The traditional eastern practice of yoga might not have obvious links with the dragon of the Welsh flag – but a Pembrokeshire teacher has united them.
Frances Taylor devised a 'dragon salutation' for the first Welsh festival of yoga in Monmouthshire.
Students acted out 'dragon behaviour' through yoga poses – eating coal, breathing fire, and defending Wales against an English ogre.
Ms Taylor, from Pembroke Dock, said she had been thrilled with the response.
A tutor at the Mandala Yoga Ashram in Llansadwrn, Carmarthenshire, Ms Taylor said she had aimed to combine traditional yoga techniques and exercises with Welsh storytelling.
"Many of the Welsh people I have taught have told me that although yoga is important to them, so is their own language and culture," said Ms Taylor, who is known in yoga circles as Black Feather Moon.
Talons
"I've always felt very close to dragons and the dragon mythology so I used a story in the Abergavenny festival about a dragon in a routine similar to the Salutation to the Sun (a traditional yoga sequence), which one of my pupils translated for me.
"I asked the class to imagine being asleep in a cave, then becoming aware of talons, nostrils and scales.
"Warming up we got our wings stretched and flapping, then we went on a flight.
"I was over the moon with the reaction. One woman who has been doing yoga for 30 years and has recently returned to Wales said she felt reconnected with her Welshness.
"I've been a tutor for 20 years and am entrenched in eastern culture – Hindu and Buddhist thought – but it's not my culture."
She said she was now thinking about developing more Welsh folklore, like Arthurian legends, into yoga sequences.
