Today was Simon Borg Olivier‘s first time teaching at the BYC. These Maltese/Australian yoga teacher has developed a very personal practice that is strong and energetic as well as fluid and safe.
Today’s practice was about moving the spine in all the possible directions. During the first hour of the session we went through each movement with so much detail, following his instructions and understanding the ways in which we use the spine in every yoga posture – for example how parivrita parsvakonasana could be reduced as a side bending, forward bending twist. He kept repeating how important it is to always move from the navel first, then the shoulders, and then the rest of the limbs. We all could feel the heat in the body starting to raise with those apparently very simple movements that resembled some form of martial arts.After the most technical part of the session he put on some music, went up the little stage and we just started moving together without using words. Too many words are often used in yoga classes, too much mind involved. From that moment we were just breath and movement. At some point he set us free to play and explore with the movements we just learned and the whole room turned into a spiral experiment.
Simon is genuinely funny, sweet and tremendously energetic. After the practice we all gathered together and he shared his words of wisdom about how he feels one should feel after a yoga practice – warm but not heart beating fast, energized and not hungry. Yoga should feed us.
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