As the Dao de Jing describes, “Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water, yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it.” Water is the element associated with the winter season in the Chinese Five Element theories. It’s a time of rest, storing, and pausing before the creativity and busyness of spring. This class will explore qigong and yoga practices to complement and support our capacity for cultivating qualities of water’s soft strength. A breathing and visualisation practice for winter will be followed by a gentle flow through water-themed asanas and qigong forms. Open to all levels.

Mimi Kuo-Deemer 

Mimi is dedicated to sharing the ways in which qigong, yoga and other healing arts can help people meet the messy, complicated job of being human with awareness, compassion and ease. An author and teacher of meditation and the movement arts, she champions nature as her greatest teacher. Originally from Tucson, Arizona, she lived in Beijing, China for over 14 years before moving to the UK. Mimi and now lives outside Oxford, where she and her husband have a small holding with one dog, three cats and 8 chickens. She is a graduate of Stanford University and SOAS, where she received her MA with distinction in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation. The author of two books and many DVDs and video programmes, Mimi’s guided practices can be found online via Zoom, YouTube and Movement for Modern Life. She hopes that in the near future she will also begin teaching in-person immersions, courses and retreats. www.mkdeemer.com  

Jean Hall 

As a lifelong lover of movement and creativity, Jean has spent much of her life exploring bodywork disciplines, travelling and practicing yoga.

Having discovered yoga whilst training as a dancer it soon became an integral part of her life, leading her to qualify as yoga teacher in 1995 and continue to study different forms of yoga and movement practices with many great teachers from many diverse backgrounds.

Jean teaches a somatic style of flow (vinyasa) yoga that stems from a deep listening within, so that the body’s wisdom and knowing can be heard, felt and valued. Her approach is both traditional and innovative, inspired by creative and fun sequencing that unfolds into dynamic flows, to help draw students and teachers safely beyond perceived limitation and closer to true potential and confidence. https://www.yogajeannie.com