In collaboration with Nourish, Theo Wildcroft is looking for a small group of yoga teachers to join her on a yearlong, once a month journey into collaborative practice together. Each month’s practice will be accompanied by a resource or two, chosen to help us explore a theme together. We will meet up on Zoom where Theo will lead us through a gently-led, shared practice of invitations and suggestions to guide our collaborative exploration. After the practice, we will have time to talk and share.

Themes will include:

Rooting, resilience and rising together;
Pushing edges, finding centres;
Balance in movement and stillness;
and Journeys and travelling.
This offer is open to any yoga or movement teacher. We are looking for a small but committed group who miss the community of moving together without moving in unison. Sessions will feel gentle, contemplative, relaxed and physically accessible.

The year begins in January 2021, and spaces are very limited.

Thursdays 9:30 – 11:00am GMT, via zoom

4 February 2021
4 March 2021
1 April 2021
6 May 2021
3 June 2021
1 July 2021
5 August 2021 - no session
2 September 2021
7 October 2021
4 November 2021
2 December 2021
6 January 2022
3 March 2022

Community Price: £139
Standard Price: £169
Supporter Price: £199

WHAT TO EXPECT
In this class, we share practices that are empowering, grounding and gleeful with you, creating space for you to thrive and flourish. We can begin to see this practice as a vital movement which enables space, community and time to acknowledge your experiences, cultivating a deep awareness of yourself and your body.

Despite approximately 80% of yoga practitioners in the UK being female, contemporary yoga is largely built upon a foundation and understanding of anatomy and alignment for men, by men. This isn’t to say that we should leave behind our dynamic, strength & heat building practices. Instead, perhaps there is the opportunity to explore a complement that is more grounded in experiences of women and woman-aligned, appropriate for all stages and cycles of life.

In general, this is a slower, softer class, which combines meditation, pranayama (breath practices), yoga postures and gentle somatic movement to help you attune to your body, cultivating ease and space.

WHO THIS CLASS IS FOR
This class is for you if you identify as a woman or woman-aligned (this is intended to be language which includes trans women, genderqueer people and femmes), it is fully-accessible if you a pregnant or postpartum, are menstruating or experiencing endometriosis. This class does not include prone (front-lying) or supine (back-lying) positions.

WHAT YOU NEED
A yoga mat (maybe, a carpeted floor is also probably fine!), a strap/belt/scarf, a blanket, a yoga bolster or a large cushion, and a block are all nice to have, plus anything else you like to have for your yoga practise.

HOW MUCH
Single class – £8
5 Class Pass (Community Price) – £35
5 Class Pass (Standard Price) – £40
5 Class Pass (Supporter Price) – £45

20 November - 18 December 2021
Saturday Mornings, 10am-1pm

Pranayama & Voice

Curious about pranayama but not sure where to start? Perhaps you’ve found approaches to the breath and voice in contemporary yoga (and beyond) to be exclusionary, constricting, or triggering?

Join Harriet and Simran for a course dedicated to facilitating your journey of discovery into your breath, your voice, and pranayama, grounded in Nourish’s joyful, inclusive and person-centred approach.

Harriet says, “I’ve found that building my relationship to my breath has enabled me to deepen my relationship not only to my body and mind, but also my voice. My capacity to feel at home in my breath has opened up space to be more at home in my voice, words, and body.”

Over 5 weeks, we’ll build our appreciation and understanding in key aspects, including: the historical and social context of breath practices; the anatomy of breath; ensuring an inclusive approach to the breath; common pranayama practices; how to develop your personal approach to the breath; and building confidence with our voices.

Just as yoga posture (asanas) will be expressed uniquely by each individual body, so too do we have the opportunity to uncover our personal expression of pranayama, one that is sensitive to our needs, responsive to our lives, and supportive of our hearts, bodies and minds.


Course Outline

1. Welcome, Introduction: In our first session, we’ll lay a foundation by unpacking what we might know or feel about pranayama already. We’ll explore the historical contexts of pranayama within the history of yoga, and introduce the importance of critical approaches to practicing pranayama. Pranayama inquiry: natural breath.

2. Anatomy of Breath: Immersing ourselves in the fabric of the breath, we’ll uncover the anatomy of the lungs and explore respiration. We’ll consider how breath is individual (just like our bodies), and begin to look at how to incorporate sensitivity around trauma and other common experiences linked to the breath into our understanding. Pranayama inquiry: three-part breath.

3. Finding Your Breath: In this session, we turn our attention to the foundations of sculpting your own pranayama practice. We’ll consider how we encounter pranayama within our existing yoga practices, and how we might establish a base to inquire into our breath in a more focussed way. Pranayama inquiry: ujjayi & propping for pranayama.

4. Exploring Your Breath: As we build familiarity with our breath, we can begin to explore a little further, drawing attention to the ways in which our breath might affect our bodies, hearts, thoughts. We’ll consider the relationship between pranayama and meditation, and how we might relate to this is a soft and gentle way. Pranayama inquiry: nadi shodana.

5. Nourishing Your Voice: In our final week, we turn our attention to another expression of breath: our voice. Exploring strategies and practices for building confidence and ease in and through with our voice, we’ll also honour common obstacles and challenges around speaking authentically and feeling heard. Pranayama inquiry: bhramari.

Each session includes approximately 30 minutes of movement and 30 minutes of pranayama inquiry, combined with lecture, discussion, and work in pairs/small groups. Each week we’ll explore a specific pranayama practice. If you are taking this course as part of Nourish’s 300 hour program, you will be asked to submit a small piece of written work in order to receive your certificate.


Who is this course for?
This course is suitable for anyone interested in deepening their knowledge and understanding of breath and pranayama, or looking to build their relationship to and confidence with their voice. We welcome interested students, teacher trainees, and yoga teachers, and those with an interest in inclusive, safe, exploratory approaches to breathwork.

This module is offered as part of Nourish’s 300 hour teacher training, but can be taken by any teacher wishing to improve their skills in this area as Continuing Professional Development (CPD). The module will run as five weekly sessions of three hours, and combine theory, practice and skills development.

Nourish Yoga Training's 300 hour Advanced Teacher Training is registered with Yoga Alliance (International), and is completed as a series of standalone modules which can be taken over 3 years. There are limited spaces available. If you are taking this course as CPD or part of our 300 hours, you are able to miss one session and a recorded session can be provided for the missed module only at no further cost.


Course Materials
You will be provided with notes & resources for each session.


Pricing
We believe in the importance and value of this training, and would like to offer a scaled pricing system, which enables attendees to pay which tier feels most appropriate for them. Please note there are NO further discounts available (i.e. no student discounts, etc).

Community price £139
Standard price £169
Supporter price £199

About the facilitators
Harriet McAtee is the founder and lead trainer of Nourish Yoga Training. Movement, yoga, and our minds have always fascinated her. From a young age, Harriet has nearly always been involved in some form of dance, martial art, gymnastics or sport. She found yoga as a thirteen year-old and it firmly secured its place in her heart. Harriet’s teaching emphasises empowering students to embrace and nourish their bodies and minds, with a focus on embodied movement, cultivating intuition and fun. She relishes the opportunity to make practice matter in everyday life through social justice & making yoga accessible and inclusive. Harriet is currently registered with Yoga Alliance (E-RYT® 500, YACEP®).

Simran (they/them) is a yoga teacher, organiser, poet and theatremaker. They've been recognised internationally for their education work on race, queerness, colonialism and radical community building in yoga, and are currently the secretary of the newly formed Yoga Teachers' Union UK, a branch of the grassroots-focused Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain. They're also the founding director of Coriander Theatre, the UK's first theatre company made entirely of queer people of colour, and, since graduating from Oxford, live in Hackney where they work for a local anti-poverty charity.