Yogic Friday Nights in London

One of my favourite ways to spend a Friday night is at a yoga evening. Last night I went to Shakti Shop, held by one of my favourite London teachers, Leila Sadeghee. She's a new teacher of mine, from the Anusara tradition.

Shakti Shop is held once a month at a beautiful private home in London and it was so  much fun! A group of about 14 people sat on their blocks around a fire and listened to Leila talk for the first 20 mins. We started off hearing about Buckminster Fuller (design guru, philosopher) and how he gave up everything from his 'default existence', that is a regular job, and focused instead on 'helping humankind'. He totally changed his life, despite having a young family. This resulted in him always somehow finding food and shelter for him and his family and becoming a well-known philosopher. This way he had a huge impact on the the way some of the world thinks.

For me, starting with some philosophy is a great way to focus yoga into being more than simple physical exercise. You learn something and can put some of this into practice in the class and then carry it with you afterwards. Leila  later talked about how we should try and keep humane feelings when we're on a packed Tube train, rather than going into our default thinking of finding people a nuisance, giving them some compassion.

Then we moved into asanas and some super deep hip openers! Wow they were intense but amazing, including Hanuman pose which I almost got fully for the first time of my life. I got over the fear that I would break myself, rip my muscles. According to Leila, if you focus on pushing both legs and really are aware of the stretch, you won't do yourself damage.

This type of work went on for about 2.5 hours and we were getting spacey as stuff emerged from the depths of our hips and our imaginations opened up. We ended with meditation and relaxation. Finally we 'met' everyone in the room one to one by shaking hands or hugging them which though sounds super hippy, was very powerful. Human respect.

This was followed by some yummy dinner and wine. Hip openers, good music, meaningful conversation with new people and sensual yummy delights. What else is life about?