A fun workshop for anyone to come and join in!!!

As I say on the video, you'll learn exercises that are great for undoing the desk posture, open up the spine, give you a workout too and the best thing is you can easily travel with it...

The focus is full body and you can then pick and chose what you want to do depending on your mood and what your body wants at the time.

You'll get videos similar to the above and a manual for the band work!!

Please get in touch on the email above or via the form below for more information!!!
thanks
Lisa
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This squirrel was sooooo fun to watch as I stopped for a moment today on my happy plogging....

Head Shoulders Knees and Toes...

Well not quite, just hands and knees!!!

A common move we do in Pilates (and Yoga) that I wanted to take some time to go through and what to look out for in your own body.  Also the cat stretch, such a great move to free the back.

Key points:

Hands under shoulders - shoulder width apart
Knees under hips - about 5" apart which is where our hip joint lives.

LONG body - think of being long from the top or the bottom, one tends to work better.  I think length from my pubic bone to boobs, seems to help me not over work my 'core' and lengthen.

Have fun with it, set strong here and your planks will be amazing...

thanks
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Life is indeed marvellous...

I sat yesterday thinking what to blog about and was having a bit of a rough time with something that distracted my energy.  Maybe I won't blog this week, give you guys a break!!

Then this morning in my inbox was this video sent to me from my dad, who knows I love this sort of thing and his timing was impeccable.  Love you dad... x

It helped me stop and take stock of what was going on, and where I want to go in life and of a poem I wrote a few weeks ago when I was talking to someone who is a little overweight, and aiming to lose it but is being judged for being larger ....
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It could go on, and I was tempted but decided to stop!! 

And in hindsight I flipped it, into how do I define myself??....  That is really quite possibly a better question to ask ...

How do I define ME...

How do you define me?​

By the colour of my skin
My sex
My age
My height
My weight
My religion
My sexual preference
My job
My car
My house
My bank balance
My designer clothes

What makes you think you know me?

Because you know where I come from and what I do?

How do you then treat me?

Does all the above make a difference?

Do they matter?

What does matter?...........

What matters to you about me as a person?

Who I am in this world

How I am

What I do each day that you don’t see
How I treat others
treat animals, fish, nature, the planet.

Do you know how I see the world around?

Do you feel the oneness
that is this Earth?

That whatever my
Age
Colour
Weight
Height
Race
or Status


You and me are the same

How to do a Basic Bridge

First of all, jig a bit!!! then lie on your back

Arms by side, gently pressure into the ground, not so much your ribs rise off the floor.

Feet in line with sit bones - to find them sit up and walk on your butt, those boney bits are your sits bones….

Pelvis neutral - glass wine on pelvis, the triangle I show on the video will help with this.  If this feels strained in your back, then tuck a little - i.e pour the wine towards you.  We all have different spine shapes and there will be varying space underneath your lower back - focus more on your pelvis being level than the space in your back.

Some people have pronounced rib cages - this means you’ll have a big arch under you.  Please don’t try to press your ribs hard into the floor, you’ll add so much tension to your body.  Instead lift your arms in the air and wiggle on your shoulder blades, like you are walking them away from your butt and then take a sigh outwards and you might feel your upper back sink into the floor. It’s a bit tricky here to help you with this, do your best and feel free to get in touch if you need some advise!

Legs - keep them in line, often the knees fall out or in.  Either way you can put a ball mid thigh or higher at your crotch and gently squeeze if your legs fall out, or use it to keep the space if your legs knock in.

How far do your feet?  So you can find a long spine and neutral pelvis and roll.  Feel free to try different distances from your butt and you’ll feel different things working.  Find the distance that helps you to roll through your back as that’s the aim here.

To bridge with articulation, i.e rolling the spine, start by tipping that wine glass towards you (a posterior tilt) and keep rolling up until you are on your mid back, there shouldn’t be pressure on your head.

You’ll see on the video I put my hands on my thighs - thanks to Kathy Grant for the slant board.  This will help you get a feel how high to come.

A common mistake is to arch the back at the top - this is okay, but not what I am aiming for here!

A sighing breath helps to soften the chest on the way down and you are trying to place each bone down one by one.  We often skip a bone (or two or three) - let it be and the more you do this may chill out.

Think of skimming your back down lightly as opposed to forcing it down - you’ll see on the video that this makes your belly bulge - not what we want. Light and long…

I’ve done some variations on the video so please check it out.

This is such a good move for tight backs, get the back of the legs working (no butt clenching please…) and takes away tension.

In 15 years of teaching I never get fed up of bridging.

Please note, if your back is in spasms - be gentle with it.  If you have some acute disc issues, pleaseavoid until it has settled.


And please ask me if you want more help..

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I originally called this Climate Conversations, which is soothing that I hosted last thursday.  I wondered though if that title would put people off reading - more about the climate and global warming, do you really want to hear about it?!?….

This is and isn’t about that! As usual I’ll sway into and out of the topic - this is as munch about my own thoughts and feelings about the world, the state of it and how to live in it…

Not too much to ponder hey!!..

To start with - why do I care, why spend my time organising an evening to hear about the climate and discuss what we can do about it?…  Great question and I often ask myself it, what can I do and how much difference can I make?.  Same as why am I doing my trash walks? It’s only been 2 weeks now but I am keen/motivated to continue…  Why do I discuss with friends the future of the Earth, use earth friendly products (I think they are..), volunteer in soup kitchens and to clean old people’s places, use a bamboo toothbrush ( not that impressed by it) and why don’t I eat meat (again)…?

And why am I prepared to blog about my thoughts!!

To be honest, it starts with me - when I do these things I feel good, I feel part of the larger picture and that I am doing a small bit for everyone and everything.  It’s mainly though that I feel good about myself (is that selfish??!!).  There are a few things I do that aren’t so kind to the Earth, I use way too much paper, sometimes smoke and the way I shop produces so much plastic which is a bit out of my hands, and I cut down as much as I can - and I’m not always being the best version of myself.  I am human and do cut myself slack don’t worry!!…

There is only so much we can do given the modern day world we live in, and I am trying to do what I can.

So why?!?

Other than to feel good in myself….  Why do I care that much that I’ll walk and pick up rubbish?

Well I like to live in a clean place, where I can safely walk about bare foot, see the countryside not the rubbish and be considerate for nature.  I wonder about people who litter - what are their homes like?!!  Would they leave trash on the living room floor?  If we considered the Earth as one big living room maybe we’d take better care..?  I expanded this as I walked along - our homes are not just the walls we live in, however they are built.  The structure is simply somewhere we take shelter in - home for me is the Earth around me and without it I wouldn’t be able to exist.  How do we all want to treat this larger ‘home’…??

As I was out the other day, I walked past a temple and there was litter outside.  I bet there wouldn’t be inside… Same as all other religious places, I have a feeling they would be clean inside and no one would leave their trash or cigarette butts inside… Why?  I’m guessing because it’s a sacred place, a place of worship to be in touch with whatever higher power you believe in.

Can we view the world as one big temple/church/mosque??  If we did what might happen?

Why do I aim to use less plastic and produce less waste?  My heart sinks when I see the oceans and the amount of crap in them and when it is caught around an animals neck, or it dies because it’s belly is full of bags.  If it was your pet cat, dog, rabbit or child who went to swallow say a plastic bottle top, what would you do?  I’m going to guess you’d pull it from their hands/mouth and possibly throw it on the ground and tell the person/animal off….  Now imagine if it wasn’t there in the first place….. that they didn’t have the opportunity to pick it up, or you didn’t have to worry about it happening. That’s our oceans and how those creatures live, but they don’t have someone telling them not to or pulling it away from them.

Next - meat….   A few reasons. Over the last 20 years I have not eaten it and then I have then not then yes… My morals have never liked me eating it, my body it doesn’t mind either way!  Bottom line is I don’t want to kill things the way they are in the meat industry - it is totally inhumane and not the way any living creature deserves to be treated. There is the knock on effect to the environment, but that is secondary to me and it is pretty easy to be a vegetarian in the Western world nowadays.

I like conversations around the topic, as I learn more, am better informed and also get to understand people’s resistance to change, and see a different view point.  Knowing that helps to bring in change and overcome the resistance!  Also when I talk to like minded people, I don’t feel on my own!  There are many of people who care as I do - and more, finding them and coming together gives me hope that we will make a difference!!

I volunteer because it keeps me grounded, it is easy to get carried away with the small stuff - first world problems and blow things out of proportion.  When I go and make meals for those who can’t leave their homes, or see the elderly in their one room place, making the best of things - I am kept real.  It reminds me that I live a great life, full of opportunities and that it is possible to put time aside for others who have less.  To see the smiles on the oldies faces is priceless - and it fills me up knowing they got pleasure out of such a simple thing as a visit, some food and some smiles.

I am still working on myself and how I live and what I can do, and still be able to live life and not be taken over by plastic and waste, and guilt when I use things!  It’s not about that, but about thinking a little bit more than we might do about the impact we have on the world around.  The thing is I want this earth to thrive and all those in it - not just humans, and I have no one after me to worry about - my genes stop with me.  But I want to leave it great for those who follow whenever that is, they deserve a planet that is clean, and bountiful and one in which all creatures can live together…..


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Now how to stop war…?!?!?

A short pool workout to show some possibilities of what you can do in the water!....

This is not swim training or drills, just fun in the water whilst getting a workout in, the paddles add great resistance to the upper body - please be careful if you have a shoulder issue or not used paddles before, start with small ones and not too much!!

It's super fun, you can explore your child within and let the child out!!  As you'll hear I pretend to be different animals as I move about sometimes - be in touch with nature....

Enjoy!!
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