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  <title><![CDATA[Cosmic Oasis Studio]]></title>
  <link>https://cosmic-oasis-studio.com/</link>
  <description><![CDATA[Cosmic Oasis Studio in Bristol offers small-group yoga classes, one-to-one sessions, and pregnancy yoga with Iyengar-trained teacher Alan Dunmore. Max 8 students per class.]]></description>
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    <title><![CDATA[Pregnancy yoga from 14 weeks: what to expect in your first session]]></title>
    <link>https://cosmic-oasis-studio.com/notes/pregnancy-yoga-first-session-guide.html</link>
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    <description><![CDATA[You're somewhere around 14 weeks, the nausea is (hopefully) easing off, and someone — your midwife, a friend, a random thread on a forum — has suggested pregnancy yoga. The room in your head is busy: is it just stretching? Will I be the only one who can't do anything? What if I need the bathroom three times? I've been sitting with these questions myself, and I want to write down what I actually found, because most of what's online is either too vague to be useful or reads like a brochure. This is more like a note I wish I'd had before I walked in. I'm still working some of this out as the weeks go on, but there's enough here to make that first session feel a lot less opaque.]]></description>
    <pubDate>Fri, 03 Jul 2026 15:45:05 GMT</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[Why term-based yoga works better than drop-in for most students]]></title>
    <link>https://cosmic-oasis-studio.com/notes/term-based-yoga-vs-drop-in.html</link>
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    <description><![CDATA[Picture a Tuesday evening class in early autumn. The teacher calls out Warrior II, and half the room has never heard the Sanskrit name, a quarter are on their third term and are quietly adjusting their back foot, and one person in the corner is trying to remember whether they came last week or the week before that. The teacher has to make a choice: go back to basics and lose the returning students, or push forward and lose the newcomers. Neither option is really good teaching. This tension is the central problem with drop-in yoga, and I think about it more than I probably should. I've been practicing and teaching for long enough to notice that the students who grow most consistently are almost never the ones who drift in and out — they're the ones who sign up for a full term and actually show up. That's not a sales pitch for our studio (I promise), it's just something I keep observing, and I want to think through why it happens.]]></description>
    <pubDate>Fri, 13 Feb 2026 19:45:48 GMT</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[What Iyengar alignment principles actually mean for a vinyasa practice]]></title>
    <link>https://cosmic-oasis-studio.com/notes/iyengar-alignment-in-vinyasa.html</link>
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    <description><![CDATA[I was mid-sequence last autumn, cueing a standing lunge to a room of maybe twelve people, when I stopped and said something I hadn't planned: "press the back heel down like you're trying to leave a footprint in the floor." I'd been reading Light on Yoga again that week, slowly, with a pencil. The cue landed differently than anything I'd said that month — three students visibly lengthened through the side body, without me touching anyone. That moment made me want to write down what I think is actually happening when Iyengar-trained ideas bleed into a vinyasa container. I'm still working this out, and I suspect I will be for a while.]]></description>
    <pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2025 08:31:20 GMT</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[How to set up a home practice that actually complements your studio classes]]></title>
    <link>https://cosmic-oasis-studio.com/notes/home-practice-complements-studio-yoga.html</link>
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    <description><![CDATA[Last Tuesday I rolled out a mat in my living room at 7am and just stood there for a full minute, completely blank, before eventually doing three sun salutations and calling it done. That counts. I think one of the quietest myths in yoga culture is that your home practice has to be a fully-formed, hour-long thing to be worth anything at all — and that myth has stopped me (and a lot of people I talk to after class) from even starting. What I've learned, slowly and with a lot of false starts, is that the most useful home practice is one that's almost embarrassingly small at first, and that borrows directly from what's already happening in your studio sessions. This is my attempt to write down what's actually worked, with the caveat that I'm still refining it myself.]]></description>
    <pubDate>Mon, 27 Oct 2025 11:09:31 GMT</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[Restorative yoga on a Friday evening: why timing matters]]></title>
    <link>https://cosmic-oasis-studio.com/notes/restorative-yoga-friday-evening-benefits.html</link>
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    <description><![CDATA[Last Friday I rolled out my mat at 6:45 pm, placed a bolster lengthwise, and just sat there for a while before doing anything. I wasn't procrastinating — I was noticing how long it took my breath to slow down after a full week of screens, decisions, and the low-grade hum of being "on." That moment of just sitting became the actual beginning of practice, before a single shape. I've been teaching restorative yoga for several years now, and I keep returning to the same question: why does Friday evening feel so different from Tuesday morning? I think the answer has something to do with what your nervous system has been carrying all week, and I want to try to work through that here — partly for you, partly to keep clarifying it for myself.]]></description>
    <pubDate>Wed, 16 Apr 2025 12:32:48 GMT</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[How to choose between a group yoga class and one-to-one sessions]]></title>
    <link>https://cosmic-oasis-studio.com/notes/group-class-vs-one-to-one-yoga.html</link>
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    <description><![CDATA[The question comes up a lot, and I think it deserves a real answer rather than a diplomatic "both are great!" Most people default to group classes because they're cheaper and easier to book, and that's often completely fine. But there are specific moments in a practice where that default costs you more than the price difference saves. I've been teaching long enough to notice the patterns, and I want to share what I actually look for when someone asks me which way to go.]]></description>
    <pubDate>Sat, 25 Jan 2025 17:04:07 GMT</pubDate>
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