Hosting a yoga lunch club

Dear Readers,

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a yoga lunch club, consisting of a stripped back beginners yoga class, followed by a clean eating lunch; prepared and served by moi.

To me healthy food and yoga is a perfect combination and is something I have been keen to marry for a while now. I’m obviously not alone in this thinking though as in London the combination of Yoga and food events are popping up left right and centre with various places either hosting a yoga lunch club, brunch club or supper club, from small quirky hangouts in Brixton to ‘how do you do’ hotels such as the Bingham in Richmond. Great right? But you’d be surprised how many people have expressed to me how they feel anxious about attending these kind of things, believing that the clientele would either be ‘yah yah darling’ or eat breathe and sleep yogis. Of course there’s nothing wrong with either, but if you’re one of those many people that don’t fit into either category what then? I mean there’s a lot of us out there who often don’t engage in things that could actually really benefit us, because of just that, a fear of not fitting in.

With that in mind I decided on hosting a yoga lunch club that was tailored specifically for those who are either new to yoga or wanting to work on the core yoga foundations (something we all can benefit from doing what ever level). The stripped back class was about taking a lot of the postures and poses back to their foundation point, focusing on the connection of breath with movement and offering adjustments and modifications for each individual according to body and ability. It was great to witness everyone really connect with their bodies and bring their focus to the present moment, something I believe some of them had never done before. We then had the luxury of having a couple of relaxed hours to really wallow in the post yoga glow over a healthy eating lunch. I had prepared all the food that morning meaning I was present for most of the lunch. From a yoga instructor’s point of view this ended up being an important decision as I found I was then able to spend the time listening and chatting with my clients, (something that unfortunately you often don’t get when teaching hour class slots in London); consequently I was able to find out about why each individual had come, an overview of what kind of lives they were going back to and share a bit of my yoga journey with them. 

However before I allow you to go thinking hosting a yoga lunch club is all hearts and flowers, I have to admit to just ‘a little’ pre guest arrival stress when I realised I only had 30 minutes and still hadn’t cleaned the yoga space. But hey easy lesson learnt and actually I was surprised at how well the general timings did work; again I put that a lot down to the dishes I choose to make, specifically that I chose dishes I had made previously and so was pretty practised with the technicalities like how long each dish took, what needed to go in oven when etc. 

Overall hosting a yoga lunch club is definitely a thumbs up from me. It felt like each person really appreciated and enjoyed having been offered those few hours where there was no rush or judgement but just purely a space for them to take time for themselves. I think most inspiringly, despite being something none of them had ever experienced before, they were all very keen to do it again, which I have to say is great news for me because it means more excuses for me to create new recipes and teach lovely people yoga! 

Nat, VYM x

If you’re interested in being notified for any of our upcoming lunch clubs or have an experience of being at a yoga lunch club or running one please leave a comment below.