Living Yoga with Leigh: Recent Episodes
Leigh Khoo
This short full moon visualisation practice is a meditation for cooling oveheatedness in body and mind. It's calming, healing and everything we need, especially when it's hot outside.
Forward bends are not always chill; they can be part of a dynamic, breath-centric practice too, which makes this sequence suitable both for mornings and evenings.
I encourage you to really lean into your breath during this practice — steady inhales and long exhales. It will support you to move into forward folds with more ease and greater control, plus long exhales are perfect for down-regulating our nervous system. Practise this any time you crave some calm but don't feel like a Yin practice. This practice can also be a good prep for practising headstand (sirsasana).
Go easy if you're moving through any lower back tightness (or save this for another day when you feel better in your body). If need be, bend your knees as much as is appropriate. You shouldn't feel any pain at all when practising.
I am guessing most of us have read about the benefits of not hammering away at our laptop, or putting our phone or Kindle away at least 30 minutes before bed. But honestly, I find it hard to be disciplined about that. I end up going to bed feeling empty-handed, and tossing and turning until I succumb to sleep.
I have thus become more intentional about my bedtime routine, to help me bridge the gap between being awake, alive and participating in life; and the quiet realms of sleep. What is working for me these days is a short movement practice that stretches out my back and hips, and encourages deep breathing without the rigour of pranayama. No extra stimulation from electronics + deeper connection to my body. Sounds as good as a mug of warm milk to me. :)
We take the pace down in this slow flow practice, without any guided vinyasas. If you're feeling depleted, high-strung and/or overheated, then you probably don't need the additional movement anyway. We nurture both apana and samana vayu with forward folds and twists — forward folds calm the nervous system, while twists balance hyper/hypo energy. This practice is particular suited to soothe excessive pitta and/or vata dosha.
Towards the end, there is an option to go up into shoulderstand. I would advise against it if you're on your moon cycle, or cannot maintain easeful breathing in the inversion. Better to stay with dynamic bridge with some holds at the top. Remember that it is the tone of your breath that sets the tone of your nervous system, not so much the fancy postures (or not).
This practice is mellow enough for the evening, but equally useful to prepare your nervous system for what you anticipate would be a hectic morning. Consider adding on a short pranayama practice after savasana.
This is a short guided visualisation practice that takes you on a walk through a winter forest – great for a 'cat-nap' escapade on hot afternoons, or to reset your mental space before bed.
The forest trail I describe is in the Himalayan village of Andretta in north India, which I had the good fortune to retreat in a few winters ago before Covid hit. It's right here, in the picture, should you need a little inspiration for your visualisation. :)
This is the audio recording of my birthday charity class! We raised S$1,602.88 for Sinhgad Animal Welfare Charitable Trust in total. Thank you for spending your Sunday morning with me. I hope you enjoy revisiting this practice. :)
This grounding vinyasa practice is all about slowing down and quietening overheated minds and nervous systems. With a focus on our breath (always!), we'll ease our bodies into hip openers, gentle twists and forwards folds, followed by a post-savasana chandra bedhana pranayama practice. (This is a condensed audio recording of a class I taught live on Zoom.)
An almost 90-minute practice that's full on heart! Expect a dynamic, sometimes challenging, vinyasa sequence that leans into the breath to draw attention and space into our hearts. The practice concludes with pranayama, and loving kindness (metta) meditation. (This is the audio recording from a charity class I taught to fundraise for India's Covid relief efforts.)
I was introduced to this take on deep breathing when I attended a lecture on Vedic meditation by Yashoda Devi Ma. I practise this in bed, in place of a nap on sluggish afternoons, as well as on nights when sleep eludes me. I hope this supports you to find some ease and release.
Get up and moving with this compact, 30-minute vinyasa practice. It's perfect for time-strapped mornings, or busy evenings when you yearn to get your energy flowing but don't have a full hour to practise.
I first experienced a variation of this guided relaxation in a women's self-care retreat with my teacher Emily Kuser. This is my take on it, with added inspiration from one of my favourite verses about our back body in Lorin Roche's The Radiance Sutras. Using our felt senses and a little imagination, this short track supports to ease you into a state of weightless relaxation. Perfect for bedtime.
Perfect for uplifting sluggish days, this 50-minute practice combines twists and backbends into a dynamic sequence that will get your blood, sweat and energy flowing.
This 60-minute practice invokes the elements of earth and water. Set within a framework of fluid goddess mandala transitions, the focus on the lower body supports energetic grounding, connecting you to a sense of stable strength.