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POP UP YOGA Luxembourg

Pop Up Yoga Luxembourg is a platform for accessible and affordable workshops on yoga and meditation. It is never too late to start practicing yoga!

25/10/2020

our work should equip
the next generation of women
to outdo us in every field
this is the legacy we'll leave behind

progress - by Rupi Kaur
What if our legacy is to leave our young sisters and young daughters with complete knowledge of their menstrual cycle? It's 2020 and there still are not enough spaces where women can talk openly about what they go through every month.
🌺wildanger and I are teaming up to co-teach a women's pelvic floor and hormonal health workshop on November 22. Expect a deep dive into how to develop a healthy, positive relationship to your menstrual cycle. Learn how to navigate the different phases of your cycle and make life choices based on what best suits you. The menstrual cycle is not a dark tunnel that you need to stumble your way around: there are crystal clear markers of health, balance and wellbeing that you can use to better manage your schedule, anticipate your stress, reach your goals, unleash your creativity... the list goes on. This is body literacy.
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If this is tickling your fancy and you want to learn more, check my blog article (link in bio). FYI the in-person workshop will have limited participation to respect COVID measures. Stay tuned on this channel, registration opens soon.
📸by

30/09/2020

"If a woman's uterus is out of balance, so is she." - Don Elijio Panti, Guatemala -born Belizean Mayan Shaman
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You are worthy of a healthy relationship with your menstrual cycle. You are worthy of body literacy. You are worthy of daily self-care, a checking in with yourself in a way that has nothing to do with the occasional trip to the beauty salon. You are worthy of all the information in the world to help you navigate your cycle.
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What would you say if you did not have to suffer through a painful period? - Bring it.
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What would you say if fertility was not just about getting pregnant but a marker of your overall health? - For real?
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What would you say if we reframed the menstrual cycle as a delicate dance between two pivotal moments: ovulation and menstruation? - It's not a dance, it hurts like s**t.
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What would you say, knowing what you know now, if you were 14 and a doctor said debilitating period pain is normal? - It's not.
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What would you do with all the information in the world on the powerhouse that is your cycle? - Share it with my sisters.
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This is one of those topics that cannot be addressed in one post. For now, start by looking at how you honour your monthly bleed. What are your rituals? What changes do you notice in your body, your mind and your heart? What is your relationship with your bleed? Is she shunned or is she welcomed? Your bleed is nothing short of magical. Treat her like the queen that she is.
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Stay tuned for more on how to get a handle on your cycle, your bleeds and your hormones.

24/09/2020

Real talk: expecting mamas G.L.O.W. ✨
I am excited to share that as of this Saturday, I am offering prenatal classes in📍Luxembourg City to support women in the various stages of pregnancy. As pregnancy progresses, the body starts to prepare for labour in different ways. We, too, prepare for labour by tuning into breath and practicing pregnancy-adapted breathing exercises. We create space for playful movement and above all, deep rest and relaxation.
There are so many wonderful ways that you can support an expecting mother, prenatal yoga being but one. If you have a new mama around you, ask her how you can be of service.
Link in bio for the prenatal class schedule 👀

20/09/2020

What is specific about hormonal health in men? Today's post is about the prevalence of three male hormones: testosterone, growth hormone and cortisol. Before we go into any more detail, make a note of this: the foundation for optimised hormonal health is the quality of sleep you are getting. If you don't sleep well for a two week period, you can decrease your testosterone levels by up to 15%. Consistent, high quality sleep also reduces cortisol levels and boosts growth hormone production 💤
Your diet is just as important. Consistently overeating high-sugar foods (yes, that includes carbohydrates) can cause spikes in insulin, which negatively impacts both testosterone and growth hormone. The production of these two hormones drops with age and can affect body composition in a number of ways. Both testosterone and growth hormone help you get in shape by gaining more muscle, losing more fat and improving recovery after workouts 🏃
Next is cortisol, often referred to as the stress hormone. Do you work long hours? Do you work in a high-stress environment? Are there elements of your private life that are stressful? We all have stress in life, personal and professional: the key is to learn how to manage it. Cortisol is produced by the body to react quickly to immediate danger - it is not designed to be sustained over time. The quicker you invest your time in learning tools to better manage your stress, the better. Get cracking!
📷 by

05/09/2020

I've been NEXT LEVEL inspired these past few weeks with a private client who is in her mid 50s and is super keen to find her handstand again. When she was younger, she used to walk on her hands (casual) and it appears to me that her body definitely remembers what it's like to be upside down 👯

If you are wanting to practice your handstand, bear with me as you flick through the photos and notice where functional training meets yoga. In the first photo, you'll see the classical yoga approach to kick up against a wall. Some people might not have the shoulder strength to do this, so if that's you keep flicking and read as you flick 👇

2️⃣ Come into downward facing dog and walk your feet as close to your hands as possible. Hold for 3 breaths on tiptoes and walk back out. Repeat 5x.

3️⃣ + 4️⃣ Lay on the floor so your heels touch the wall behind you. Lift your upper body and bend your knees to walk your feet up the wall.
(1) Walk your hands back toward the wall. Hold for 5 breaths and walk hands forward and feet down the wall to rest. Repeat 3 times and feel comfortable/confident before attempting the next progression.
(2) Repeat and walk your feet up the wall as high as possible, hands walk in to the wall as close as possible. Hold for 5 breaths and walk the feet down the wall to rest.

5️⃣ + 6️⃣ This technique is called a wall climb, used in Crossfit to teach handstands. Walking the hands in toward the wall is an excellent way to build the shoulder strength you need for a successful handstand. Only your toes should be touching the wall, not the knees. Remember to exit before you get too tired because coming down is harder than it looks.
Your turn. Watch youtube videos on wall climbs if you need more clarification and go practice!

03/09/2020

Someone from my past taught me the most valuable lesson about : we all have it. Now more than ever, the pandemic has shown that we are all at risk. At any given point, you too can suffer from stress, unprocessed trauma and/or grief, addiction, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, depression... No one is exempt from mental health.
There are no universal standards on how to deal with someone in a mental health crisis. How do you show up for someone in need of mental health support? If you notice someone close to you is suffering, here are a few things you can do: 💭
- focus on your breathing & stay calm
- refrain from making a diagnosis
- accept that you cannot not solve the situation for them
- hold space and listen
- ask them to describe sensory things around them: touch, taste, smell, sound, sight
- call for professional help if the situation requires / encourage them to seek help
Today's post is a mental health check-in. How is your mental health? What do you notice in your own mental health journey. What can you observe in your own thought patterns? How do your thoughts and/or your emotions affect your physical body? Have you had anxiety recently? Can you correlate anxiety with any stressful factors in your life? What causes you to feel stress?
And then ask yourself, what it is that you do to stay mentally and emotionally balanced. What does self-care mean to you? Are there toxic situations that you can remove yourself from? Do you check-in with loved ones? How does showing up for others make you feel? Is someone checking in on you? How do you ask for help? Is it easy/hard to ask for help?
Once you've checked in with yourself, check in with a loved one 💛

02/09/2020

Welcome September 🍃 The content here will be shifting monthly, in which there will be one focus a month for us to dive a little deeper into each topic. This month is about hormonal health: what are hormones? Why are they important?
Hormones are crucial to the way the body communicates with itself and controls its activities. They are produced by the endocrine glands and in various other organs, tissues and cells all over the body. Hormones are secreted directly into the blood stream & travel EVERYWHERE: every bodily system is at least in part regulated by hormones. The endocrine system doesn't do all of the communicating and controlling by itself: it is helped by the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord & nerves). These systems run their wires all over the body.
A very interesting aspect of endocrinology is the strong relationship between hormones, neurotransmitters & emotions. The purely mechanical view that still prevails in medicine today sees emotions as being caused by chemicals (that can be true in some cases). The more holistic view sees the interaction of thought, feeling and chemical expression as being a two-way street: our thoughts are continually affecting our chemistry and chemistry continually affects our thoughts.
For more reading on how the chemical expression of our thoughts & emotions affect our thinking and feeling, please see:
📚Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine' by Deepak Chopra
📚 Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel by Candace Pert
📚 The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles by Bruce H. Lipton
Extracts from 'How the Body Works: an Integrative Guide to the Human Body' by Pip Waller

30/08/2020

I want to share a completely amateur set of photos (unrelated to yoga) pertaining to the new skill I learnt during the lockdown: sourdough breadmaking. I challenged myself to making my own starter and the artisan craft of homemade bread. The starter was a metaphor for my recovery from my health scare: slow and steady. It took a full 4 weeks before the bacteria were strong enough to make my bread rise. The first 4 loaves were flat as a pancake. The next 4 slightly taller (and by slight I mean maybe 3-5 cm at most) until after a full 6 weeks of trial and error, I started honing out delicious loves of bread. I felt great purpose in delivering bread to my neighbours and loved ones, as I was off work and found myself with lots of time 🚚
I've spent the last decade afraid of gluten and running away in fear from all types of bread, and only recently was I able to discover a wholesome, healthy mix of rye, spelt and buckwheat flours that work for me. And now I have turned into an obnoxious bread snob; I'll take homemade bread over bakery bread any day of the week. I've discovered that sourdough bread in moderation works for me - white bread from commercial bakeries does not. 🍞
Sourdough breadmaking was a lesson in patience. I got into a routine and rose at 5 a.m. to give my loaves a second rise before baking and delivering them in time for my neighbours' breakfast, hot from the oven. While I know that you're supposed to let it cool before slicing, but who doesn't love a warm loaf of bread? And just when I thought I had learnt all there was from my sourdough journey, my starter didn't survive the most recent heat wave and went mouldy. Today I am back to square one. What a great metaphor for life and its only constant being change.
What skills did you learn/refine during confinement? Please share below 👇

27/08/2020

NOURISH YOURSELF WITH THE DELICATE GIFT OF REST ✨
I often get asked by clients, "How long should I rest before my next movement practice?" There is no short answer to this question. The long answer is that *** it depends *** on your movement discipline and your intention. Is your goal to build or maintain strength? Is your intention to increase or maintain endurance, agility, flexibility, mobility, power, bone mineral density? Is it to optimise overall health and well-being? Do you want to increase your performance in a specific sport?
When we allow our body's tissues to rest, they get a chance to adapt to the imposed stress of movement and become stronger. There is no universal formula for how much rest you should take because it depends on the type of stress that you are applying and which tissues are targeted: you can determine your own rest period through trial and error by paying close attention to the differences you observe. Rest and recovery are multifaceted and look different for everyone (although adequate sleep is the foundation of it all): cold water exposure, sauna/steam, walking, massage, myofascial release, compression, hormone balancing, nervous system repair, mental health, hydration and balanced nutrition to name but a few.
When it comes to yoga, ask yourself if you are working at the edge of your abilities and range of motion: this might require a few days worth of rest depending on your experience level. If you are working intensely at increasing range of motion, resist the temptation to go all the way to the edge and hold a softer version of a pose for longer. If you remember one thing about this post it should be this: in yin yoga, time is more important than intensity. Holding a post for longer in a less intense version is more beneficial to your tissues than holding an intense version for a shorter period of time.
Excerpts from 's article on rest: find the full article on yinyoga.com.
📷 by .junck

25/08/2020

Hello friends 👋 I am finally back online for the calm after the COVID-19 storm 💨 The last few months have involved a lot of retreating into myself to cope with what was going on around me, and more specifically in terms of my own personal health scare. It took a long time to get to a place where I could stand in confidence and lead yoga again, and I am happy to say I am back stronger than ever.
More information about upcoming yoga classes coming soon. For now, keep calm & practice yoga 🙌
📷 by .junck

28/03/2020

If someone were to give you a pen and paper right this second and say “Write!” what would you write about?

Some people can write on command, others need a prompt to get them going. Writing and journaling can be made into a regular habit, something that can help you sort through the beautiful chaos that is your mind. You can be the person who loves making lists, the person who writes handwritten letters instead of emails, or the person who likes to put tags on everything so that your jars are labelled correctly. But you can also be the person who hardly touches pen and paper anymore. The person whose lifestyle is so digitalised that writing thoughts down on paper seems daunting and a bit weird.

I invite you to try the following prompt by Nayyirah Waheed:

The thing you are most
afraid to write.

write that.
- advice to young writers

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https://sarahketema.com/blog

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WHO WE ARE & WHAT WE DO

Pop Up Yoga Luxembourg builds community around yoga as a lifestyle by offering pop-up classes and workshops in Luxembourg. The project is committed to keep yoga affordable and accessible, from the complete beginner to the more seasoned practitioner and everything in between. It is never too late to start practicing yoga.

Currently not popping up anywhere due to COVID-19. Stay tuned for updates.