Becoming a mother is a very personal adventure. Although doctors and midwives carefully monitor your health and your baby’s growth through pregnancy, yoga brings a calm strength and inner balance that enables you to overcome whatever challenges lie ahead.

Among all the methods for easing birth, yoga has the most to offer. This is because yogic breathing connects the action of the voluntary and involuntary muscles of the abdomen. This gives you a control that you could not otherwise obtain. By expanding both your breathing and your stretching capacity, you become familiar in advance with the muscles used in birthing.

During pregnancy yoga can help to keep the body supple whilst encouraging the body to stretch comfortably to accommodate your baby as it grows. Yoga can help boost energy levels by encouraging full breathing whilst relieving stress and anxiety with relaxation and meditation techniques.

Common ailments during pregnancy can be relieved along with aiding natural sleep and reducing pain during labour. Yoga can also help the mother to begin a special bond with her growing baby by using different breathing and visualisation techniques.
Posture during pregnancy is improved and there is a more rapid recovery of good muscle tone after birth. You will enjoy your baby more because you will feel fit and rested.


The Purpose of your yoga practice during pregnancy

• To open the chest for deeper breathing
• To lift the breastbone to make more room for your baby
• To stretch the legs wide to exercise the pelvic muscles
• To hold the spine erect for free flow of energy To steady the emotions
• To centre yourself to cope with change
• To access the deep relaxation that lies within you.

Your body is your best guide, so omit exercises that feel uncomfortable or cause pain, and stop if you have had enough.. Your heart and lungs are already working at increased levels, so your practice should not be strenuous. Relaxed stretching with breathing expands your breathing capacity without ever exerting force.

These classes will introduce both you and your baby to a range of postures and flowing movements. Classes will also include yogic breathing, singing with movement along with relaxation for both mums and babies. Suitable for babies from 6 weeks up to mobile.

Postnatal Yoga Postnatal Yoga is designed to support you in recovery from the physical, emotional and spiritual stresses of giving birth, and to empower your daily life as the mother of a newborn baby. Postnatal yoga can help you not only to regain muscle tone Safely but can also help to support you from within, giving you strength at a time in your life that can be emotionally draining. Gentle stretching and toning along with deep breathing techniques will help your body recover whilst continuing to maintain a strong bond with your newborn baby.

The classes offer a holistic programme of breath work, relaxation, postures, movement, voice work and meditations along with the opportunity to meet up with other new mums.

• Sivananda Yoga Yoga is an excellent means of stretching, exercising and purifying the body so as to make it healthy and vibrant. The postures of yoga will help develop a strong and resilient physique, tone the nervous system, improve circulation, release stress and tension, and increase flexibility.
  The deep breathing that accompanies the yoga postures also helps in detoxifying the physical body of all the waste products that contribute to illness and stress.
  Sivananda yoga is a traditional Indian yoga practice which begins with breathing exercises (to strengthen the lungs and facilitate mental preparation for the physical practice to follow), a set of warm-up postures called The sun salutations (to physically prepare the body for the practice), and then the postures themselves.
  
  The class closes with a guided relaxation that helps fully integrate the energy produced during the practice. The vital energy or prana that is produced doing yogic exercise can circulate fully around the body when we are properly relaxed. We can then take this feeling of well-being into our day to day lives.
  
  Yoga is suitable for all ages and levels of fitness. Since yoga is a non-competitive practice the student is encouraged to develop at their own pace with the guidance of the teacher.
  According to Swami Vishnu-Devananda disciple of Swami Sivananda there are five points to yoga:
  
  • Proper exercise (Asanas)
  • Proper breathing (Pranayama)
  • Proper relaxation (Savasana)
  • Proper diet (Vegetarian)
  • Positive thinking and Meditation (Vedanta and Dhyana)
  
  Proper exercise : Yoga is a life of self-discipline based on the tenets of ‘simple living and high thinking’. The body is a temple or vehicle for the soul, and has specific requirements which must be fulfilled for it to function smoothly and supply the optimum mileage. These requirements may be seen metaphorically in relationship to those of another vehicle. An automobile requires five things; a lubricating system; battery; a cooling system; fuel; and a responsible driver behind the wheel. Proper exercise: acts as a lubricating routine to the joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and other parts of the body by increasing circulation and flexibility.
  
  Proper breathing: It aids the body in connecting to its battery, the solar plexus, where tremendous potential energy is stored. When tapped through specific yoga breathing techniques (Pranayama), this energy is released for physical and mental rejuvenation. Proper relaxation: cools down the system, as does the radiator of a car. When the body and mind are continually overworked, their efficiency diminishes. Relaxation is nature’s way of recharging the body.
  
  Proper diet: provides the correct fuel for the body. Optimum utilisation of food, air, water, and sunlight is essential. Positive thinking and Meditation: puts you in control. The intellect is purified. The lower nature is brought under conscious control through steadiness and concentration of mind.
  
  Sivananda yoga classes:
  
  
  Pranayama
  
  
  • Kapalabhati (shining skull)
  • Anuloma Veloma (Alternate nostril breathing)
  
  Soorya Namaskar (Sun Salutations)
  
  

Asanas

• Sirshasana (Headstand)
• Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand)
• Halasana (Plough)
• Matsyasana (Fish)
• Paschimothanasana (Forward bend)
• Bhujangasana (Cobra)
• Salabhasana (Locust)
• Dhanurasana (Bow)
• Ardha matsyendrasana (Half spinal twist)
• Kakasana (Crow)
• Pada Hasthasana (Standing forward bend)
• Trikonasana (Triangle)
• Relaxation
• Final relaxation

This class has been designed for full benefit of the students physically, psychically, mentally and spiritually. Variations and adaptations are added as the student develops but the basic 12 postures allow the student to gain the flexibility and strength needed to progress.

Kundalini yoga is a technology that works with the science of breath, movement, sound and rhythm to promote remarkable changes in the human system.

This form of yoga is the mother of all yoga's and was brought to the west by Yogi Bhajan in the 1960's after being kept secret for many centuries. During these workshops you will learn breathing techniques to promote health and vitality, yogic kriyas to gain flexibility and strength along with meditations for energy, health and longevity.

Reflexology It is known that the feet have been used to promote good health for many years. Numerous ancient texts, illustrations and artefacts from early Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Russian and Egyptian times have been discovered and have been linked to modern foot reflexology.

In the early twentieth century Dr. William Fitzgerald developed modern zone therapy of the human body, each zone corresponding to a different part or parts of the body.

In the 1930’s Eunice Ingham a physiotherapist also studied zone therapy theory. Her studies proved that by applying pressure specifically to the feet was more responsive than any other part of the body. Eventually she mapped out the entire body onto the feet and discovered that by applying pressure to various points in one zone had an effect on corresponding parts of the body. In many cases reducing pain and inflammation and causing a deeply relaxed state.

The effects of Reflexology on the body

• Reduces stress and induces deep relaxation Stimulates the bodies own healing resources
• Allows the body to naturally detoxify
• Balances the entire body
• Energises the person
• Improves circulation
• Preventative health care
• Holistic therapy

Reflexology has been shown to be effective for many ailments including:

• Back pain
• Neck and shoulder stiffness and pain
• Hormonal imbalances and PMT
• Stressrelated conditions
• Insomnia
• Headaches and Migraine
• Infertility