WHAT IS YOGA ?
If you don’t know the answer to this question that’s absolutely fine.
So we would start with physical postures.
There are different styles of yoga but they all aim to achieve the same result.
As we practise the yoga, there will be emphasis on breath work (pranayama), sense withdrawal (pratyahara) and concentration (Dhahrana) along with work on the physical postures (Asanas)
If you can breathe, you can practice yoga.
It is not all about how flexible you are, or if you can twist yourself into exotic shapes. Much of that can be the ego.
Breath should be the focus.
The physical, external aspect of yoga is to encourage a healthy, balanced, symmetrical, comfortable body and nervous system.
Perhaps a more important goal of yoga, however, is to still the distracting fluctuations of the mind. We want to shift our consciousness away from the (monkey/automatic) mind. To stop thinking so much.
I would like to help more people to help themselves, by taking up the practice.
My Background as a yoga practitioner and teacher.
I started practising, initially as a child, through books that were lying around the family home. I remember trying the ‘Lotus Position’ because it looked cool. I also dabbled with meditation as I got older but didn’t really “get it”
Decades later during a 4-month spell in California studying music, my flatmate invited me to an early morning yoga class in Runyon Canyon Park but for some reason I declined to go … however it made me seriously think about starting yoga. Finally back in the UK I went along to a Yoga class I attended wearing the wrong clothes with the wrong mat, very shy and nervous.
I was shocked at how hard I found the class !
In particular, these repeated postures that were forcing me to open in my shoulders, hips and stretch my hamstrings. Also, inversions that highlighted weaknesses in my wrists and hands and exposed a fatter belly than I had previously acknowledged. I also realised my core strength was almost non-existent.
But I went back. I got a better mat, some more suitable clothing, and stuck at it each week. At first, it was purely the physical side of yoga that interested me, but gradually I noticed it was having a positive effect on my mood. I became increasingly interested in what this practice was doing for me. It was making my life better, somehow easier. I was more focused and happier as well as noticeably more comfortable in my own body , so I was now very interested in yoga and looked forward to every class.
In 2010 during a six-month music contract performing in Doha Qatar, in my spare time, whenever I could, I attended Yama Yoga Studios.
This was my first introduction to Ashtanga yoga. The teacher Valerie Jeremijenko was inspiring. The practice was remarkably hard, It was also VERY hot in doha.
However, I loved it. Maybe not so much during the class, but the feeling after was amazing. I could really feel it transforming me. After this experience, I was now fascinated with yoga.
One time I attended a teacher training class by mistake but was kindly allowed to stay and practice with the other trainee teachers. It was very embarrassing for me as I had no idea what I was doing. Despite this, the first seeds of thought of passing my very limited knowledge to others started to occur to me.
I returned to the UK with a thirst for more knowledge of Ashtanga yoga. However, I could not find any classes that came close to the experience I had found in the middle east.
Needing a deeper immersion into yoga in general in 2011 I travelled to India and attended the Himalaya Yoga Valley Training Centre.
My-self and twenty-two others from around the globe, spent twelve hours per day, six days a week training in meditation, pranayama, chanting, anatomy, asana and yoga philosophy. Eating a purely vegetarian diet and living 2 mins walk from a beautiful beach. The experience was fantastic, life changing. I returned to the UK a fully qualified yoga instructor.
I was then fortunate to find several opportunities to start teaching and I also gained a level 3 diploma in body massage and completed an ITEC diploma in Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology. After two years teaching yoga at Plymouth life centre, Brickfields sports centre and Plymouth’s own dedicated studio The Yoga Loft.
It was time for some more travelling!
I moved to Marseille in the South of France in 2014 and through good fortune ended up with my own class at a dedicated Ashtanga school Yama where I taught for a year.
I was able to attend all other classes and learnt a great deal from my fellow yoga teachers including Vanessa Brouillet, Alexia Galleron and Savitri Igos.
I returned again to the UK where I resumed my classes and also had the opportunity of teaching yoga to medical students at Plymouth University. In 2019 an eight month trip to Australia and Bali Indonesia has added hugely to my experience.