I first came across free-breath yoga way back in 2000, by accident, and after about several months, I finally experienced how it worked. One day it just clicked, how I could ease into poses without striving, forcing or using my will. It was like magic. 

Sometimes we put in a lot more effort into things than needed. We're in a constant state of over-thinking, over-analyzing, and this comes out in movements that are tense and rigid in even the most everyday activities, say like opening a door.

If you look at artists when they're in the flow, their hands are active and strong, yet light. I know a cartoonist with big, beefy hands but when he picks up a pencil, his paws are light and almost child-like as he works his magic on paper. You can see this with musicians, like this pianist Alice Sara Ott. I hope you enjoy listening to her interpretation and watching her 'mojo' hands. And to my American friends and students, wishing you a lovely and peaceful Thanksgiving.

The psoas (so-az) is the only muscle to connect the spine with the legs and it's crucial to standing and walking. It grows out of each side of the thoracic -- way up in the waist-- then down through the pelvis onto each thigh. This is 'the core' in core stability, or more accurately, core suppleness.

As a supple muscle, it requires no strengthening exercises, no 'pumping up', no force and no exertion. My kind of workout!

What it needs to stay healthy involves so much of what we do in yoga and what I love about it, release. It's almost impossible not to release the psoas while sitting in half- or full-lotus. But you don't even have to go that far. Sometimes just imagining your legs growing out of the waist changes how you sit in a chair or stand. Relaxation or corpse pose also helps but only if the pelvis rests evenly, with space felt between your back and the ground. We hear so much about 'tucking the pelvis under' and flattening the back when really this shortens, locks and potentially dries out this juicy muscle.

The psoas is juicy in other ways. I don't typically think of muscles as a major part of the nervous system, but the psoas is -- it's a key messenger. So by physically releasing this juicy muscle, we let the juice -- emotions, energy -- flow as well.

Lady Gaga wore a 'flying' dress to launch her new album, but even so, it just couldn't top her meat dress  (Graham Norton wore a foam ham before introducing her on his show).

But why is it such a novelty when each of us, every single one of us, is wearing our own 'meat dress' -- our body? Flesh and blood contained in skin, the very physical package of our identity. And how much more beautiful, both in form and function, it is than raw beef.

We tend to think of the body we inhabit as 'our' body when it is more like a costume, or better yet, a chariot. 'Incarnation' means 'in the meat', embodied in flesh. What's in the meat? Our soul, an energetic force. Our soul borrows this meat chariot to take us on an earthly ride, loving, working and learning on the material plane and sharing with others.

Our meat chariot, our body, gives our soul the luxury of different experiences in the world, and yet instead of gratitude, most feel the pressure to constantly tinker, interfere and try to control it. In yoga, we learn to listen to it. The exercises are ways to practice this art of listening to the body -- what it wants, what it doesn't, what it responds to -- and to trust that it will give our soul the correct experiences for its growth and well-being.

With yoga studios on just about every corner of London, it's hard to believe some still view yoga as exotic, alien and way beyond their capabilities. And yet that's sometimes the response I get when I tell people I teach yoga.

I'm not sure what I want to say in this blog, but I know what I definitely don't want to do and that's to perpetuate this mystical, far-out there, dreamy image of it.

In my experience, yoga is contrary to all that. It's practical, easy to do as long as you don't take yourself too seriously, and you don't have to do poses that require your feet behind your head to see and feel the positive effects. In fact, I've seen students become more stable, more flexible and stronger in a remarkably short period. If done in a playful way, you'll most likely want to do it every day -- even if only for a few minutes -- and to do it every day you don't need special  clothes or equipment or props. It's yoga in blue jeans or pajamas or anything else.