Acro & Yoga with Jesse

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Acro & Yoga with Jesse

Yoga, Acro, Handstands, 5Ts, Shiva Nata...
Movement & breath work...
Come play....

25/03/2024

This Saturday at with me and , .bubble

Come ,

11am-1pm Saturday 30th March
Bookings through On The Limit

27/03/2023

I got to see my dad today, before he flies back to New Zealand. He's a well travelled man but talks about how this might be the last time he makes this big trip. Throat feels kinda lumpy knowing that I wont see him again in the flesh for a good long while. Sienna feels too young to travel so far as well as the other mountains to climb to make such a trip. But it will happen one day, and we are blessed in this day of technology that the channels of communication are still open.

I'm really luck to have great family who I really genuinely love, even if some of them are flung far and wide!

A rare photo of this hermit species was captured! Hopefully he wont hate me too much for sharing it with the world.

24/03/2023

Its nice when you discover a little something that justifies all the hard work and commitment you are giving to your life and work!

Interestingly though, my own body feels like it is seizing up as I discover this beautiful quote.

Still, humbling as that can be, it's an opportunity to put everything I do to the test and see that it works!

Freedom of movement is so important though. Having the strength to support our movement is just as important as the flexibility though.

13/03/2023

This never normally happens, but I had been marginally late for my early morning classes 3 consecutive times, so it was a good start to the day and the week to get there and ready for the start! And while driving in I happily got reminded just how Ace I am! ;)

I am then working one to one with a client who hurt her back weight lifting.

I am in the process of trying to work out what is my specialisation, who is my client type, where can I make the biggest difference in people's lives?

Working through injury is definitely up there as this was my own journey into the healing world.

This woman is very capable, strong and able. There are some movements that are very painful for her. There are some simple things she can do fine but hasn't done for a good while, mainly because a physio has told her never do this.

can be so crippling. She'd actually had several physio's all tell her different things to do and not do.

We worked on , to learn to trust (again) her already very strong body awareness, and some simple lifting kettlebell on the feet exercises that I often cover in my classes, where the back is well supported so we can focus on awakening the legs.

I think that athletes need a different kind of medicine to your average joe. By athlete I mean anyone who really enjoys their physicality. The body is made to move. These people need to told yes you can, but maybe do these things with caution, with extra awareness.

, seemed to be the what came out of this session, that if you cannot keep the movement smooth then maybe the weight is a bit heavy. Working on simplicity, slowing things down so that we can increase our awareness.

Have you/are you working through some injury or difficulty?

.net

10/03/2023

How do I know if I am doing the posture right?

There are many ways to work a posture. Is it in balance? Is it grounded? does it hurt? where is it reaching? Are you able to breathe in it? How long can you stay there?

These are a few questions you could ask to go deeper within your practice and I'd like to take this opportunity to look at some of these elements over the coming weeks....

So lets start today with IS IT IN BALANCE?
Balance is such a great teacher. Balance is not a static, it is constantly moving and adjusting. When balance is highly trained it may look static from the outside but if you look closely you will see the little micromovements that are keeping someone in a state of balance. Balance is as much about presence in the moment and state of mind as it is about physical structure.

A beautiful thing to do within your practice (if you are already feeling stable in the moment) is to close your eyes and see how much more of the micro movements you feel. This additionally takes you inside, which is where the real yoga happens.

Another thing I love about balance is that there is no teaching it. you can set up the general basis of things to look for, but when it actually comes to balancing, but the time I can tell you that its falling over that way and you need to do this, then for you to process that and to even think about actioning anything it is too late. So it is something that the Doer needs to do and learn and master for themself.

Because balance is so instantaneous, milliseconds count massively for experiential learning. So if you are able to stay for seconds, or even minutes then you are going really deep. The key here is to be working a balance that is challenging to you.

If its easy make it a bit harder!

I love balance and always try and offer some balance possibilities within my classes. If you like my approach and would like to find ways you can improve your balance, please reach out to see how we can work together.

08/03/2023

Happy

There are some wonderful characters who show up in class sometimes. Elaine is an elder Chinese lady with a strong kyphosis who turned up in my yoga class a few months back. I have 2 classes back to back, the first a slower class and the 2nd a more dynamic moving flowing affair. She turned up to the 2nd!

So I introduced myself and tell her, tell her that she is welcome, that the class is likely to be challenging for her but just to do what she can and that in the future to come to the earlier class.

I slowed the class a lot for her, the fit young'ns just needed to do some longer holds, everyone is working hard and happy.

Since then she has been a regular in the earlier class. She was telling me that before she started coming to my class she was scared to leave the house in case someone knocked her off balance. That she would take the stairs one by one. That now she can walk up and down stairs like normal and she has the confidence to go out independently. She looks forward to her class where she struggles, but learns a bit, and then she goes away and she practices what she's learned.

So here's to you Elaine for being an amazing international woman. I look forward to having your hard working energy in class. Its wonderful to see you standing taller and living more confidently.

If you are or know someone who struggles with balance confidence and is not afraid of a little hard work, feel free to reach out.

06/03/2023

As we start another week, I'm seeing how consistency is key.

I managed to encourage one student to do just a little bit of daily shiva nata practice last week. 2 mins a day, and she had massive breakthroughs in her confidence by the end of the week.

I recently (re)discovered on my hospital on record, that I had an inflamed hip when I was a kid. I remember it being really painful, that I stayed in hospital a few days, basically with my leg hooked up to a weight hanging off the end of the bed. It let my leg straighten and some excess fluid drain away. After which I was fine again. I was possibly about 10 years old.

It makes me wonder if a lot of the imbalance within my body is actually from something older than my broken leg, or at least the 2 things together.

In my own practice I am reaping the benefit of regular work on my lotus. Its a positive spiral where my less comfortable side is opening up, which means I can now manage a half lotus while settling and feeding my beautiful baby. She acts as a weight encouraging my knee to drop and the bonus is that its super comfortable for her, allowing me to hold her close but still with a little distance which seems to help her settle. The more comfortable it gets for me the more I do it!

I have a gentle goal to be able to fold my legs into lotus while in a handstand.

I do know people who have pushed too hard with their lotus and actually done harm to their knees. I would stress that this is a slow burn posture to master if you don't have the flexibility already. While you may well have to stretch the knees a bit to get a comfortable lotus, it is mostly the hips that you want to stretch. The hips are full of ligaments and tendons, connective tissue that opens best through yin practices of long holds and deep breathing.

What are the things you keep coming back to within your life/practice?

p.s. If you have old traumas that you would like to work through, you are welcome to drop into my online classes to see my teaching style or go even deeper with me one-one.

01/03/2023

Mothers are amazing. I am very lucky to be blessed with a very special one who has given me so much over the years.

While I am pretty sure that there is almost nothing I could do to really get into her bad books, I do feel just that extra bit happy that I can give something back to my . Although in truth she's been doing all the hard work here!

Thanks for the unconditional love, and for all the hard work turning up regularly to move, stretch and being an amazing member of my little online community.

Little reminder that in the UK it's on Sun 19th March.
How do you honour/remember/celebrate your special lifegiver?

27/02/2023

Its the start of a new week, and an opportunity to reset my focus and restart my practice. While I do a lot of yoga, I really value the time after my Monday morning classes where the studio is free and I am able to sit for a while. I invite the students to stay, some do, many need to rush off.

A theme I often come back to is foundations. As I sit, with the right awareness it is possible to notice the body opening, the skin, the soft tissues gently melting down towards the floor, and eventually the spine begins to grow up through the middle in a kind of effortless way like a bud growing up to find the light.

One teacher, Jonathan Monks who's had a profound effect on my Practice, once sat me on the side of the massage couch leaned me over to the most crooked position and said 'there, you're straight now'

He had aligned my sit-bones to the massage couch. Many years on and I am finding that this is a great and healing way to let that spine bud grow.

Too often, I like to do the fancy looking movements but the really healing work comes through building a solid foundation.

Is that something that aligns with you? I'd be interested to know.

This will likely be an underlying theme running through my classes this week.

06/06/2022

Come train your Handstands and inversions.
Live in person class 6pm @ nevaeh.fitness
Or virtual from 7.30pm @ JesseSaunders.net

Booking essential!
🙃🤸🙃

19/04/2022

So this was not perfect enough for her insta, but it is for mine! Super happy to be able to offer some guidance to Bennie over the last few years. She is an amazing student, so committed and able.

The 5 Tibetans are actually a very manageable practice for anyone, but this is an expression that is unique to Bennie. I love how she makes it spinal, fluid, breath-full and connects them in sequence 🙌🙏👌

At the start of COVID lockdowns, Jesse introduced me to the 5 Tibetans: a daily practice of 5 movements each repeated 21 times. A lovely practice that awakens, loosens and strengthens the body. We have worked on a continuous version of the 5T, linking the 5 movements into one. This continuous flow is all about breath (1 per movement) and spinal movement. I’m still exploring how to move smoothly, continuously & breathfully and discover something new about it for myself each time I practice it. An endless exploration of the spine and breath!

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Aspiring to fluid & effortless movement

The brains primary purpose is to facilitate movement. If it is the movement of oxygen into and out of the lungs, blood around the body, food through the digestive tract, articulation of specific joints, moving the body from A-B, painting a picture, transferring information or experience from one person to another...

The different possible expressions of movement are limitless.

With practice we can improve and refine our chosen means. The following video gives an example of the type of movement that I aspire to and what you will be working towards if you choose to study or practice with me.

https://youtu.be/xLfRImuNpUA?t=15s