Welcome to Chandananda Yoga
My name is Michelle Chand, and I have been studying and practicing yoga for nearly twenty years.
So what is yoga?
Yoga is a system that uses breath work and body movement to calm mental turbulence so that we can discover the peace that lies deep within ourselves. Many people come to yoga primarily to keep their bodies fit, lean, functional and free from pain, and are pleasantly surprised to find the benefits extend into the psycho-emotional realm, often manifesting as better sleep, lower stress levels and a feeling of inner calm. The good news is, you do not have to be fit, thin, flexible, young, vegetarian, or particularly clean living to benefit from a yoga practice. So if that has demolished most of your excuses….read on….
My aim is to teach authentic accessible yoga to people of all abilities, and to work with challenges such as illness and injury, both physical and emotional, in a creative, inclusive and empowering way.
I teach Hatha yoga, a very broad umbrella term for the kind of yoga most commonly practiced in the West. I base my teaching on the philosophical texts that underpin yoga, primarily Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads and the HathaYoga Pradipika. I teach several different levels of yoga class from very gentle suitable for anyone including absolute beginners and those people who may have specific injuries or illnesses, up to intermediate, suitable for those practitioners with at least two years experience of yoga. Within these classes I incorporate the alignment principles of Iyengar yoga, draw the strength and heat of the Ashtanga discipline, the fun and drama of vinyasa flow, the wisdom and simplicity of Viniyoga, and the replenishing power of restorative yoga, all strung together like colourful garlands on the thread of the breath.
So what would I call the kind of yoga I teach?
Chandananda Yoga.
My surname, Chand, means ‘moon’ in Sanskrit, (one of the languages used in the ancient yoga texts) and the word ananda means ‘happy’ or ‘bliss’. I confess to having chosen the name primarily because I liked the way it rolled out of my mouth, though its not the easiest email address in the world…..
A little bit about me…
I feel very fortunate that my passion is also my career. I took my Foundation course with Julia Wheatley in London, and completed my British Wheel of Yoga accredited Teaching Diploma at The Life Centre in London, (now called Yoga Campus) in 2007. My training is also recognised by the Yoga Alliance and the Register of Exercise Professionals. I am First Aid trained and fully insured. Before I became a yoga teacher I had gravitated towards the caring professions, having worked as a nurse ( first with animals and then with people) and as a manager of a residential home for elderly people.
Yoga has been a constant force in my life through many transitions and changes, and I have found through my own personal experience the transformational power of this ancient discipline. I have used my yoga practice to help me to meet life’s challenges if not always with equanimity then with more patience and acceptance than I had access to before. I have practiced through the heady free days of my twenties, the changes that came with pregnancy and motherhood, adapted my practice around injury and illness, found refuge in my yoga through bereavement, depression and stress, and have entered my 40’s with a renewed optimism for life and a sense of joy in each day.
Always learning always growing
My education is ongoing. I believe that to be an effective teacher, you also need to be a student, always learning, always growing. There is a huge wealth of revered texts underpinning yoga, and whilst I think it is important to honour the knowledge of the ancient sages, it is also necessary to keep the mind open to new ideas. Many of the yoga postures that we use today are fairly recent inventions (in the ancient texts almost all the poses described are seated postures for meditation) and I feel they need to be scrutinised from the perspective of a modern understanding of the anatomy of the human body. You will find in my classes that many of the ‘traditional’ postures have been adapted to make them fit our bodies more closely and to minimise the risk of injury.
I attend regular In Service Training Days with the British Wheel of Yoga, and study with my own teacher, Catriona Brokenshire in London. I have had many teachers over the years and am grateful to those who have shared their knowledge with me. I have completed two intensive periods of education, one on ‘Yoga Therapy’ with Aadil Palkhivala from Washington, and another on Restorative Yoga with Judith Hanson Lasater from California.
During my studies I have had the good fortune to be taught by Cathy Stanton, Ruth Gilmore, Paul Fox, Bill Wood, Bob and Be Insley, Zoe Knott, Antonia Boyle, David Sye, Liz Lark, Jane Farrimond, Graham Burns, Isabelle Glover, Sasha Markovic, Sarah Litton, Louise Grime, Khati Ghoupil, Anna Blackmore, Gary Carter , Francis Lumley, John Stirk and Lesley Dike. I am particularly interested in the therapeutic applications of yoga: physical, mental and emotional, and hope in the future to continue my studies in this area.
Strength and flexibility
Not having come to yoga from a dance or gymnastics background, I know what it feels like to have a body that is not naturally elastic. I am also very keen to promote the strength element of yoga as there is perhaps too much emphasis on flexibility. People who are naturally flexible are drawn to yoga, and can often ‘achieve’ postures with ease. Many yoga teachers and students come from a dance background, which has a very different approach to the human body, and this I feel contributes to the feeling amongst those who are naturally stiff that perhaps yoga is not for them. How often do I hear people say “I would love to try yoga but I am just not flexible enough”? Pretty much every day. Dance is a performance art which demands great strength and discipline from the practitioner, in order to achieve certain lines and shapes with grace and apparent ease. When I watch dancers at work, I am full of awe. But yoga is not a performance art. It is an internal private practice helping us to travel inwards, to release tension and stress from the body and to find peace. The ‘achievement’ of difficult poses is not the aim of yoga though sadly this is often lost sight of. The chances are if you have ever seen any publicity materials regarding yoga it will show a slim fit (and usually caucasian…) woman doing a complex pose that is out of the reach of most mere mortals even after many many years dedicated practice. My hope is, in my classes, people will find the path to the journey inside, and strike a balance between strength and flexibility. If you are flexible, in all probability you need to work more towards strength, and if you are stiff, more towards flexibility balanced by strength. There is a lovely story of how The Buddha came to find what he called ‘The Middle Way’ which illustrates this need for balance between strength and flexibility beautifully. The story goes that the Buddha overhead a fisherman teaching a young child how to play the lute. “When the strings are just right - not too loose and not too tight – only then can you start to make music.” Unperturbed by my body’s natural tendency to stiffness and general creakiness, I have continued with a diligent practice, and watched my body become more responsive, flexible and strong, ‘tuning those strings’, as it were….
The real power of yoga has manifested in me as a respite from stress, anxiety and depression, and a feeling of having become more resilient to the ups and downs of life. I smile more now, that’s for sure…..
Yoga is for every body.
