Gabriela Gabriela

Presence and Surrender: Listening to the Wisdom of the Body

This month’s theme is presence and surrender—learning to listen to the wisdom of the body. In yoga and traditional medicine, our organs hold emotions: the liver stores anger, the kidneys fear, the heart joy. By practicing presence and body awareness, we can tune in, release, and realign with what truly matters.

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Gabriela Gabriela

Finding Your Dharma: The Energy Shift of Living Your Soul’s Purpose

When you follow your dharma—your soul’s true calling—your energy shifts. Through yoga, healing, and moments of deep alignment, we discover the unique gifts we’re here to share with the world. Living your purpose isn’t about perfection, but about listening to the whispers of your heart and stepping into your light.

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Gabriela Gabriela

Punk Rock Vegan Movie: Yoga, Activism, and the Path of Compassion

In Punk Rock Vegan Movie, Moby explores the deep links between punk rock and the animal rights movement. His documentary is both inspiring and challenging, reminding us that yoga, like punk, is about questioning the status quo. As yogis, activism and compassion are part of the path—choosing awareness, kindness, and conscious living for all beings.

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Gabriela Gabriela

Vrtti Sarupyam: How Yoga Helps Us Detach From Fluctuating Thoughts

At a recent yoga retreat, I discovered that the most powerful practice wasn’t physical movement but meditation. Reflecting on Yoga Sutra I.4 (vrtti sarupyam itaratra), I was reminded how easily we identify with our fluctuating thoughts and emotions—becoming the waves instead of the calm ocean beneath. Through meditation, yoga teaches us to step back, observe, and reconnect with our true self beyond the noise of the mind.

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Gabriela Gabriela

Turning 30: Rooted, Empowered, and Ready for What’s to Come

Turning 30 felt daunting at first, but through conversations with friends, family, and teachers I’ve come to see it as a moment of grounding rather than loss. The twenties were about exploration and searching, while the thirties bring clarity, self-respect, and a deeper sense of rootedness. It’s not about having everything figured out—it’s about embracing growth, owning your story, and stepping into this new chapter with confidence and joy.

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Gabriela Gabriela

Living Seasonally with Yoga: Balance the Fire Element of Summer with Yin

🌞 Summer aligns with the Fire element, symbolising joy, warmth, and connection.
🧘 Yin Yoga helps balance this energy, preventing burnout and restlessness.
💗 Poses like Melting Heart (Anahatasana) nourish the Heart and Small Intestine meridians.
✨ A simple daily Yin practice can restore balance, joy, and harmony with the season.

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Gabriela Gabriela

The Power of Community: Why It’s at the Heart of My Teaching Practice

At the heart of every class I teach is one clear intention: to build community. A space where we feel safe, seen, and supported — not just in our bodies, but in our whole selves. When we come together in practice, something shifts. Shyness becomes strength, and strangers become part of a shared journey. Community isn’t just a concept at Oca — it’s a living, breathing value we grow together, on and off the mat.

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Gabriela Gabriela

Yoga as Activism: Remembering Joanna Macy and the Path of Interconnection

This week, I’ve been sitting with the passing of Dr. Joanna Macy — a visionary teacher, systems thinker, and deep ecologist whose life and work continue to ripple through so many of us who walk the path of embodied awareness and collective care.

Macy taught that “the most radical thing any of us can do at this time is to be fully present to what is happening in the world.” Her work wove together systems theory, Buddhist philosophy, and activism, reminding us that we are not isolated beings but part of an intricate, interdependent web of life — an insight that mirrors so beautifully the essence of vinyasa practice.

In vinyasa, we explore not just movement, but connection: breath to body, posture to posture, self to world. When we flow mindfully, we begin to feel the truth of dependent origination — that nothing arises independently. The inhale is shaped by the exhale,the outside become part of us, parts of us leaving to become the world, and each transition draws meaning from what came before and gives rise what unfolds next.

Macy’s teachings offer a kind of courage for our times. In the yoga studio, as on the planet, we can meet the discomfort, beauty, and uncertainty of change with open hearts. She encouraged us not to turn away, but to let our practice — whether on the mat or in the world — be an act of love and resilience.

As I write this, I’m at Mulino Carletti — an old watermill nestled deep in an Apennine forest — guiding a retreat where we’re exploring the intersections of yoga and ecodharma. Each day, we move and breathe together under the canopy of beech, chestnut and oak, listening to the river’s song and the palpable interconnectness of earth, air, water and the fire of natures’s life force. Macy’s presence is felt strongly here — in our teachings on interbeing, our meditations on grief and belonging, and the way we return again and again to the land, to the breath, and to each other.

Back in London, these same themes pulse through the community at Oca — where the classes feel like small, steady circles of connection. The energy we create together — quiet, real, present — continues to inspire me. I’m feeling grateful that in an age of the corporate wellness industrial complex, there are still people with a vision and heart that have created space for these things. And I’m really looking forward to being back in the studio on Monday 5th August, to move and breathe again with that same spirit of shared care.

“You are part of this world. You are made of rivers and stars. And when you look with eyes of compassion, what you see is yourself — everywhere.” — Dr Joanna Macy

A Simple Mediatation Practice from

The Work That Reconnects

Breathing Through: A Meditation on Interbeing and Gratitude

Inspired by the teachings of Joanna Macy

Find a quiet place to sit or lie down. Rest your hands on your body or the earth.

1. Ground yourself.

Feel the support beneath you. Notice your breath — no need to change it. Just arrive.

2. Call in gratitude.

Bring to mind something you feel thankful for — something simple, real, grounding.

Let yourself breathe with it for a few moments.

Inhale gratitude. Exhale gently, sending it out into the world.

3. Extend your care.

Now think of someone or something beyond yourself — a person, forest, river, or cause that matters to you.

Inhale with awareness of their suffering or need. Exhale with compassion and steadiness.

4. Rest in connection.

Stay with the breath for a few more cycles.

Notice how your care and presence can hold both joy and sorrow — how staying open is a kind of strength.

This practice is a way to stay connected — to ourselves, each other, and this aching, beautiful world. A small act of love in uncertain times.

You can listen to an interview with Joanna Macy here:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3g99paUmnW6QVxAYuOOEUi

And read about her work here:

https://workthatreconnects.org/

With love and gratitude,

Chris

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Gabriela Gabriela

Yoga for the Hips with Baddha Konasana : Butterfly

This month for me has been a theme of the hips. This region is associated with the sacral chakra, and with that comes creativity and emotional expression. It's a joy to explore physical sequences through practice, and for me creativity is fostered by approaching a familiar flow in a less conventional way. How does a sun salutation for example, change our connection to the hips if we take away the use of our hands on the ground?

After a day of sitting with busy brains, restorative hip opening poses can also be a great support in releasing tension. As I’ve been recently been navigating a few life events I find there is something delicious about surrounding myself in the evening with a pillow blanket fort for complete relaxation.

Gift yourself some time at the end of your day for this restorative pose.

Baddha Konasana

A calming hip opener

First, take a bolster or make one by rolling a bed pillow it firmly in a blanket like a giant burrito.

Lie with the bolster under the spine, allowing the back of the head to rest at the top. Adjust the shoulder blades to draw away from the ears as they rest on the bolster, palm of the hands face up.

Allow your bent knees to fall open, and bring the feet towards the groin. Use any additional pillows or folded blankets at the knees to feel supported.

Close your eyes and breathe with ease throughout the belly ribs and chest for about 5 minutes.

Remove the bolster, bring the knees up to the chest and give yourself a hug. Circle the knees and allow the ground to massage the sacrum area.

Transition gently to a variation of savasana pose by bringing the bolster under your knees, allowing complete release and relaxation for as long as you need.

Love Yee x

Join Yee every Monday night at 18:15 for Vinyasa Flow – a grounding class to release, unwind, and reconnect.

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