride out feeling full of energy and sleep peacefully after a lovely Yoga Nidra session before bed.

I stress to anyone attending that it is up to them how much or how little you do – so don’t feel obliged to kit yourself out a la Bear Grylls!

If you’d like to join me on this retreat which will be held at the Dru Yoga Snowdonia Mountain Lodge which has a newly refurbished yoga studio, full details and can be found on my website here: http://www.sallyparkesyoga.com/Snowdonia_Wales_yoga_retreat_with_sally_parkes.html. Please note I am now offering a £50 discount on this retreat bringing the price down to £277pp. This is for a shared room although limited single rooms are available at extra cost). If you have any questions please just ask – email me info@sallyparkesyoga.com