Hatha Yoga › Women's Health › All Levels

Vanessa Michielon

A wonderful class for Prenatal back pain, suitable for all trimesters. This class can also suit most of us for most stages in life! Back pain and back stiffness is common during pregnancy, but also for all of us who live sedentary, modern lives. This class is the perfect antidote! Embrace gentle movements like thread the needle pose, open twists, oyramid pose and Happy Baby, which promote spinal flexibility and tension relief. The practice gracefully closes with heart-opening poses like Camel Pose and Bridge, leaving you feeling rejuvenated and empowered to navigate the physical changes of pregnancy with ease. Suggested props: 2 bricks. If practicing pregnant please contact your healthcare provider to check the suitability of this class.

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Vanessa Michielon

Our hips can suffer if we live a sedentary life, if we drive a lot, or we're athletic. This gentle, all-levels hip-opening slow flow is perfect for a prenatal practice (in any trimester), or for any of us with hips! This beautiful class gently mobilises and opens the hips and strengthens the lower body with wide legged forward bend, goddess pose and poses to open, strengthen and stabilise the hips, wonderful for pregnancy and for all of us. Suggested props: 2 bricks. If practicing pregnant please contact your healthcare provider to check the suitability of this class.

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Vanessa Michielon

Embrace a peaceful, slowed down hatha class practice of breathwork and gentle seated hatha yoga to release muscular tension and flood your body with feel good hormones. Through Golden Thread Breathing, you are invited to slow down your exhalation, fostering a deep sense of relaxation. A sequence of seated and floor-based stretches targeting the neck, shoulders, back, pelvic floor and hips will then help you relieve muscular discomfort and feel more centred and relaxed. Suggested props: 2 bricks and 1 strap. Perfect for pregnant bodies in all trimesters, and all of us who have busy lives and would benefit from soothing the nervous system with stretching. If practicing pregnant please contact your healthcare provider to check the suitability of this class.

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Gabriella Espinosa

This gentle, all-levels hatha yoga class works with forward bends and pranayama (breath work) to cool the body and calm the busy mind. A perfect class to take as a middle of the day work-break, if the day is feeling overwhelming, or to gently calm at the end of the day. Gentle stretching is a wonderful way to destress and enhance feelings of safety in the body. Stretching triggers a host of physiological reactions including increased blood flow and oxygen to the muscles, hydrating surrounding connective tissue, releasing feel good chemicals such as endorphins and activating the parasympathetic nervous system - the rest and digest mode. Props needed: yoga mat, chair, blanket

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Gabriella Espinosa

Connect to your body, gain more confidence with your body. In this class we work with the power of affirmations, breathwork and a gentle slow flow vinyasa yoga to learn to appreciate all the amazing things our bodies can do. Our bodies go through a lot of change during our lives and especially during menopause - so much so that you feel your body has let us down or betrayed. Yoga teaches us that our bodies are “sukrta” or well-made just the way they are. You might need a Journal, pen, yoga mat and bolster/cushion

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Petra Coveney

Low oestrogen affects ability to produce the hormones that make us feel happy and calm, and causes low brain energy that affect our mental focus, memory and make us feel overwhelm. Join Petra for this simple class to calm anxiety and overwhelm. It includes gentle movement to improve vagal nerve tone, Ocean breath with sound to soothe your nervous system, a restorative Supported Child’s pose with the option to ‘retreat from the world,’ and two breathing and meditation practices: Mind Meets The Breath and Ladder Breath.

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Petra Coveney

Oestrogen is an anti-inflammatory, so your perimenopausal symptoms can include sore joints and muscle stiffness, especially around the hips, shoulders, wrists and ankles. Join Petra for this simple morning class with somatic movement to help you limber up, lubricate joints and set a positive intention for your day ahead. You can even practice this class in bed.

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Vanessa Michielon

Embrace a peaceful, slowed down hatha class practice of breathwork and gentle seated hatha yoga to release muscular tension and flood your body with feel good hormones. Through Golden Thread Breathing, you are invited to slow down your exhalation, fostering a deep sense of relaxation. A sequence of seated and floor-based stretches targeting the neck, shoulders, back, pelvic floor and hips will then help you relieve muscular discomfort and feel more centred and relaxed. Suggested props: 2 bricks and 1 strap. Perfect for pregnant bodies in all trimesters, and all of us who have busy lives and would benefit from soothing the nervous system with stretching. If practicing pregnant please contact your healthcare provider to check the suitability of this class.

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Petra Coveney

Hot flashes are not just physical sensations of heat - they start in your brain. Low oestrogen can make your internal temperature gauge over-sensitive to small changes causing either hot flashes or cold chills. These symptoms can also be triggered by stressful thoughts, and if you feel embarrassed by your hot flash, this stressful feeling can make the flashes hotter and last longer. Join Petra for this class to both cool your body and calm your mind. She shows you two simple cooling breath techniques and subtle versions you can practice in public. This is followed by her Hot Flash Wave guided visualisation, Ocean breath and a restorative supported reclined cobbler pose to release heat and relax.

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Gabriella Espinosa

This yoga class uses simple practices to resource and reset the nervous system using breath, sound, gentle movement and massage to stimulate the vagus nerve and encourage deep relaxation. Either follow the class in full or learn the practices which resonate with you to be done in your own time. The vagus nerve acts as a “super information highway” communicating between the brain and our body’s systems regulating our mood, digestion, heart rate and hormones. The vagus nerve balances our nervous system by switching on our parasympathetic 'rest and digest' mode and influences how we connect and feel safe with others. You will need a bolster, blanket, tennis ball and/or soft pilates ball. Gabriella uses a Yoga Tune Up Coregeous Ball.

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Gabriella Espinosa

A steadily paced hatha yoga class focusing on balance as one of the key pillars of bone strength. This class is great for everybody, but is especially important for women to help protect against osteoporosis. This yoga class establishes a steady foundation through the pelvis, hands and feet to help feel more connected to the body and the surrounding world. Developing balance and stability helps build agility, equilibrium and mental focus. It also helps improve proprioception - your relationship with space and the environment around you and how you move within it. You will need 2 cork bricks, a blanket, two tennis balls and a chair (optional).

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Petra Coveney

A soothing and calming yoga class to cool hot flushes and help you surrender to the natural process of change associated with the perimenopause and menopause. Expect hip opening stretches and simple somatic movements through the spine which lead to a restorative yoga practice, followed by a deep relaxation, a guided meditation and a mantra. This class is taught wholly on the floor and is very gentle and grounding. It is designed to help you befriend your body with kindness and self-compassion at a time when your body is transforming and can feel out of your control. You will need a yoga mat, a strap or belt, 1 bolster and 2 cushions (or household equivalents), and 2 blocks (or thick books). NB - Modifications: take extra care with hip and knee injuries. Osteoporosis: avoid flexion rounding your back in forward folds; keep your spine straight. Trauma: please note that hip opening poses and stretches across the chest can release tension but may also trigger trauma. Follow your own breathing pace, pause the practice when needed and find a comfortable resting pose.

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Petra Coveney

A gently strengthening yoga class to re-energise and empower by building strong bones. This dynamic hatha yoga class with poses that are held for 10 rounds of breath helps build bone mineral density and muscle mass, and raise the heart rate. This class has been designed to help prevent osteoporosis (weakened bones), sarcopenia (muscle loss) and cardiovascular disease, which can develop post-menopause. Expect a range of simple heart-lifting backbends to energise, breath work, a restorative yoga pose, relaxation practice and seated meditation. You will need a strap or belt, 2 bolsters, a cushion, a blanket, and 2 blocks. NB - Osteoporosis: avoid flexion rounding your back in forward folds; keep your spine straight. If you have previously experienced panic attacks, avoid holding your breath and instead follow your own breathing pace.

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Petra Coveney

This is a brief yoga tutorial of some of the ways you can use a chair to modify your yoga practice if you have osteopenia (weakened bones) which can affect women as they go through the menopause. If you have osteoporosis, you must always consult your GP before practising yoga, and ask your osteopath or physiotherapist which range of movement is suitable for your body.

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Gabriella Espinosa

This yoga class brings awareness to the pelvic floor and lower body through breath, gentle movement and deep relaxation. Starting with a long relaxation, we then bring gentle movement to the body, practicing yoga poses to bring tone and range of movement to the pelvic floor. Class ends with a guided lower body relaxation. Pelvic Floor health is essential as we transition into Perimenopause and Menopause. As our levels of oestrogen begin to fluctuate, this can have an effect on the tone and elasticity of the pelvic floor. Increased levels of stress and anxiety during this time can also lead to hypertonic or overactive pelvic floor muscles caused from too much tension or tightening of the pelvic floor. Pelvic floor muscles can also be weak or hypotonic meaning the muscles are not providing enough support for the bowels, bladder, and uterus. You will need a bolster, blankets, two cork bricks (if you have them, or books), a belt, sandbag or weights (optional).

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Sally Parkes

Feel energised and reinvigorated with this simple but well-rounded yoga class of mostly standing postures. After a gentle warm-up, expect a simple series of grounding, standing postures to bring strength and energy to the whole body. The class is specifically sequenced to re-energise women, but everyone can benefit. The movements work with the spirals of the female form so the body is encouraged to feel at ease. This sequence of flowing and predominantly standing Hatha Yoga postures is linked with thoughtful transitions and breath work, to help release such tensions and manifest our full awareness of our physical and energetic being.

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Gabriella Espinosa

This heart-centred gentle yoga class is designed to help you connect to your heart's desire, to your inner wisdom and to feel more love for oneself and one another. It includes opening to self love through embodied enquiry, gentle stretching and movement, finishing with yin postures and a guided visualisation to connect deeply to your heart’s desire and its expression in the world.

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Sally Parkes

A gentle yoga class of floor based movements for when we're low on energy and needing a gentle boost. Keeping low to the ground, and with few poses which use wrists, this yoga class uses gravity to unwind the spine, open the chest and shoulder area, helping our heart centred energy to flow more freely. A perfect class if you're suffering from PMT or you're on your period. Many of our day to day movement patterns can create a rigidness to the spine and rib cage that negatively affects our respiration and levels of tension throughout the chest, shoulder and neck area. But by moving in a flowing and ‘softer’ way, working with gravity as opposed to against it, we can begin to release these areas of tightness to become more free in our body. This sequence of predominantly floor based Hatha Yoga asana will work to unravel the upper body, especially the chest area, to create increased synchronicity between the upper skeletal system, breath and ultimately the heart space. You may need a block and bolster.

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