Happy Yogi
On the 31st of January, I am running a half-day WRITING THE BODY workshop through the fabulous Queensland Writers Centre, combining my twin passions, yoga and writing.
I have enjoyed a regular daily practice of yoga since 1993, and currently teach professional dancers at a local university. I’ve been doing yoga longer than most of my young students have been alive! It’s certainly the only thing that makes it possible for me to keep up with them, if only for a couple of hours.
However, yoga is much more than a physical discipline. It is the perfect remedy for healing a multitude of woes, working on the emotional and spiritual planes alongside the physical in every pose.
Writing is a sedentary profession. Like most people these days, I spend far too long sitting down in front of a screen. A daily yoga practice helps keep my body pain-free and my mind clear. It also helps to build that discipline which is so necessary for those of us on creative paths –self discipline. Otherwise known as bum glue!
happy writer
In the WRITING THE BODY workshop I lead participants through gentle yoga exercises to help relieve common postural problems writers encounter, such as sore necks, shoulders and lower backs. But more than that, we will discover how to express the sensations of the body through writing and use yogic techniques to go deep within ourselves to unearth the stories held there.
It’s going to be lots of fun. I hope you can join me. Click here for more info and to sign up.
Free mini-massages for every participant!
You can combine my course with another session on journaling which looks wonderful. I guarantee you’ll come away feeling more relaxed than you have in years, with a renewed enthusiasm for writing.
Edwina Shaw 
Sounds like a great workshop, really a perfect mix. I also write, but I find the mix of yoga/meditation and writing a challenge. I have committed to a daily yoga and meditation practice for many, many years ( more than half my life ) and fitting in daily writing leaves little room for the rest of life, the stuff that can’t be put aside, like work ( teaching) , parenting, preparing meals etc. It’s hard to keep two habits! Perhaps this will come, one day, with more practice. I’ve often thought, if I had committed the same amount of time to writing as I have to yoga, I would have finished a dozen novels by now! But for sure my body, mind and soul wouldn’t feel the same. Well, perhaps the soul would…
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. The rest of life is full and busy, especially with small children. When my kids were young, my writing was limited to nap time on the days I wasn’t working, so I learnt early to write fast, think long, and that’s been a very useful skill over my writing life. My house is also not the tidiest! But for me, yoga always comes first! I can go days without writing anything, but a morning without yoga feels very, very wrong. As my children have grown older my writing time has expanded, I hope you will find this too. My house is still messy though. Most days I keep a journal doing three long-hand pages as fast as I can, this is another great habit for learning to write fast. Retreats where you do nothing but yoga and writing are also fabulous. I’ve been doing my own retreats with my best writing buddy for ten years now. Those days are heavenly! Wishing you lots of long luxurious hours for all of your GOOD habits.
Writing 3 long hand pages a day sounds like a very useful habit… inspiring! I often have sentences floating around in my mind, I think I should commit to at the very least writing those down daily and from there seeing where they take me!
Writing down those thoughts is a great start. Have you ever read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way? It’s a wonderful tool for helping you commit to your creative dreams. It also has a lovely spiritual aspect I think you’ll enjoy! Love the look of your classes by the way. Sounds very much like we’re I’m coming from too – a mix of Ashtanga and gentleness. Off to the beach now! xx