I am grateful to have found Nivedita’s Satyananda style yoga classes. I started Nivedita’s classes in my 70th year, as a beginner, doing one Restorative class per week. Since then I have learnt to engage in daily practice and to join as many classes per week as I can. I have joined workshops and retreats as much as possible too, and I understand a whole new vocabulary – of movement (asana), breathing (pranayama), relaxation (yoga nidra), meditation and chanting (mantra).
In class Nivedita is calm, gently humorous, and authoritative. Her approach is straightforward, careful and disciplined. She reminds us continuously to listen to our bodies and to never push ourselves past the point of a satisfying stretch (each at our own level). She always offers alternatives for those who might need them and encourages her students to reduce the number of repetitions whenever we feel the need. At the same time she encourages us to extend ourselves as much as possible. This kind of complexity takes a really good teacher! Classes are available at different levels, but all the classes have the same mix of extending without pushing.
A small community of like-minded practitioners has formed around Nivedita’s classes and I have got to know people. I think we all feel the mutual support and recognition as we work towards shared goals. I have a real sense of “tribe” after several years of learning and practising together, sometimes in person and sometimes on zoom. Now that we have zoom classes we can work with people around the country and occasionally overseas when time zones permit.
Nivedita teaches us to carefully observe our body’s responses, to count our breath, to take the rhythms of mantra into our other practices and to quieten the insistent voice of the mind by focusing it on these other jobs. Gradually we are taught some simple meditation practices but we may find that we are meditating already from these other disciplines. I have had measurable physical outcomes from Nivedita’s gradual holistic approach. One thing is that I have achieved a statistically significant increase in bone density. I have also recovered from injury and illness with a calm, focussed attitude that owes everything to yoga. I feel a new compassion for my body and my mind, both of which I have learned to treat with kindness, patience and respect.
Thank you Nivedita 🙏