August 2017 Studio News

Hoping this finds you effortlessly fit and healthy. Even if you need to work over the summer, enjoy the longer evenings, early mornings and a siesta if you may on weekends. Getting up early is sometimes the only way to enjoy the outdoors this time of year when high temperatures or recent rains have kept us inside. If you are away from the smog in Hong Kong at present you can appreciate all the fresh air. Take many deep breaths as you can before you return!

My family and I are taking a holiday in our home town, East London, which is actually in South Africa. See the arial views of this lovely city in the link below. My husband and I are fortunate enough to have both sets of parents and other family still living there. My daughter loves visiting there too, and this time wants to learn to surf. It will be winter there with moderate (hopefully) temperatures of about 9 - 20 degrees celcius.

Yoga poses this month focus on cooling and restoring the body and mind. Forward bends, legs up the wall and reclining hamstring stretches are all relaxing and easy poses to do even in your own practice. Take a few minutes, especially in the morning, to do a few side stretches, twists, forward bends and gently back bends. Even on holiday you can keep your body feeling free and light with movement.

The Yoga intensive week helped us to develop a continuous and strong practice, increasing fitness, strength and flexibility. Resistance stretching helps us to loosen the tight bands in the fascia. Fascia is a crystalline structure around all our muscles and joints, kind of like the white pith in a mandarin holding it all together. Keeping our fascia free is essential to feeling ageless and free of pain. It is not really about flexibility as the muscle is contracted whilst stretching it so that the joints and ligaments are also included in the stretch. We include this king of stretching in both Pilates and Yoga classes.

There are a few photos from Kefir and Cocktail workshop below. Both drinks are great either on their own or mixed in a drink or a smoothie. The watermelon, vodka, lime and Kefir cocktail went down as well as the Kombucha Gin and Orange one did!

Looking forward to seeing you back in the last week of August. Check email for timetable then.

With much Gratitute

Mel