Saturday 27th July: 12.30-5.00pm
£80

Have you ever wondered how movement might meaningfully connect us? How yoga could possibly expand into the realm of dancing and how dancing might slide beyond choreography into group and self-care?

Join Yoga teacher Catherine Annis and Choreographer/Director Ben Wright for this one day movement workshop which explores the primal connection we experience when we move together, as a group.

Rooted in a dialogue between awareness and action, this unique workshop offers participants a range of experiences to uncover, discover, and invite movement through the complimentary disciplines of mindful yoga and dancing. Together we will play with the idea that moving has the possibility to change thinking.

Throughout the day, we’ll bring sensation to the foreground to sharpen perception and spur kinetic imagination. From the generosity and expansiveness of unstructured, intuitive free-form movement, we’ll transition into more organised and directional movements, leaning into and away from forms we may recognise as yoga asana to intensify a sense of immediacy.

The workshop is suitable for movement practitioners, dance artists and those who are curious about expanding their experiences from a yoga mat into wider expressive intention.

Image: Chris Nash from Spectrum by Ben Wright for Skanes Dansteater

Saturday 3rd & Sunday 4th August: 12.30-3.30pm
£165

Are you new to handstands? Come learn from Cirque du Soleil performer Alona Zhuravel who since an early age has been gracing circus stages and big tops around the world.

These workshops are pitched at beginners and will help you understand the principles of alignment when upside down, first against the wall and then slowly away from it. You’ll build confidence and become familiar with the different shapes of a handstand — tuck, straddle and full handstand. The capacity of these workshops are limited so that Alona can spend time with you individually. You’ll also learn how to work safely with a partner.

Alona started training handstands when she was just six years old. Her performance career started in 2001 and since then she has been touring around the world with shows like ‘Varekai’ and ‘Joya’ from Cirque du Soleil. She uses different teaching methods to fulfil her purpose to make the upside-down world comfortable and light.

Saturday 10th August: 2.00-5.30pm
£80

If we observe our current time in human history it appears that more than ever before, we are existing through a time of great and rapid upheaval, where old norms are being challenged and unravelled and new possibilities are emerging. Mirroring this collective shift, there is an individual invitation for each and every one of us to become more introspective and contemplate how we wish to live our own lives and play our part in this grand new human story.

In this workshop we explore the potential of Breathwork as one of the many emerging tools for gaining greater insight and experience into the truth of who we truly are.

The way that we breathe affects every system and function in our body. Using the breath with purpose allows us to enter embodied states of awareness where we can move stuck tension and frozenness within our nervous system, and psyche, in a safe yet powerful manner. This gentle unwinding provides a profound softening within our system that can help us to gain insight and direction into the greatest possibilities for ourselves.

Please bring a water bottle and wear comfortable, non-restrictive clothing that you can move around in. Please also bring anything to help you feel comfortable (blankets/pillows etc), and please don’t eat 90 minutes before the session (drinking water is fine).

Please note: Unfortunately this workshop is not suitable for anyone with severe cardiovascular issues, epilepsy or women who are pregnant.

Sunday 18th August: 12.30-6.00pm
£200

This unique live workshop for women and their birthing partners is informative, practical and confidence-building. Knowledge is power and you will gain a good understanding of physiological birth and how to cooperate with and encourage this innate and evolved process to flow.

Your environment has an enormous influence on the way you birth and Lolly pays particular attention to educating your partner on how to hold and protect your space.

She will draw on her many years as a doula, yoga teacher, certified hypnobirther and childbirth educator to provide you with the tools for working together before and during the birth. You will learn how to release tension and fear though education, breathwork, visualisation, movement and massage.

You will be given reading references and leaflets for additional information as well a hypnobreathing script. Across the six-hour session we will look at:

• Physiological birth
• Hypnobreathing, sounding and visualisation for labour and birth
• Environmental factors that complement the release of birth hormones
• Gravity-assisted positions, movements and massage for labour and birth
• Waterbirth

There will be a maximum of 10 couples attending this workshop, giving time for individual questions. Ideally, this workshop should be taken in the third trimester of pregnancy, but it can be taken at any time.

A FREE online Yoga for Pregnancy with Lolly is offered as part of this workshop. These classes take place online through www.mother-time.co.uk on Wednesday evenings 19:00-20:30 and will complement and embed the benefits of the workshop. To claim your free class please email contact@mother-time.co.uk and a copy of your Mission booking confirmation and we will send you the link to Lolly’s class.

Lolly Stirk is a pioneer in her field. She began studying yoga in 1970 and with the birth of her daughter in the 70’s she was drawn into the world of birth. Her career has spanned over four decades and has been dedicated to creating the ideal practise for labour, birth and beyond. She trained as an NCT teacher, is a qualified hypnobirther of many years and has attended hundreds of births in the capacity of Doula. As a founding member of the Active Birth Movement in 1980, she trained scores of Active Birth Teachers and campaigned for the rights of women to move freely during the births of their babies. This contributed to a global movement towards natural births which resulted in changes in policy, establishing birth centres in many major hospitals. Lolly has lectured to obstetricians, midwives and midwifery students in hospitals on physiological birth and breathwork. Lolly remains and has always been grateful for the safety net of modern medicine and technology when necessary. She also believes wholeheartedly in the capacity of women to give birth ‘on their own steam’ given the right environment and education, both physical and intellectual.

Sunday 1st September: 1.30-3.30pm
£45

Learn to take you yoga up in the air as we show you how to base and fly some of the fundamental acroyoga poses.

We will look at alignment and form and will be working in small groups with someone spotting each trick to ensure safety!

You can come alone or bring a friend. Warning, the content of this workshop is very fun and highly addictive!

This workshop is suitable for all levels so come and fly!

Friday 6th September: 3.00-6.00pm
£45 (Fri & Sat workshops – £130)

This session explores the theme of the weekend through breath, movement and stillness practices that incorporate teachings from the tradition, as well as more contemporary approaches. The Teachers’ Practice will weave together aspects of philosophy, physiology and psychology – time dedicated to experiencing deeply felt wisdom of breath, body and mind.

After the practice we will come together to discuss and share our thoughts, findings and reflections that center around a particular topic of interest relevant to the group.

Saturday 7th September: 12.00-4.30pm
£95 (Fri & Sat workshops – £130)

This session spotlights vāk, the karmendriya that involves the organ of action of speech. The line enquiry for this session will ask questions such as, “What is the underlying impulse for words? What is being communicated and why? Where in the body is the impulse for speech arising? How can the power of exchange be nurtured in a teaching environment?”

Drawing upon the theme for the weekend, the Teachers’ Development offers time to explore essential sensory perceptions and actions (jñānendriya and karmendriya) that sustain and nourish teaching. This session includes open enquiry, somatic and experiential movement practices, group work and dialogue. These approaches deepen and widen understanding and capacity to teach with authenticity while helping others access their own power and wisdom.

These sessions support teachers to:
● Explore and expand personal practice
● Build confidence
● Connect to authentic teaching
● Feel empowered and part of community
● Access innate wisdom and creativity
● Weave philosophy, physiology and psychology into classes

These sessions are for yoga teachers of all backgrounds and styles offering a supportive space to connect with others, explore and expand personal practice, discuss challenges, and contemplate what we value most in the teachings of yoga and how we may share this with others.

Sunday 29th September: 2.30-4.30pm
£60 or £125 for all 3

If you enjoy a challenge but think you are too stiff to ever bend your back then this is the perfect class for you. By understanding how to work your body in a safe way you will learn what it takes to really bend over backwards with no fear.

The secrets of deep backbends are available to you through the integration of sound anatomical principles, healthy alignment techniques and fun, intense stretches. The dynamic movement mechanics of bending your spine are the key to increased energy flow and in this class you will begin to explore your natural potential for deep backbends with safety, support and enthusiasm.

Wednesdays: 9th October, 6th November & 4th December
9.30am-5.30pm
£390

What if, in the first instance, we could only rely on personal investigation and ‘then’ look at what others have said? What if we were our own starting point, minus the expectations accompanying external knowledge? What if we only had our feeling, thinking mind and body as we perceive it? What if we were our only resource?

This course explores the source of the yoga experience within the group field. As we intensify our practice and discuss our discoveries we will open to a profound unitive experience and deepen the roots of transformation. The aim is to invite a further shift in internal behaviour and subsequently inform our practice, teaching and the quality of our communicative skills.

We will not be bound by a fixed formula. Elements that arise will relate to in the moment experiences as we pass through them. Contact time is spread over 8 weeks to give time to process the impact of each day long session. The following may provide a guide:

Information and Transformation; Applications and their limitations; The Source; The Nature of Experience; Dissolving Experience; Unveiling Anatomy; The Role of the body; Perception and reception Voluntary and involuntary activity; Sensation and Sensitivity; Unveiling Philosophy; Dividing the Indivisible; Consciousness; Mind and Ego; The Quantum World – Everything and Nothing; Original Intelligence; Fields of Influence; Space Silence; Energy; The Known and the Unknown the Roots of Transformation; Processing Conditioning; Identification and Vulnerability; Communication and Communion; Existence Love and Healing; Conclusions Possibilities and Potential Outcomes; Mystery Magic; Reflection

The reality of yoga is unseen, beyond shapes and extensions and everyday experience. The reality concerns an awareness of all that we are and might be. We are the reality. As we pass through inner emptiness, we come out into the light.

John Stirk is a yoga teacher and author with a background in osteopathy. He has been teaching and running courses for more than 40 years in the UK and internationally. He has published several books, notably The Original Body, Primal movement for Yoga Teachers, (2015) and Deeper Still, Authentic Embodiment for Yoga Teachers (2021).

Friday 16th – Tuesday 20th May, 2025
£250 for all five days, £50 for one class

Join R Saraswathi Jois, Ashtanga Yoga’s senior-most female teacher, in a rare visit abroad from her shala in Mysore, India. At Mission, Saraswati will be accompanied by her daughter Sharmila and they will teach led Primary and led Intermediate Series as well as chanting sessions and a Conference.

Saraswathi will teach led classes at Mission — both the Primary and the Intermediate Series, as well chanting classes and the all-important Conference where you can ask this matriarch questions about “first breath, then gazing, then posture,” about integrating a daily practice into family life, about Sanskrit, or any questions you may have about the path of yoga.