Gentle Yoga › Life's Challenges › 30 to 45 mins

Nadia Gilani

Wake up, move and breathe with the MFML community. This is an all-levels Vinyasa class to start the day feeling energised, mobilised, vitalised, and open to the week ahead. This class is full of breath work, movement and relaxation. This is part 2 of a 4-part online series of live classes with Nadia Gilani

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Vanessa Michielon

A beautiful prenatal yoga sequence to open your entire body with a slow and gentle sequence of seated and standing poses promoting mobility and strength, full of mindful variations to adjust your practice to what feels best to you today. Explore movements that help you create space in your pelvic floor and hips, such as Staff Pose, Dragonfly and Lizard Pose, and build safe stability with supported Side Plank and standing balances, such as Half Moon. You will close with a moment of contemplation and connection to your breath and your baby in a peaceful guided meditation. Suggested props: 2 bricks. If practicing pregnant please contact your healthcare provider to check the suitability of this class.

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Sally Parkes

Did you know that to have a strong core, to have a strong and healthy lower back, we need to have healthy, mobile hips as well as a strong pelvic floor and good core muscles? Discover the interconnection of hips and core. This class is excellent for building hip core and lower back strength and mobility for healthy day to day function of the hips and pelvis. Movements will be practiced from standing, box position, side lying and lying supine. Build strength within the gluteal, abdominal, pelvic floor and lower back muscles.This movement class is slightly stronger and more challenging than previous classes, you may need to work with Sally's other hip classes first.

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Sally Parkes

This class is suitable for those who are recovering from hip injury or after hip replacement, after you have had the go-ahead from your healthcare provider (usually around 10 weeks after surgery). This sequence will work through a selection of gentle movements for the hips keeping it simple by using body weight to engage the muscles surrounding the joints of the hips and pelvis. Movements will be small and repetitive to get some flow in the joints. Movements will be seated on a chair, then up to standing, over to the wall and sitting/lying down (supine) followed by a gentle stretch. This class will be considerate of hip and lower back injury making it accessible to all.

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Gabriella Espinosa

Anger and rage are common during menopause. This may surprise to you and those around you. We've been taught to believe that anger is a negative emotion that shouldn't be expressed so we bottle it up until it explodes or mask it and this can cause us internal conflict. In this menopause yoga class we learn to work with anger as a positive force for healing, empowerment and healthy communication. Using the power of breath, sound, somatic enquiry and movement we will give space to our anger and allow it to be felt, moved, and released. The class will take place seated and standing, the first part of the class takes place entirely seated. You can also lie down for this part. The second part has us adopt yoga poses accessible to most bodies. Transform your anger into fierce power!

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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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Vanessa Michielon

Strengthen the upper body, arms and back. Using an elastic band, or a long strap, or tins of beans work just fine too, this class targets your arms and back muscles. You will begin with standing arm exercises, such as biceps curls and triceps work, and explore further upper body focused patterns, including safe modified press-ups on your knees and triceps dips, with variations to suit your energy levels. The practice will help you improve your posture and strengthen your back, so that you can better accommodate the changes your body is going through, and reduce back discomfort and weakness. Suggested prop: long elastic band or tins of beans! If practicing pregnant please contact your healthcare provider to check the suitability of this class.

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Adam Hocke

This yoga class helps to ground and calm an anxious body or mind and bring us back to the present moment. Start with some grounding self-massage, then move gently with simple, repetitive, and breath-led movements to stabilise the nervous system. Additionally, we will pay particular attention to releasing tension in the head, neck, and shoulders to bring about a profound sense of relaxation and ease. This class is perfect after a long day or when we're overwhelmed. You will need a narrow block or a folded blanket and a brick.

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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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Lucy & Ben Parker

Osteoporosis is said to affect over 3 million people in the UK (NHS). This condition (and it’s younger sister osteopenia) affects the density of the bones and so their strength, resilience and support. In this video, Lucy & Ben explain in clear and simple terms what proactive measures can be taken to reduce the risks of developing these conditions. They explore how to work within certain parameters to help should you have a reduced bone density and finally offer a better understanding of opportunities to maintain the health of the bones. Remember, many people only learn of any weakness in their bones when they have suffered a fracture. As we age it’s vitally important that we protect the strength of our bones and respect the role they have in our health and mobility. Prevention really is key here, watch this video to find out how and why! Please note that all advice and recommendations in this film are given generally and do not constitute any form of an individual diagnosis or treatment plan. A consultation with a medical practitioner or registered physical therapist is recommended.

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Lizzie Reumont

Perfect for recovering from illness or injury, or for those seeking more gentle variations to the usual yoga class. This yoga class can be done either standing or in a chair. This class helps to very gently mobilise and create a sense of awareness and balance through the back - the vertebra, ribcage, shoulders and arms and hands as they relate down into the hips, and up through the neck. The slow pace gently brings the spine into flexion, extension, side bending and twisting either in sitting position or through standing. You will need a chair.

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Lizzie Reumont

Perfect for recovering from illness or injury, or for those seeking more gentle variations to the usual yoga class. This yoga class focuses on gentle, smaller movements and exploring the movements of the lower body. Starting with lying on the back, we then move through modified sun salutations. If you want to be able to flow, but your body has more limited mobility, this is a great class for offering variations on common poses. Learn how to lunge safely, how to do chair-supported warrior poses and some gentle chair twists, before closing back at the floor to rest.You will need a chair.

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Adam Hocke

A beautiful all-round vinyasa flow yoga class to help you work with the concept of generosity, ensuring the benefits you receive from yoga are shared off the mat by those who are in need. Expect to physically connect with a feel-good practice for the back of your heart and shoulders, which we will feel as the muscles of embrace. Who do you practise for (beyond yourself)? How can you bring this intention into your embodied practice?

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Joo Teoh

This audio class will focus on three qualities associated with meridians within the body. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the lung meridian represents inspiration, the spleen meridian represents transformation and the liver meridian represents growth. This gentle Qi Gong and yoga inspired sequence is ideal for when you feel a bit stuck and need some encouragement or motivation to cultivate expansion. You may wish to use a chair or a park bench to assist you with some of the movements.

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Adam Hocke

This yoga class is perfect for when we feel anxious, stressed, overwhelmed or just have a busy mind. It is a gentle class for anytime; when you just feel that you need to be kind to yourself, when you are anxious and wired, or when you don't like what you're reading in the news. Come back to the reality of your body and breath with this flow practice. In this sequence we go through familiar and calming patterns of movement and spend time enjoying the internal life of postures through strengthening techniques that bring us more deeply into our bodies and the reality of the present moment. As we start feeling a bit better, we round it off with some self-massage and a powerful compassion meditation.

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Adam Hocke

A slow flow yoga class which is perfect if you are feeling overwhelmed or anxious. Adam's class is incredibly grounding. Move towards feeling stabilised and balance again by re-grounding anxious energy which embodies anxious mind and restless body. Learn to meet any anxiety with kindness by feeling its physical symptoms, not just the stories you may associate with it. We will use to the tools of yoga, including stilling our gaze and heightening our feelings of embodiment, to bring you back and re-ground you in the present moment. You will need a bolster and a block or a folded blanket.

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Nikita Akilapa

In this gentle vinyasa yoga class, the focus is on ahimsa (non violence). In the body, we can work with soft negotiation rather than force or brutality. In the mind, we can be aware of the tone with which we speak to ourselves. Pay attention to what you ask of your body in today's practice; notice when you are forcing it to do something it doesn't want to do / ignoring or overriding body wisdom. Pay attention to the internal dialogue and notice the tone of internal dialogue. Make a note of any recurring thoughts. Finally, write a mantra, something supportive and loving, that you can repeat to yourself (e.g. you are perfect as you are).

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Barbara Gallani

The sequences in this session aim to strengthen the body through micro-movements and mindful leg and arm lifts using the support of the floor throughout. This is a grounding session which will allow you to deeply connect with your body while bringing strength to the muscles weakened by treatment or inactivity. This class is also great for those recovering from any bout of sickness or 'flu as your body gently gets its strength back.

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