Gentle Morning Practice

Source Täo Porchon-Lynch, 98, the world’s oldest yoga teacher.

Just come back from my "gentle morning practice" yoga class. It's held in a local yoga studio, taught by Richard, a builder turned yogi. He set up the class for a group of older women from Wigston, a neighbouring small town, after they had visited the studio for a talk.

It's an hour on Friday mornings, at nine o' clock, and very relaxed. Pretty much everyone in the class knows each other and even newcomers, like me, are brought into the fold and involved in the conversation.

The core of the class are from Women Today, the group from Wigston, ostensibly over 50 but many of them are in their seventies. The group has another physical activity class on Tuesday mornings, a craft group and a knitting group on alternate Mondays and Thursday ("a lot of talking gets done", said one of the organisers).

The group paid for a member to train as a walk leader, and there are regular walks each week of varying lengths. Marion, the Social Secretary, arranges visits and outings and the group is currently fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support since one of their members is recovering from breast cancer. Several members are running the Race for Life for cancer research.

The class is quite gentle and relaxing. I feel about six inches taller after an hour and, gentle though it is, some of it is quite demanding. I know from when I have attended regularly before that I can see rapid improvements in my balance and co-ordination and strength after only a few weekly sessions.

The older women are very good, possibly because they have been practising for several years, but I include even myself in that, erratic attendee that I have been. It seems the younger women who need more support to develop their skill.

The studio is lovely, calm, quiet, warm, with showers and changing rooms. Richard is gentle, kind, patient, funny and enjoys having a little banter with his class. This morning, he enjoyed teasing the class by saying he'd had seventeen positive reviews the last time he'd posted a picture of the class practising the happy baby pose.

Source Happy baby pose. It's very relaxing.

After the class, everyone is invited to go for coffee at Waitrose and today, when we get there, there are other friends and members from Women Today. Five tables were brought together to fit everyone around. Waitrose was a revelation to me: filled with women chatting and laughing together.

I love the inclusiveness of this group of women: always friendly, always welcoming. Very aware and supportive, many of them have already been there, done it and moved to the next stage of their life. I wonder about their partners and families. Apart from mentions of "mum", I don't hear about other family members.

Among the women I met today are more knitters, and there was a lot of talk about wool shops in the Lake District. It appears there are fifteen between Lancaster and Carlisle, probably more than in the rest of the country put together (a slight exaggeration, but not much). One woman had bought £30 of wool with birthday money, oh, that's okay, not real money, said another.

Source Andrea from Loopy Wool shop in Ulverston

Source Hand spun and hand dyed wool at the Wool Clip in Caldbeck, right up in the north of the Lake District National Park.

There were also keen gardeners in the group with much discussion of the Open Day at Groby Road Allotments. I've been past those allotments countless times, without realising they were there. They're close to the city centre, bordering one of the older post-industrial areas of Leicester and near the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal as they pass through Leicester.

I haven't found any breadbakers yet. Perhaps next week.