Dru Yoga was first taught in the West by a small group of people at Bangor University, North Wales, UK from the late 1970s onwards. Mansukh Patel, John Jones, Rita Goswami, Annie Jones and Chris Barrington were trained in Dru Yoga by Mansukh’s parents. They had participated in Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha campaigns in India. Mansukh and his family emigrated to the UK in the 1960’s from Kenya.

Dru Yoga has become popular in Australia over the past 10 years or so. We talked to Andrew Wells who is one of the most eminent teachers of Dru Yoga here in Australia. He conducts Dru Yoga teacher training all over the world. He has taken Dru Yoga into war zones and it has brought amazing benefits to severely traumatised people.

Listen to the interview here:

Dru Yoga is accessible to all body types, the body is used to transform the mind and the emotions. It doesn’t matter how “fit” you are. In case you can’t perform certain postures, you can visualise doing them, feel the energy flow they would create and you will still get a lot of the benefits.

According to Andrew your own body is a much better tool to transform your unconscious mind than your conscious mind. Yes, you read that right – your body is the tool transform negative emotions into positive ones – anxiety into confidence, anger into empowerment and hatred into love, just to name a few.

The ultimate goal of any yoga practice is to achieve a physical and mental state that allows you to meditate with ease. A stiff, painful body and any emotions that cause “turbulences” in your mind will stop you from meditating effectively. Those turbulences need to be cleared.

Dru Yoga is a soft form of yoga with flowing movements and many different sequences. To find out more, have a look here:

www.dru.com.au

www.druworldwide.com

www.druyogaonlinestudio.com

Till next time

Connie

Your Yoga Partner

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com

With the recent bushfires and the terrible damage and trauma they have inflicted on so many people I want to do my little bit to help children and adults to deal with it.

I am giving you a link to a beautiful ritual which was designed by Petrea King. If you haven’t heard about Petrea and her amazing work, have a look at her website after you download the Rainbow Ritual. Go to:

http://www.questforlife.com.au/

Click on the “Services” link on Petrea’s page (on top of the page, just under the lotus flower) and in the drop down box you will find a link to “Rainbow Ritual”. From there  download the free PDF file and save it to your computer - it is really beautiful.

Children who have been traumatised need lots of reassurance and patience. They deal with feelings in a different way to us adults. Their feelings are expressed through behaviour. Most children cannot verbalise that they feel upset, angry, distressed or sad – but they certainly show it in their behaviour.

Be patient with your child, give lots of reassurance and help them feel secure by doing a nightly ritual like the rainbow one. It will help children and adults alike.

Yoga also can play a big role in recovering from trauma. According to yogic philosophy trauma stops the proper flow of prana (life energy) and this leads to all sorts of problems. The diaphragm (a very important internal sheet of muscle that stretches across the bottom of the ribcage and helps with breathing) gets contracted or “frozen” and breathing becomes shallow and too fast. Different imbalances arise from there.

The first thing to try and restore in a traumatised person is slow, steady and deep breathing. This will take quite some time but even short bursts of deep breathing will be very helpful. Breath is the main vehicle for getting prana into the body.  When the respiratory system starts to malfunction, the ability of prana to enter, be absorbed and circulated through the body’s energy channels becomes severely compromised. This will lead to all sorts of other problems, so prana flow needs to be restored to the body as quickly as possible to avoid further issues.

One technique would be to inhale through the nose and mentally say to yourself: “I am”. When you are exhaling say to yourself “letting go”. Try it, I sincerely hope that you will benefit from this simple technique.

Till next time

Connie

Your Yoga Partner

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com