Notley Yoga

The Notley Yoga Centre is a Centre for Yoga, Health and Wellness at Slamseys Barn, Great Notley. We offer Yoga, Pilates and Meditation Classes, as well as Gong and Sound Bath, Drum circles and lots of workshops to help deepen your practise.

Slamseys Barn is a wonderful setting for the Yoga Centre, an ideal place to come and let go of any troubles and nourish your whole being, and only minutes from Great Notley Garden Village, Great Leighs and surrounding villages. Whether you are looking for some peaceful Meditation and Yoga to help you unwind and relax or a more challenging Yoga or Pilates class to help with your running/cycling/sport, we hope that Notley Yoga Centre will be able to help you.

I believe Yoga is for everyone, Yoga means ‘unity’ or ‘yoke’ and practising Yoga is a means of balancing and harmonising Body, Mind and Spirit.

Hatha Yoga is a system of postures and breath for the whole body – the postures (asana) are used as a physical practise to correct alignment, strengthen muscles, spine and core, increase flexibility and release anxiety and stress. We learn to synchronise the body and breath, thereby bringing balance to both body and mind.

Breathing techniques (pranayama) or breath extension can help reduce stress and HBP, it can induce the parasympathetic nervous system or the relaxation response, again preparing us the meditation. Some pranayama exercises can be used to help stimulate and energise us.

Relaxation/meditation is key to Yoga, it is Yoga! and once we have practised asana and pranayama we are physically ready to practise meditation.

In our daily lives we have to contend with constant stimulation – computers, TV, people etc – the intellectual mind rarely has time to be be still, even when we are sleeping them mind is still active, dreaming….We can use meditation to try and still the ‘Monkey Mind’. It can be difficult in the beginning as the mind is constantly chattering and thinking, so we work gently and patiently and in time we will reap the benefits.

Yoga is a very personal practise, even though we work together in a group; each individual works to their own ability and take each posture to their level of comfort. Everyone is reminded that Yoga is not a competition and you certainly do not have to be flexible to start, you can be any shape or size!

I believe we can all benefit from Yoga, whether physically, mentally. spiritually or hopefully all of these……..

Om Shanti