practice is a regularly updated page exploring and highlighting issues about yoga.

The next time you roll out your mat take a moment.......... Stop!........... And ask yourself why you are about to practise..........are their distant voices there.......... mantras of self improvement..........or  perhaps stories of betterment or self censure..........or some vague notions of spiritual evolution?

It would be unusual if these were entirely absent ..........so..........before you step onto the mat pay a little homage to these old friends........then put them down and step on the mat anyway.

When we examine our motivations and inspirations for practising Yoga it is so, so easy to caught up in our own web of tangled narratives, binding ourselves with self tied knots. For every reason we tell ourselves to practise we set up a future obstacle. Every motivation conceals its own sabotage, each mantra contains an anti-mantra.

Agendas of health, fitness, peace, or spirituality are each destined to meet their opposite if we practise for long enough, so...........the next time you roll out your mat..........Stop!!!!!!!!

Step forward because you can.............step on to the mat because you have a breath............step on the mat for the sheer fun of it........... step on the mat because..................well, for no reason actually.

The ancients offered us many notions of the Universe as a play, a game, a magic trick....they called it Lila and Maya and offered us a chance to take part because it would be churlish not to, because we had a precious existence that was conscious of itself and the most obvious thing in the world was to frolic in the sheer wonder and absurdity of it all!

So the next time you roll out your mat.........Stop!.........be audacious.........step forward with the feet of a child..........play in your body of consciousness because it invites you in.............relax, smile and consider the ridiculousness of your plans for yourself and just allow the energy of the moment to take you where its going.........but above all leave behind those stories of not being good enough because they are works of fiction written by your attempts to be something other than you are.........