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July 2012 £3.00THE GENTLE APPROACH TO A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE

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When did you take your first Yoga class and whatattracted you to keep on practising?AF: I took my first class when I was about 13 or 14.It was a dare from a girl at school. We had nevertalked before and this quiet, soft-spoken teenagerchallenged me to go to a Yoga class, saying “I havesomething you can’t do!’ I took up the gauntlet. Itook the class and something drew me back againand again. To this day I don’t know why this girlapproached me. And that’s how I began the journeyto save my own life.

I took a teacher training in 1975 - aged 18 - inMexico. It was the most intense month of my life,yet gentle and healing at the same time. By the timeI left, my body was clean of drugs and alcohol forthe first time since I could remember. I realisedthat I finally had something to live for.Why did you create Forrest Yoga?AF: I've practised and studied many styles ofYoga all over the world, but some thingsjust didn't feel good in my body. So, Istarted to experiment, change things,figure out what worked, what would healmy own specific injuries and the injuriesand traumas of those who came to mefor help.

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Why is Forrest Yoga so beneficial for healing andpreventing injury?AF: On a physical level, all classes are carefullydesigned and sequenced to warm you up for the moreadvanced poses and warm you down in an intelligentway, with the last section of the class down-regulatingthe nervous system. For example in every class you’llfind abdominal stretches, releasing the neck, deepbreathing, focus and setting the intent. Abdominal

work brings healing and toning to the digestiveorgans, helps the back and encourages the

elimination of old issues, digestive andemotional. Many cultures today are chronically

constipated due to eating foods that thebody cannot digest. The food then sits andcreates a toxic swamp that degrades the

immune system and literally makes ourthinking smoggy and cloudy. Neck

release, deep breathing and focus help tobring stress levels down. Learning to set an

intent and focus on an area of the body thatneeds attention, retrains the brain from its

chronic habit of scattered attention into a steady way of focusing. This benefitseverything you do, particularly any time youneed to complete a project instead ofscrambling around.

Forrest Yoga is designed to give us theskills to heal and become trustworthy toourselves, it’s also a sweaty work-out —getting the endorphins going, which inthemselves are healing. That uplifts ourmood and sparkles up our life. We workwith our touch being as helpful andhealing as possible – it’s a great comfortto students.Thank you very much.

Details from: www.forrestyoga.com.

Ana Forrest

5www.yogaandhealthmag.co.uk