Connection matters to me

The biggest surprise at the World Yoga Festival wasn’t a trick shape or a new style, it was how powerfully certain teachers affected me. Some classes felt physically familiar, yet the right teacher made them land completely differently. I usually pick dynamic practices in the morning and restorative in the evening, but I loved one teacher’s Friday session so much that I pivoted and did Yin first thing on Saturday to experience her teaching again. It became my favourite session of the weekend. Not because the shapes were new to me, but because of how she offered them and the language she used. I realised that how something is offered can matter more than what we actually do. I tried many styles at the festival, but the sessions that stayed with me weren’t the flashiest or most demanding. They were led by people I connected with. It wasn’t the sequence I remembered so much as the way they made me feel: safe, engaged and curious. They taught with warmth, humour and authenticity, reminding me that yoga can be less about the movement that is offered and more about the teacher–student relationship and the experience we create together.

Less is more

One of my biggest lessons from the World Yoga Festival came from an Iyengar class. We practised only a handful of shapes, holding each one far longer than I’m used to. At the time I remember thinking, “Have we actually done very much?” Yet afterwards my body felt incredible.

That stuck with me. We live in a culture that equates value with volume: more shapes, more intensity, more effort. We want efficient workouts, measurable progress and the quick fix that fits into a packed schedule. Those aims are valid. But the Iyengar lesson was a reminder that efficiency and depth are not opposites.

I noticed that holding the shape for longer gave me these benefits:

• It builds specificity. Staying in a single position let me find subtle alignment cues, notice where I should tension (shoulders & jaw) make small adjustments.

• It fostered a different kind of strength. Endurance in a shape isn’t just muscular, it’s neural. The nervous system learns new patterns, which can reduce injury risk and improve movement economy in sport and daily life.

• It invites presence. Longer holds give the mind space to quiet habitual reactions, bracing, rushing, striving, and replace them with steady attention. That calm focus translates directly to better concentration under pressure.

For the busy person, that might seem impractical and feel uncomfortable and frustrating: who has time to linger for five minutes in a single asana? But the point isn’t to make every practice slow or long. It’s about inserting pockets of depth, a few longer holds within an efficient session, so your body and nervous system have time to respond and adapt.

I’ve weaved this into my practice, slowing down my warm up and including a couple of intentionally long holds at the end, woven into an otherwise dynamic class. The goal is pragmatic: better movement, greater resilience and more lasting results with less frantic effort.

I’m reflecting on this off the mat too. In work and life I default to “more”; more tasks, more meetings, more doing. What if progress sometimes asks for less doing and more noticing? Slowing down doesn’t mean slowing ambition. It means investing time for the body and mind to integrate, recover and perform better when it matters.

If you’re short on time, try this in your next practice: pick two shapes relevant to your priorities (hip opening, shoulder mobility, or a core-stability posture), hold each for 2–5 minutes with gentle attention to breath and alignment, and observe the difference. You might find that less rush actually gives you more space.

Stretch your limits. Live with vitality. Resilience, recovery and results don’t always come from doing more; sometimes they come from giving your body the time to respond.

I went to a yoga festival to slow down….and nearly forgot to!

It’s slightly ironic that I found myself rushing around at a yoga festival. Anyone who knows me knows how I love a timetable. However, with so much variety to choose from, on the first day I found myself dashing from one session to the next, never really stopping to let anything settle.

It wasn’t until I sat in a Kirtan (something I hadn’t planned to attend) that I noticed myself checking the time on my phone, calculating when I needed to leave to secure a spot for the next class. In that moment I realised I’d slipped into my default mode: doing more, filling every gap, as if productivity were the point. And yet what I actually needed was the opposite, a little space to sit quietly and do nothing.

That recognition landed hard. How often do we turn up physically but live mentally somewhere else, already planning the next task, the next meeting, the next training session? The festival simply held up a mirror to a habit I practice all the time.

I’m currently exploring being present in my meditation practice, and this weekend gave me plenty of opportunity to notice when I wasn’t actually present. The useful lesson I’m learning is that presence isn’t about forcing concentration or policing the mind into silence. More often it’s gentler, simply noticing when I’ve drifted, and bringing myself back without being hard on myself.

For busy people and athletes who push for results, this matters. Presence doesn’t cost you time, it restores it. A few minutes of genuine attention can make the next task clearer, movement more efficient, and rest more restorative. The practice is simple and practical. When you catch yourself planning while you’re meant to be resting, pause. Take a breath. Let the next action arrive when it needs to.

Stretching your limits isn’t just about pushing harder, it’s also about learning when to do less, to be still, and to return, again and again, to the present.