This is Childs Pose. It's a beautifully simple pose, and it feels great. We often use it as a resting pose in yoga classes, but it's a great stretch for your lower back too and helps you to breathe into the back of the lungs. Also a deeply nourishing pose, it’s very calming, grounding and releasing and it helps you to bring your attention inward.

There are many different ways you can place the arms and hands, and each one uses your muscles slightly differently. Here I take you through some of the options.

Yoga posesSusan BradleyAugust 13, 2016Yoga poses, child pose, simpleComment

Getting back to slow yoga

If ever there was a time to slow down your yoga and take your speed of life down a notch or two the summer is it. With the warm weather (fingers crossed!) and long summer days, slowing down and simply drinking it all in can feel just great.

Yoga, before it was transformed in its journey to the West was a breath-centered practice for the wellbeing of the whole person. Something that would provide a vehicle for slowing down and learning to truly take care of ourselves. Something to counter the difficulties encountered in life. But yoga changed when it came to the West.

About yogaSusan BradleyAugust 5, 2016yoga, slowComment

Yoga for better sleep

So many people in the modern world suffer from insomnia or poor sleep quality. Our minds race all day long, we use screens right up until the moment we try to fall asleep…and then we can’t!

A simple yoga routine can be very effective in preparing the body for deep, restful sleep and even a short practice before bed can be really helpful. I've created a simple routine of just four postures that will help you to unplug and unwind, calming the body and the mind ready for a good nights sleep.

Yoga poses, Yoga sequencesSusan BradleyJuly 30, 2016Yoga poses, sleep, relaxComment

Why do we always do Savasana at the end of a class?

Resting in Savasana (which means Corpse Pose in Sanskrit), for five or ten minutes at the end of a yoga session works powerfully on many levels.

Yoga posesSusan BradleyJuly 22, 2016savasana, yoga, relax Comments

Just breathe

"Anyone can breathe, therefore anybody can practice yoga."

T. K. V. Desikachar

At Yoga For Modern Life I welcome everyone, whether they're just starting their yoga journey or whether they've got more experience under their belt. I believe yoga isn't all about touching your toes, fancy balances or headstands. It’s fundamentally about the breath and using it to reconnect with yourself, and to the present moment.

breathingSusan BradleyJuly 15, 2016breathing, connect, calmingComment

Twisting it out

The twisting poses we practice in yoga have a number of great benefits. Not only do they flex and tone our abdominal muscles, twists massage the abdominal organs and aid digestion. Twists also help us to focus mentally. When we are focused, we let our minds quiet and we can let stress go.

Here are are some twisting postures to try out. Let me know how you get on.

Yoga posesSusan BradleyJuly 9, 2016twist, Yoga posesComment

Friday tension release

We seem to spend most of our lives sitting at a desk, being hunched over a smart phone, driving for long periods or lugging children and heavy bags around. All of this can mean your neck and shoulders feel really tight and tense by the end of each day, and even more so by the end of the week. It’s not your fault. It’s modern life’s fault. Here are a some simple yoga poses that I often use to release the muscles in my shoulders, neck and back.

Yoga posesSusan BradleyJuly 1, 2016Yoga posesComment

blog : Yoga and me

I thought this would be a good opportunity to share with you my journey with yoga. I came to yoga in the late 1990s, to start with it was just another class offered in the gym and I used it as a counter to pounding on the treadmill. Burning the candle at both ends, with a work hard play harder philosophy to life, I kept coming back to yoga finding it a grounding practice and an antidote to the high stress I put on myself at work and the partying I enjoyed (every) weekend. I dipped in and out over the years, and it’s difficult to pin point just what I found in yoga that kept drawing me back to it, but I think it was the feeling a spaciousness it gave me – both in my body and also that little bit of headspace in my crazy busy world.

Susan BradleyJune 27, 2016Comment