September 2026

In this newsletter:

• A Summer To Remember
• Classes & Workshops
• Yoga Challenge
• Breathwork at Phoenix
• Yoga Mama Workshops
• Much Ado About Meditation
• The Phoenix Journal

Classes

Our class schedule is almost fully restored and we welcome most of you and your teachers back from the summer holidays.  We've got some new classes (including Mindful Mamas and Functional Breathing) in the pipeline so keep 'em peeled!

Workshops

• 6 Sept - Join Kaya for the first of a series of Meditation workshops 
• 19 Sept (2-5) - LKY Fundraising - take A Journey Through The Koshas with Eva
• 26 Sept - Autumn Equinox Mushroom Moon Ceremony with SuYen 
• 3 Oct - Phoenix Yoga x Yoga Mama - Mindful Mamas with Cherie
• 4 Oct - Functional Breathing with Rachel

Yoga Challenge

Great news!! We will be repeating our community Yoga Challenge for September; everyone who attends a class will automatically participate, simply ensure your teacher checks you in for each class, and we will tally your attendance on October 1st.

Prizes 

- Each participant who completes 20 classes will receive a free Phoenix Yoga t-shirt of your choice.

- One lucky winner who completes the most classes will have the choice of receiving a free month's membership or a £50 voucher for our online merchandise shop! Hoodies below modelled by some of our previous winners!

Community Corner

To be included you don't need an extraordinary yoga story, a perfect pose or years of experience. If Phoenix has become part of your week, month, life - your story belongs there too.

To take part simply email us with:

• A photograph you are happy for us to use
• A few lines about what brought you to Phoenix and what you found

We look forward to introducing you to more people who make Phoenix what it is!

Breathwork at Phoenix

Are you breathing properly?

It sounds like a slightly ridiculous question. You've been doing it all your life.

Rachel had also been teaching yoga for 18 years when she started looking more closely at the way we breathe the rest of the time — at work, asleep, walking around Putney or halfway up a flight of stairs.

That led her to Functional Breathing and training in the Oxygen Advantage method. Now she's bringing it to Phoenix, starting with a 90-minute workshop followed by regular classes.

This isn't the Breathwork you may already know at Phoenix. You'll be sitting, moving, learning a little about what's actually happening when you breathe and, most importantly, trying it for yourself.

Rachel describes the basic idea as learning to breathe light, slow and deep. Which sounds simple enough.

Apparently there's rather more to it.

Meet Rachel, explore Functional Breathing and sign up for the Oct 4th workshop

Mindful Mamas - Yoga Mama at Phoenix

If you’ve spent any time in Putney, there’s a good chance you’ll know Yoga Mama. Cherie Lathey is a Senior Yoga Teacher and Director of Yoga Mama and has been supporting women through pregnancy, postnatal recovery and motherhood for many years — practically on our doorstep.

So we’re really pleased that on Saturday 3rd October Phoenix and Yoga Mama are getting together for the first time as Cherie will be joining us for Mindful Mamas — two hours of postnatal-friendly yoga, breathwork, meditation and, perhaps most importantly, some time where nobody needs anything from you.

Come as you are — tired, distracted, overwhelmed or simply in need of some time out!

Find out more and book - Mindful Mamas with Cherie Lathey - Saturday 3 October · 2–4pm · £45

Much Ado About Meditation

New to the Phoenix Journal →

Much Ado About Meditation

Kaya describes herself as the occasional “Captain of Team Overthinker” — which perhaps makes her particularly well qualified to talk about meditation.

In her new Journal piece, she writes about the particular kind of magic she has found in meditation: the ability to slow everything down, create some space between thoughts and, occasionally, quieten that inner critic.

But this isn't simply a piece about Kaya's own practice.

Drawing on her experience as a meditation teacher — from working with recovering alcoholics to artists struggling to reconnect with their creativity — she explores what happens when people begin to discover a practice of their own. And she looks at some of the increasingly interesting science behind it too.

She also introduces Jon Kabat-Zinn's attitudes to mindfulness, including Beginner's Mind, Non-Judging and the wonderfully counterintuitive idea of Non-Striving (my teenagers have been mastering that!).

If you've wondered what all the fuss about meditation is about, Kaya might just persuade you to give it a go.

Read Much Ado About Meditation →

Or join Kaya on Sept 6th for the first of a series of Meditation workshops 

The Phoenix Journal is a place where you'll find a mixture of news, stories, people and ideas that make Phoenix what it is (it's also useful when you have insomnia;).

If there’s a story you think belongs in the Journal, let us know!

Onwards and Upwards!