Yoga outdoors in nature

I love to practice yoga outdoors best of all as I’m a real nature lover. Whenever the weather slightly cheers up, I take myself outdoors to practice.

Mostly when I practice outdoors I don’t use a mat, which is interesting because in yoga, we’ll hear that oft-used cue, to ‘ground’ ourselves, a reminder to keep centred, keep earthed.

When we’re in an urban studio this is something which often doesn’t come easily. To remind ourselves that we are nature, we are earth, all of our nutrition, sustenance is from the earth, and the earth is our home.

It’s strange in the modern world what a distance we can be from that feeling. We use shoes, we stamp on concrete all day.

But when outdoors, grounding is just what we do. It’s natural to take off our shoes, to feel the cool, damp grass between the toes. Feel the breeze gently blowing on my skin.

I love to practice to my favourite teachers when outdoors with Movement for Modern Life, and I feel so overjoyed when a teacher cues me to ‘turn to look at the ceiling’ and instead I look at the bright blue sky, the beautiful yellow sun, I hear the birds sing, sometimes I see the birds nesting.