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Ruth Polden
Ruth -For me Yoga is about celebrating our humanness & getting to know ourselves better.
I am interested in how our practice can nurture self enquiry & how we can take our practice to a more useful level in our quest for self acceptance.My teaching is inspired by the work of Vanda Scaravelli, & is based on 3 principles; breathing, gravity, (our connection to the earth) & the releasing & unravelling of the spine. Understanding the use of gravity makes use of muscles “necessary” for each posture/asana & allows us to peel away the unnecessary layers of “stuff” we walk around with. We discover the beauty, elegance & effortless quality of integrated movement. Our practice becomes more honest, happy & more about who we are.
After many years of working as a professional dancer, I went to my first yoga class when I was pregnant with my daughter 19 years ago & fell in love! I trained as an Active Birth Teacher & have worked for many years accompanying women & their families through pregnancy, birth & after birth. I studied yoga & trained with Sandra Sabatini, who has been my inspiration. Currently I hold classes for adults, teenagers , mothers & babies & mothers with toddlers. I continue to develop my approach to yoga with my teacher Peter Blackaby.
Vanda Scaravelli was a talented pianist living in the Tuscan hills. She was introduced to yoga when her friend Krishnamurti, the philosopher and the violinist Yehudi Menhuin invited T. Krishnamacharya from India to teach them yoga at her summer-house in Switzerland. Krishnamacharya did not travel so he sent two of his students B K S Iyengar and Desikachar in his place. Vanda, who was in her mid forties received daily private lessons and found through yoga practice, “a different life begins and the body expresses a happiness never felt before.” She continued to study with Iyengar and Desikachar for many years. She is pictured in Light on Yoga demonstrating Paschimottanasana (seated forward bend) with Iyengar balancing in Mayurasana (peacock pose), on her back. (wearing a striped two-piece bathing suit - a hint at her attitude to convention!)
From her training in the anatomical precision of Iyengar Yoga and the emphasis on breath and ease in Desikachar’s Viniyoga, Vanda developed her own distinctive way of working with breath and gravity to free the spine. She noticed that by following the natural journey of the breath the more her spine released, producing an honest, beautiful and graceful movement. The less she tried to “do” the asanas (postures) and gave up the wanting of a “perfect” posture the more effortless the posture became. She believed that poses required “undoing”, having no goal; going with the body, rather than pushing or telling the body what to do in a linear fashion – which causes the movement to become fragmented. She believed that learning yoga required “infinite time and no ambition” and that the teaching of yoga could not be organised into a “method”. She transmitted hands-on to individual students what she had discovered in her own body, the way that yoga has been taught for centuries. Vanda chose to work in particular with 4 special students, one of whom, Sandra Sabatini has been my teacher and inspiration for the past 15 years.
So what is this way of working and how is it so different from other approaches to yoga? To me it is about finding a wholeness of movement, which is profoundly relaxing & healing. It requires a different kind of hard work. Undoing tension is an intense process. Letting go of old patterns of holding and effort requires attention. A way of working with the body that is beautiful, respectful & intelligent. “Relaxation” in Vanda’s vocabulary does not mean collapsing. Undoing is not passive but alert and attentive. As tension is released, joints become free and new deep muscles awaken. As we clear some of the old debris away, a new vitality comes into the body. Our practice becomes one of integrity and discovery, about getting to know ourselves better and less about creating shapes, fragmenting movement and disconnecting from who we are.
I am very excited to be teaching at Akasha and invite all of you who are curious, to come and explore this way of working.
Vanda Scaravelli’s yoga is relevant to all; beginners starting out on their yoga journey and those interested in deepening their understanding of yoga and its practical relationship to their life.