Opening In February 2012

Well 18 months of hard work have paid off! Its official, we will open our doors in February 2012 and we hope you will be there to see our amazing new studio and of course do some yoga or pilates.

Thank you everyone who has helped as get this far, it is really much appreciated. What was an idea conceived on a Goan beach, admittedly over a glass of wine or two, is set to come to become a reality very, very soon.

Much more news to follow. And keep an eye out in the business section of the FT this tomorrow (Saturday 03 December). We were interviewed last week and should be getting a mention. Yoga and The City seem to be a perfect combination.

Thank you all who attended our Taster Sessions during July. We know you enjoyed them because you told us so, and they have really helped us start to get to know you and find out what you want from your Yoga and Pilates studio.

The sessions were run from Basildon House, and although the space is yet to be converted from empty office into bespoke studio, with the aid of a few mats, a docking station, and a handful off Blue Cow instructors, hundreds of you were able take advantage of the free sessions so conveniently close to where you work.

In return we did ask you to answer a few questions, which are now being used to turn Blue Cow Yoga into a is place shaped by you, so works for you.

So what did we lean?

You’d like showers and changing rooms, and don’t worry there’ll be loads of those. With beauty stations in the Ladies and not a hint of ‘communal’ at all.

Lunchtime classes would be popular if you could fit them into your lunch hour, so we’ll be offering 45 minute classes that start and finish on time and are designed to let you get the most out of your lunchtime. And don’t worry, we do agree that the longer the class the more you get out of it, so we’ll have hour long and longer classes on offer as well. But if it’s a choice between 45 minutes and nothing at all, then it's 45 every time.

And there were loads of beginners that came along for the first time, so we’ll be welcoming you back with special beginners packages that allow you to build your practice, try different styles, and get to know and understand Yoga before you have to make any crazy decisions as to what you want to do.

We know this is just the tip of the iceberg ,so please let us know if you have any other ideas or thoughts and please e-mail them to info@bluecowyoga.com. And if you haven’t already signed up to Blue Cow Yoga go to the www.bluecowyoga.com and can join our mailing list and will be invited to take part in the next round of offers freebies.

The business approach to an effective holiday.

How to have a stress free break from your desk without checking your blackberry every minute and worrying about next week's report that needs to be filed!

Apart from 20 precious days holiday per year most of us are familiar with life in the fast lane the rest of the time.  Now thanks to the power of Blackberry and Mr Jobs (not to mention Android and the new Nokia out this month) even during those 20 days we can be sure that our boss is never more than an email away.  So how can busy minds that are programmed to function 24 hours a day 7 days per week learn to switch off for those precious few days away in the sunshine?

1. Leave the office behind.
Dr Dov Eden, Business administration lecturer at Tel Aviv University says that leaving objects that remind you of the office behind can get you into the holiday mood.  "Create a physical separation from your office - it'll help to free you up".

2. Train your brain to relax.
Use the  opposite side of your brain to the one you use when you are working (your left hand side of the brain).  Train your right hand side to focus on "holiday thinking" by doing things with your left hand.

3. Stretch.
During long flights roll a ball under the soles of your feed, then extend your legs and stretch them out.  Stretching muscles helps to raise levels of endorphin that in turn lowers stress caused by long flights.

4. Review your routine
Rather than sticking to your normal daily routine of shower, breakfast swim, try mixing it up and going for a swim in the ocean as soon as you wake up.  By disengaging from your normal routine you will switch off and unwind faster.

5. Sun Lounger meditation
This one is simple, ten minutes a day will see your stress levels drop off.  Unfocus your eyes and concentrate on taking five breaths in and out counting to four on each inhale and exhale.  On your fifth breath close your eyes, keep breathing steadily and focus on the rise and fall of your body as you inhale and exhale.

6. Plan more fun!
Occupy the "planning" part of your brain, the bit that is worrying about next week's presentation, with planning activities.  Research local delicacies, and day trip to distract you meaning that "planning" part of your brain will be distracted leaving you to enjoy the local sites and fully chill out in the sunshine.

7. If like me you haven't got time to escape from your desk for a holiday use the above image as the backdrop for your computer, practice sun lounger meditation, and start planning some fun for next weekend!

Where do you do yours?

Spotted at 7:15 on a train into Waterloo...

This photo was posted on our Facebook wall this week. It has to be among the strangest places we've heard of someone doing Yoga.

Let us know if you have any strange places you practice and why you practice there.

P.S if anyone can track this man down we might have to offer him a free Blue Cow Yoga pass and an A* for the ingenuity of making sure he gets his daily practice.

Mark comments on his recent experiences of female grooming rituals....

Here at Blue Cow we’ve been a little quit of late, but with good reason. Our heads have been down and our design hats have been (taped) on as we’ve been working hard to finish the plans for the Blue Cow interior. We finished last week, and whilst we wait for the Landlord and Cooperation of London to give the final green light we can take a moment to thank Household Design for the amazing job they have done, and the patience and care they have shown creating not just a studio, but the beginnings of the Blue Cow experience. For Fran and I it’s been a full on revelation, as well as hard work, as we have both struggled to come to terms with the complexities of fire regulations, the difference to the bottom line a choice of light bulb can make,  and the intricacies of changing room design and the needs of both sexes.

Never would I have thought I would spend so much of May and June debating showers, their shape, their size and their importance compared to the cubicle or the beauty station. To add another shower or to add another loo has so often been the cry? When and where do you least want to find yourself in a que has often been the reply.

For the men out there you will be glad to know I have fought hard night and day against the myth that all we need is a tap, a bucket and a hole in the ground, and that ‘the more communal the better’ rule is remotely true.

Ladies, I hope will be pleased to know that where hair straitening was once nothing more to me than an observed ritual perfumed at the last minute before inevitably dashing, late, out the door, it has now become a science. Tong type, mirror size, time to heat, time to straighten, all important factors that have been taken on board, tested and remedied before becoming requirements passed to the design team, who it is a miracle has any hair, let alone straight, at all.

In other news, we hasve been busy recruiting and we’ll have some interesting news here soon. Watch this space. If you are a yoga or Pilates instructor please feel free to contact us if you want to teach in the City.

Finally, we are looking at opening in November now and are keen to further develop more relationships with companies in The City and our immediate vicinity. If you work close buy pleas e-mail info and we’ll get back in touch to discuss how we best approach your company and get involved with special offers for you and your colleges. 

From The Gate Worldwide

Thank you Blue Cow

Posted on 27th May 2011 by CST The Gate

We recently produced a new logo and brand i.d. for a new start up company called Blue Cow Yoga.

As an alternative to slogging away in the gym they aim to get stressed out city workers de-stressed, by using the power of yoga.

So thanks to Frances and Mark at Blue Cow for the yummy cakes, glad you liked the work. From Phil, Alice, Jonathan, Mark.

http://www.cstthegate.com/blog/2011/05/thank-you-blue-cow/

It's time for your meditation

It's time for your meditation...  The Independent Comment on some of the benefits of Meditation.

By Roger Dobson

More than just an aid to wellbeing, the ancient discipline could soon be used to treat conditions from obesity to multiple sclerosis

When Chris Brown used a laser to create repeated pin-pricks of pain in the arms of volunteers, he made a curious discovery. Half the men and women felt the pain was less unpleasant than did the others. And scans of their brains showed that areas that are involved in anticipation were far less active.

The two groups of people were identical, except that those for whom the pain sensation was less unpleasant were all men and women who practised meditation. And the longer they had practised, the lower the sensation.

The research by Dr Brown and pain specialists at Manchester University gives fresh insight into the way that meditation may work to ease symptoms in conditions as diverse as chronic pain, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and irritable bowel syndrome.

“It seems to work by reducing the anticipation of pain and reducing the negative view of pain, rather than distracting attention away from pain sensation itself,” he says. “When people meditate they focus on their breathing or on other body sensations, and learn how to experience these sensations with attitudes of acceptance, openness and curiosity. This appears to reduce negative thinking about sensations such as pain.”

Meditation’s origins date back thousands of years, and there are many different types, including Samatha, mantra, Zen Buddhist, yoga, Sahaj Marg, and the two that are more widely used in the west, transcendental and mindfulness meditation.

Many of the origins of mindfulness meditation are in Buddhism, and in one of the most widely used forms, users are taught to focus on the sensation of breathing in and out. They are taught to focus attention on what is being experienced in the present, rather than the future or the past. In this way, it’s suggested, meditators learn to experience thoughts and emotions in their everyday life with greater balance and acceptance.

Transcendental meditation has its roots in Hindu traditions, and uses a mantra – words repeated silently – to block distracting thoughts. Its goal is to achieve a state of relaxed awareness.

Hundreds of studies have looked at the effects of meditation on health, and many have found benefits. But it is difficult to carry out gold-standard placebo-controlled trials for meditation therapies. Many studies have simply compared the outcomes in those who had meditation with those who did not, but it is difficult to design trials that control for everything that might contribute to a placebo effect, which is likely to be high in this kind of therapy.

Another way to help validate the effectiveness of the therapy would be to tease out the mechanisms by which it could work, and many researchers are looking at just that. At the Human Pain Research Group, University of Manchester, researchers carried out pain perception tests on 27 men and women, half of whom practised meditation. The volunteers were exposed to flashes of pain from a laser over a five-minute period.

“We found from brain scans that the meditators had less activity in the areas of the brain associated with anticipation. They also had a reduction in the sensation of pain compared to the other people,” says Dr Brown. “We believe that in meditation, focusing attention on breathing, for example, anchors the individual in the present and not the past or the future. When the individual experiences pain, they do not block it out, |but deal with it in a less negative way. In this way, meditation should reduce the emotional evaluation of pain or other stressful events by withdrawing attention away from anticipating their unpleasantness.”

It has also been suggested that meditation might work by affecting the autonomic or involuntary nervous system, which regulates many organs and muscles, controlling functions such as heartbeat, sweating, breathing and digestion. It consists of the sympathetic nervous system, which prepares the body for action and the “fight-or-flight response”, where heart and breathing rates increase and blood vessels narrow, restricting the flow; and the parasympathetic nervous system, which causes the heart and breathing rates to slow, and blood vessels to widen, improving, blood flow. It is thought that meditation may reduce activity in the sympathetic nervous system and increase activity in the para-sympathetic system. More than 50 clinical trials are under way looking at the effects of meditation in various conditions, or at how it may work.

Depression

Mindfulness meditation may rival medication at preventing relapse in people with depression, according to a report in the Harvard Mental Health Letter of a study involving 160 adults who had experienced at least two episodes of major depression. In the first phase of the study, the patients took antidepressants, and after eight months, 53 per cent were in remission and went on the second phase where they either continued with antidepressants at a lower dose, had a placebo pill, or had mindfulness-based therapy. During this period 38 per cent of patients having mindfulness therapy relapsed, compared with 46 per cent on medication, and 60 per cent on placebo.

Irritable bowel syndrome

A study at the State University of New York showed meditation reduced symptoms. Significant reductions were noted for abdominal pain, diarrhoea, flatulence, bloating and pain. “It appears continued use of meditation is particularly effective in reducing the symptoms of pain and bloating; and it is a beneficial treatment for IBS in both the short and the long term,” say researchers.

Obesity

Mindful meditation may help in |losing weight, according to a study at Oregon Research Institute, which involved six weeks of training, focusing on mindfulness meditation, mindful eating, body awareness and triggers to overeating. Results show the obese people had significant decreases in weight, binge eating, depression and stress. “This study provides preliminary evidence that an eating-focused, mindfulness-based intervention can result in significant changes in weight, eating behaviour and psychological distress,” say researchers.

Social anxiety

Mindfulness-based stress reduction could work for social anxiety disorder, according to a study at Stanford University. Brain scanning showed that during breath-focused work there were changes in brain activity. “These changes might facilitate reduction |in social anxiety behaviour, clinical symptoms and emotional reactions to negative self-beliefs,” say researchers.

Pain

Just four days of mindfulness meditation training can reduce pain intensity. In a US study at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, men and women were exposed to experimental pain. Results show that meditating reduced pain unpleasantness by 57 per cent, and pain intensity by 40 per cent.

Chronic diseases

Symptoms in a number of chronic conditions can be improved with mindfulness-based stress reduction. Researchers at La Trobe University in Australia analysed results from 15 studies, which looked at the mental and physical health, wellbeing, and quality of life of people with conditions including fibromyalgia, chronic pain, rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome and cardiovascular conditions. “Participation [in meditation] is likely to result in coping better with symptoms, improved overall wellbeing and quality of life, and enhanced health outcomes,” they say.

Insomnia

Chronic insomnia can be helped by mindful meditation, according to a study at the University of Minnesota. Patients were given mindfulness training over three months. Results show it reduced the time taken to get to sleep by an average of 8.9 minutes and provided evidence for meditation as a viable treatment for chronic insomnia.

Menopausal symptoms

Mind-body therapies can reduce menopausal symptoms, according |to a review of research at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. Eight of the nine studies of yoga, tai chi, and meditation-based programmes showed improvements in overall menopausal symptoms, including hot flushes and night sweats. |Results also show that breath-based and other relaxation therapies may be effective for alleviating menopausal symptoms, say the researchers.

Multiple sclerosis

Quality of life, and symptoms of depression and fatigue improve after mindfulness training, according to a trial at the University Hospital Basel with 150 patients. Results show that those who had the training – an eight-week programme – saw improvements that were still evident six months later.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/its-time-for-your-meditation-2281577.html

What does a blue cow look like?

We are really excited to unveil the new Blue Cow logo.  Created by CTS TheGateWorldwide we signed off on it yesterday.

So how do you go about starting a Yoga studio!?

Once we had returned from India, and hit the ground with a zenned out bump, over a glass of wine conversations turned to how we might go about creating a "London" Yoga studio.

We were fairly clear on our aim, to create a space that worked for City based professionals, we understood that it was hard leaving your desk in the City. For me heading out to a class in Primrose Hill meant leaving my desk at 5:45 to get to a 6:30 class made me feel uneasy and guilty (normally I didn't leave my desk until 7:30). The journey nearly gave me a heart attack as I rushed into class 5 minutes late before collapsing onto my mat in exhaustion (this was only at the beginning of the class!). Wouldn't the world be a better place if I could go to a class when I chose to, that was a walk away from my office, and would allow Yoga to fit into my life rather than shoe horning my practice in when I could? 
 
Speaking to friends and colleagues who were experiencing similar situations we thought we were onto something and began putting together a more formal business plan, based on the conversations we were having. It soon became pretty clear that there were a number of common complaints that could easily be rectified through adopting a new attitude towards running a Yoga centre: 
 
A twenty-first century take on Yoga, reflected in benefits not life style sacrifices. We wanted to create a space that appealed to people who appreciated the quality of mental and physical work out that they got on the mat, but equally appreciated a glass of sauvignon blanc at the end of a long day in the office (I said there was a theme).
 
This gave us the confidence that we needed, although perhaps less evidence than our parents would have liked, to take the plunge and gave up the security of well paid jobs!
 
 One crucial decision still remained.... To name our business.
 
What does one call a Yoga Studio? We needed a name that was memorable, and stood for everything that we believe in, reflecting a contemporary attitude, whilst remaining faithful to the history and culture. A quick search on Google will show you that there are billions of studios out there with every name from Buddah to Lotus Flower and everything in between. 
 
Blue Cow Yoga came from a discussion involving Sanskrit, a mix up between a cow and an antelope, a bizarre recollection of an image that didn't exist, and an appeal to our perverse sense of humour. But who knows? The great thing about Blue Cow is that it can be many things to many people. For some it has spiritual meaning, for others it represents something different. Ultimately we want Blue Cow to be a space shaped by you and our name is just the starting point! 

Bringing Blue Cow to life...

So last week was an exciting one in the Blue Cow Shed!

Firstly we began our work with the awesome Household Designs!  Keith, Tom and Michael have been an amazing support to us since we met them earlier this year and it has been hugely exciting working with them and hearing their thoughts and ideas!

Household have won awards for previous designs and looking at the innovative solutions they have provided for clients such as Laboutin and The Shoreditch Rooms it felt like a very exciting proposition, at the same time projects like Poke demonstrate their ability to work on the lighter side of life! Working with them has already shown their ability to reach right to the heart of the work that we have done to create the idea of a Yoga and Pilates space that is dedicated to City professionals and their expectations.

Last week saw our first move away from the daily grind of time lines and contracts and into the creative process.  We spent a over two hours looking at different images which could create different atmospheres and relate different messages to our clients.  Some photos below:

There were some clear themes that we all agreed on, and as you can see from the post-its there were some very strong feelings about being too "zen" or cold and impersonal.

 There were definitely some favorite themes which instinctively felt right.  These photos will give you some idea of what we were looking at, but hopefully won't spoil the surprise as we update you on our progress!

It is really important to us that the space reflects our clients need to step out away from their business and social lives, but feels intuitive and not intimidating.  At the same time we want the space to reflect the fun and real side of Yoga and Pilates.

Wednesday bought even more exciting news.  CSTthegateworldwide have been looking at our visual identity and we got a first look at these on Wednesday evening.  Two immediately sprang out as the favorite choice, and discussions over a bottle of wine (or two) decided on a winner.  A few last moment touches are being put to it as I type but the new logo will be on full view next week!

It is very exciting to see the thoughts and plans that we have been talking about for the past nine months finally coming together in pictures!

Inspiration from the beach

Mark and I met in a  bar in 2009, he was on crutches on knocked me down the stairs on our way out.  An auspicious start...  He took me to lunch the next week to apologise and we soon realised that we have quite a bit in common.  Amongst other things we both enjoyed Yoga, which is not something you come across every day in a man.

I was based in The City, running a start up online recruitment company and looked to Yoga for an escape from my hectic job.  Mark had been introduced by another friend who didn't want to go to the classes on her own.  Recently back from a tour with the British Army in Afghanistan it offered him a much needed respite from the strain of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

A few months later we were both due some well earned holiday from our jobs and decided to take a trip to India to try Yoga in its birth place.  We ended up in the gorgeous Lotus Yoga Retreat.  Just about the Southern most point in Goa, Patnem beach is an idyllic location, far away from the hippy trail of Anjuna and the North it felt like a little piece of paradise!  Equally Lotus wasn't your typical Yoga/ Ashram experience of 5am meditation, cleaning rotas and austerity.  There was a bar, two Yoga sessions a day, and no one was going to give you a lecture if you spent too long in the bar the night before and ended up watching the dolphins rather than focusing on your sun salutations.

In short it felt exactly like the sort of Yoga that London needed.