Another very gentle self practice as part of my recent 30 Days of Yoga Fat Positive Course
This session is about 30 minutes long
Relaxation and mantras
Pre-warm-up, warm-up
1x adapted sun salutation
Inverted leg stretches
Bolster supported leg and hip lift (supported inversion)
Wide leg forward bend
Triangle
Relaxation
I recently ran a 30 Day Fat Positive yoga course. The theme was ‘returning to yoga after a long break and finding our way back into a regular practice together’. About 5 or 6 students signed up for the Fat Positive course but nearly all chose to practice using the recorded sessions in their own time. This meant some mornings I turned up at 8:00 a.m. when the live class was scheduled and it was just me on my todd and zoom
If you know my teaching style I prefer to sit and guide, to be able to see my students practicing so I can share tips, and guidance and help to make sure we are practicing safely. But there are other reasons I don’t demonstrate poses as well. One is, as I talked about in my previous post, I have fibromyalgia. Some days I am flattened by fatigue and pain. I teach a few classes each day and demonstrating in all is beyond me physically. Secondly and also pretty relevant I absolutely loathe being in front of the camera. Ironic I know for someone who runs an online yoga studio. I’ve had fluctuating body weight since I was a child going from fat to thin to fat again over and over again. In childhood we called it tubbiness, or chubbiness, as I got older I got curvy, today I am happier saying fat. It is what it is. I am not free from the overwhelming social pressure to hide my fat body. In fact even in these appearances on MY OWN WEBSITE in front of my own beloved students I’m still wracked with self consciousness!
However I am becoming very aware that this societal message we receive that some bodies are good, and beautiful and healthy and these are the bodies that should be seen and represented, and others are bad, and unhealthy and should not be seen, is some kind of grand deception that leaves so many of us struggling to simply exist in, never mind enjoy our own bodies….
I use the word POSITIVE alongside FAT in my own Fat Positive Yoga offerings not because I think we are all skipping around and loving our fat bodies (albeit that honestly is my goal and I am in awe and love so much folks who are out there showing their fat bodies and loving them) but because it is an attitude I would love to establish within myself and promote in whatever I bring to society. I also love the juxtaposition of the words FAT and POSITIVE because it is so contrary to how we tend to use the word fat publicly usually it is either a forbidden word or an insult.
I am by no means free of the pressure of anti fatness but I am determined to break free… For me it is very much a work in progress…
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