I am shocked to discover that my preoccupation with nailing the perfect wedding hat for Favourite Daughter’s (FD) Easter wedding may have distracted me from mining a rich seam of wedmin side hustle that could support my teacher’s pension. Thankfully my niece – having recently become a Mrs herself – is much more in tune with the wedding market; she ‘books’ me to lead a Zen Hen at the end of FD’s weekend extravaganza of pre nuptial celebrations.

I am flattered at this request – and a little relieved to have missed the cut for the whole weekend because I am a light weight drinker and enjoy an early night. Realising that my usual brand of yoga lesson is geared at runners and cyclists blessed with tight IT bands, I decide that research is needed. Green though I am about this ‘new’ vein of yoga, I am in tune enough with my chakras to appreciate that the hens will need some gentle restoration after two evenings on the lash.

This is the greatest challenge. My niece swears me to secrecy and gives me a postcode to turn up to at a Cotswold Airbnb – replete with its own yoga studio. I am briefed to bring as many yoga mats as I can muster, to park my car down the lane and to sneak in around the back of the studio once my niece has assembled the nuptial brood. It will be no surprise to my loyal reader that secrecy is not listed as one of my super powers for I do love a good chat. I particularly like to chat to FD. If there is one person who will know all about Hen Yoga it will be FD but on this occasion I dare not call. I cannot even mention this booking when we meet for her wedding dress fitting and she comments that I am unusually quiet. I counter that she is just noisy.

To add context, the only reason I ever completed my yoga teacher training was to keep FD company. Finishing university; being a flexible little fish and having time to kill (my daughter, not me), I mentioned that she could use her holiday to get qualified; I even offered to pay – reasoning that she may find it a useful skill to pay for my future exorbitant retirement home fees . FD said she would only complete the training if I joined her. Not only am I chatty but I am also far too easy to persuade so – nearly ten years ago – we blag our way through our training and even team teach a lesson together. Teaching with FD was a blessing because I have as much flex as a wooden board and FD is like an elastic band and was able to flex the moves I could not reach. Effectively I was just the class voice over but thankfully there is no judgement in yoga. FD flew the nest before the ink was dry on our teaching certificates and she never flexed her lycra from the front of a yoga studio again. I must have spent too long napping in child’s pose and soon found myself leading a yoga class when another teacher was taken ill.

As I say, if there is one person that I would have asked for advice about bringing zen to a Hen, it would be FD. Instead I ask my own yoga teacher and we decide that a peaceful post-binge snooze on a yoga mat will fit the bill nicely. I buy some lavender scented eye pillows (honestly the best purchase) and dodge any further interrogation about the Hen Party from FD.

Thankfully my niece knows me well and arms me with only an ETA and a postcode for fear that my chakras might leak like a sieve. Little do I know that I have been billed on the itinerary as a VIP guest leading a session in the yoga studio. Thank goodness that FD is so overwhelmed by love – and so fuelled by Hugo Spritz – that she does not read the itinerary properly until Sunday morning. I think I have been rumbled at this point and she starts sending me messages and photos of her weekend. I lie blatantly and say I am out running and will look at the photos later. In reality I am just coming off the motorway and will be late; one of the other hens pretends that she is the VIP yoga teacher and blags me ten minutes and avoids FD’s query about the surprisingly lack of yoga mats. I park down the road.

These are my reflections after taking my first Zen Hen:

• what a privilege it is to spend a morning with these gals.
• far from ‘wasted’ these hens are lively, chatty and up for anything…
• until I produce the eye pillows and then there is definitely some soft snoring from the back row.
• never change your yoga teaching style – FD and I were taught to take ‘no fluff’ lessons, avoiding any mention of chakras or Sanskrit. In the intervening years I have become more woo woo on account of my podcast addiction and have found myself warming to the idea of koshas and fascia release. I write a lesson plan which I consider gentle, an affirmation of FD’s nuptials and centred around a heart opening intention. FD finds this hilarious and snorts with laughter every time I mention, ‘opening your heart space and finding your bliss’.
• I may return to my usual brand of ‘kick arse’ yoga.
• a post-session pub lunch aligns all your chakras – head, heart and belly – in a holistic symphony.
  

Now that I can add a Zen Hen to my yoga repertoire, I wonder if my Future Son in Law may want to book me for his Post Stag Lag. I realise I may need to butch it up a bit, but feel I could weave in some of the ‘kick arse’ and add in a cold water plunge at the end. I may need to research some Man City branding for the eye pillows if I am to get his buy in, but this is not my first rodeo.