The Shala & Vahni a New Chapter
The Shala & Vahni | a New Chapter Announcement: January 2026 After nearly three decades — 10,227 days of holding space, teaching, learning, and shared practice — The Shala enters an exciting new era. From the earliest days behind the orange door on Battersea Rise in the late 90s, The Shala has been shaped by […]
Reclaiming the Crone | Womb Wisdom Beyond Menopause
Reclaiming the Crone | Womb Wisdom Beyond Menopause by Olivia Fallon For many women, the menstrual cycle is seen as something that ends with menopause a chapter closed. But in truth, our connection to menstrual health, hormonal balance, and womb energy continues long after our final bleed. The Crone, or Wise Woman, phase is not […]
Ayurveda & the Menstrual Cycle
Ayurveda & the Menstrual Cycle | Ancient Wisdom for Modern Women by Olivia Fallon How the doshas dance through your cycle, and how to care for each phase with tenderness In Ayurveda, the ancient sister science of yoga, everything in nature is seen as a dance of the elements. Space, air, fire, water, and earth […]
A Free Yoga Nidra for if you Wake Up at Night
Yoga Nidra if you’ve woken up in the night by Melanie Cooper We’ve all had those nights: you wake up in the small hours and suddenly your mind is wide awake. The stress of knowing you “should” be asleep can spiral, leaving you worrying about feeling tired, foggy, and drained the next day. This is […]
yoga for a 28 day cycle
Women’s Wellness | A Cyclical Approach To Honouring Your Body in Yoga by Olivia Fallon For many women, the message we’ve absorbed, whether from the fitness world, social media, or even certain yoga spaces is that consistency means intensity. That to commit to your practice, you must do the same thing, with the same energy, […]
The real reason my classes started filling up again
The Real Reason My classes Started Filling up Again by Jennie Wadsten Sharma There was a time when I kept wondering if people would return to my classes. I was working so hard to give my students everything. New flows. New playlists. But something was missing. Then I tried something simple. I started using a […]
Pranayama as an essential daily support system
Pranayama An Essential Daily Support System “When you own your breath, nobody can steal your peace” Unknown Prana can be translated as energy, breath, and life force. Yama is control and Ayama is expansion. So, Pranayama is a practice of controlling breath and through that increasing and purifying our energy. It is part of the […]
Yoga Nidra and awareness of opposites
Yoga Nidra and Awareness of Opposites “The world is full of paradoxes and opposites. The art is to embrace the opposites, embrace the paradoxes and live with a smile“ – Sri Ravi Shankar Part of the purpose of yoga is to create a union within the self. This aim is facilitated by the pursuit of […]
Interview with Charli Van Ness
Charli Van Ness How did you first become interested in yoga? This is a lifelong career starting from the tender age of 2 1/2 with my 1st tap & ballet lesson followed by acrobatics at 5yrs. Music, dance, flexibility ran through my veins, my daily life force. This provided a great foundation for my body-mind-spirit […]
Five Unexpected Reasons to do a Yoga Teacher Training
Five Reasons to do a Yoga Teacher Training transformation Over and over, graduates from our teacher training course describe their experience as transformational. If you are looking for transformation and personal growth, a yoga teacher training is an opportunity to find just that and so much more. “I have learnt so much, felt so much […]
What is nidra and how can it help me?
What is Yoga Nidra and how can it help me? By Rina Modi teacher training Manager at the Shala Over the last few years I have heard more and more yogi’s talk about Yoga Nidra, with an increasing number of teachers offering this practice as well as the demand for teacher trainings in this area. […]
Mental Health Empowerment
Mental Health Empowerment Befriending Your Mind – The Wise Mind Our minds can be our harshest judge. To overcome this tendency towards self-criticism and self-doubt we learn to live through the wise mind. This is the intersection between our emotional and reasoning minds. Our wise mind allows us to balance our rational and emotional responses […]
What is Yoga?
What is Yoga? Yoga is many things to many people. When we ask this question on our teacher training programmes we usually end up with many words scrawled all over a huge whiteboard. Yoga is hard to define as it is so expansive and all-encompassing. Here we have chosen 8 words we associate with yoga. […]
Pregnancy yoga – Benefits for prenatal wellness and birth
Pregnancy Yoga – Benefits for Pre-Natal Wellness & Birth “Whenever and however you give birth, your experience will impact your emotions, your mind, your body and spirit for the rest of your life” Ina May Gaskin Designer Pregnancy and birth is a multi-faceted time in a woman’s life. Whatever the journey, there are for sure […]
Is Chair Yoga just a Gimmick?
Yoga has an undeniable transformative effect on physical, mental, and emotional well-being. However, the image often associated with yoga – flexible, toned individuals bending and stretching on a mat – can be a deterrent for many who could benefit from its practice. Enter Chair Yoga, a practice that challenges preconceived notions and makes yoga accessible […]
Sleep | Wellness Series
Yoga for Sleep More than 71 % of people across the country do not get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night, which can have a severe impact on physical and mental wellbeing. As a wellness coach, I see many clients who report not being able to get to sleep or get […]
Stress | Wellness Series
Yoga for Stress The word stress often has negative connotations to it. However, in truth, stress is a double-edged sword. Too much stress can be unhealthy, but we need some stress to create a healthy level of motivation and a push to resolve inevitable challenges and issues that are essential to our growth. Stress can […]
Burnout | Wellness Series
Yoga for Burnout What is burnout? It is a term we often refer to, particularly interchangeably with stress, but what does it actually mean? As a wellbeing coach working with adults and young people, burnout often presents in a plethora of ways with one common factor – exhaustion. Recently the World Health Organisation classified burnout […]
Anxiety | Wellness Series
Yoga for Anxiety As a wellness coach, one of the most common features I see in people with anxiety is an overwhelming incapacity to cope with day-to-day life. Daily tasks that were once manageable become insurmountable, decision-making becomes almost impossible, and overthinking takes over. Worries about the future increase in frequency and intensity, alongside physical […]
Low Mood | Wellness Series
Yoga for Low Mood Low mood is a common human experience that affects all of us at some points in our lives. The range of low mood can vary from having a low day to a crippling and consistent sense of hopelessness and futility. Unlike Anxiety, where our mind is mainly in the future worrying […]
Top 10 Benefits of Chair Yoga
🪑💫 Top 10 Benefits of Chair Yoga 💫🪑🧘♀️ Increased Accessibility: Chair yoga makes yoga accessible to every body regardless of mobility or physical challenges. Improved Flexibility: Regular chair yoga practice helps improve flexibility and range of motion. Enhanced Strength: You can work on muscle strengthening and core whilst sitting in chair Better Balance: Using the […]
What is yoga nidra?
This November we will be running a 3-day Yoga Nidra Teacher Training course with international teachers Melanie Cooper and Jennie Wadsten. In the article below, Melanie defines the rich and ancient practice of Yoga Nidra and how it allows us to access different states of consciousness. Like Yoga itself, Yoga Nidra is a process and a state. You […]
Yoga nidra & the art of relaxation
The inability to rest and sleep is a common disorder of our modern day age and many of us feel that we must be switched on and available 24/7. We spend more and more time concentrating on the many channels of digital communication on top of everyday pressures, and it can easily be the case […]
Men do yoga
When did you start yoga? About 15 years ago I think. I really should be a lot bendier than I am! What is your profession? “Manager”. So I spend most of my time either at a desk in front of a screen or in a conference room. Age bracket? I’m 56. Deal with it. What is your favourite […]
What is the brains most important job?
What is the brain’s most important job? Thinking? Feeling. Making us feel happy or sad, In fact it’s not any of the jobs you may associate with the brain. The brain’s most important job is running a budget for your body. Every thought we have, every action we take, every move we make is ultimately […]
How yoga saved my life
I have been suffering from various mental illnesses (Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder) since my teenage years but in 2017, I reached crisis point. I found myself in the deepest, darkest pit of existence and was plagued with self-hatred. I had stopped getting out of bed, showering and eating. I couldn’t leave the house […]
Yoga in 2021 and beyond…
Yoga as a practise is on the rise – there is no doubt about that. In 2016 a Yoga Journal report found that people practising yoga in the US had gone from 20.4 million in 2012 to 36.7 million in 2016. Imagine what the numbers are now! In the UK, yoga was one of the […]
How to support your home restore (yin) classes
In these strange times of imposed isolation, an accessible yoga practice can help ground the body and calm the mind. The Restore classes at the Shala often encompass poses from several styles that range from the prop-heavy Restorative Yoga style to the traditionally prop-free Yin Yoga. Over the few weeks I have been teaching online, […]
Practice while you can
This is a mantra I’ve repeated hundreds of thousands of times over the years when I was too hungover, depressed, heartbroken, anxious, sad or just couldn’t be arsed to get to the yoga studio. It’s also what I’ve told many people I’ve taught. Not just the able-bodied ones, but especially the less able, older people, […]
Yoga nidra as a journey through the brain waves
Yoga Nidra as a journey through the brain waves by Melanie Cooper . Like yoga itself, Yoga Nidra is both a process and state. It is a set of techniques to help people get into the state of consciousness between waking and sleeping. Yoga Nidra literally means “Yogic Sleep”, but it’s not really about sleeping, it’s […]
The beginners journey
Yoga is such a rich tradition that in many ways we all remain beginners. Those with the most advanced yoga practice may well not be the ones who can even touch their toes. Yoga is about how we live our lives and not just the shapes that we make on our mat. It is much […]
Maintain a healthy back with bodyrolling
Bring peace, space, and strength to your body and acquire a deep relationship to your self. Your back is beautiful… The spine gives us form and function. Energy flows through our spine. When the spine is healthy, upright and free our vital energy brings us to our mental and physical optimum. In fact every cell […]
How can the breath help with so many conditions?
How can the breath help with so many conditions? Last week we received this query by email….it’s a great question…why would there be so many different ways of breathing! Well the simple answer is that the breath is involved in every condition. If you think about it for a second, oxygen is the primary need […]
Breathwork for cancer
Inspired by The Shala’s Breath for Life series, a pilot study at St James Hospital, Leeds took place monitoring the benefits of simple yoga and breathing techniques for people post surgery for lung cancer. The patients specifically wanted to learn tools/techniques to improve breathing, control emotions, manage panic attacks and improve fitness and flexibility. The […]
My body rolling journey
In 1998 I was completely immersed in Ashtanga Vinyasa third series. Life was pretty much eating, sleeping and lots and lots of intense Yoga. The postures didn’t come easy for me and at times it was pure willpower to get on the mat. I was pushing the limits with my body. My body ached right […]
The gift of mindfulness
‘The precious gift of Mindfulness; like putting on a shade of brightness and clarity, mindfulness works in its simplicity. Years ago, I remember being in Moscow on a prestigious acting course and the teacher asking us pupils: “When are we truly happy?”. There was a lot of silence and thinking, followed by talking about what […]
Open your voice, open your heart
Mantras are a powerful tool to calm the mind, reduce incessant thinking, and create focus and empowerment in our lives. They work on the principle of sound vibrations affecting our subtle, spiritual and physical bodies in a specific way. Mantras originate not only from India but also from cultures and traditions all around the world. […]
Harness the energy of the full moon
By Amy Bisazza The first full moon of the year in Cancer offers us an opportunity to create a strong foundation for the direction we wish to move in during 2017. The new and full moon have long been recognised and celebrated as auspicious times of the month in Yogic, Buddhist, farming and gardening traditions. Every […]
The incredible health benefits of turmeric
Turmeric is anti-inflammatory, anti-depressant, antiseptic, immune boosting, digestive, shown to help reduce tumours, risk of Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart attack, stroke and may even assist in weight loss and managing diabetes. That’s some list. Try adding 1/2 tsp of turmeric powder to your daily vegetable juice or smoothie or add to soups and curries for colour […]
What can mindfulness do for you?
by Susie Ball Mindfulness seems to be having its moment right now. Everyone from Ruby Wax, to Google, to the UK parliament is singing its praises. Is mindfulness a fad, or can it bring sustainable and meaningful benefits to our lives? For me, mindfulness is far from a flash in the pan – it’s a way […]
On the ball
When someone gives you a ball, the first thing that comes into your mind is to drop kick it, or head it into a goal – it certainly isn’t to spend a Sunday afternoon rolling your body around it. “Breath into the ball” Nichi says pushing my hip down as the ball meets a deep […]
Yamuna body rolling
By Nichi Green The moment I started body rolling I loved it. Instantly my body felt more relaxed, more balanced. I felt better alignment in my joints. I felt my weight differently in my feet. My legs felt more alive and more toned. It was like the best massage I’d ever had but I was […]
The body – by norman blair
Titles can be tricky, especially in this society of speed, sound-bites and stimulants. Other options included ‘What happened in the summer holidays’ and ‘My appendix, the NHS, sangha and sustainability’. It began on the first Saturday of August. A busy day with many commitments. In the afternoon I was feeling a bit unwell – nothing […]
Sri lanka yoga retreat
We may have taken a break from running retreats this year but our next retreat offering should (hopefully) make up for the gap year! This March we will be returning to our all-time favourite retreat venue – Ulpotha, a sustainable eco-village/retreat centre in the heart of Sri Lanka, which has laid claim to being “the best […]
Springtime practices
By Mimi Kuo-Deemer Ahhh, springtime. This is an expansive, strong yang time of year, where we can begin to experience a significant, energetic shift. After the quiet, cold winter months, everything is starting to transform and expand: trees are budding, flowers are blooming, the days are growing longer and (a bit) warmer. Soon, Nature will reveal a magnificent […]