Well, isn’t that just the question of the day! Does anybody really know? I certainly don’t, but I suppose I have an idea of what direction I might choose to move in. First thing’s first, practice practice practice. I want to get out there in the big wide world after my yoga teacher training and teach classes. I would like to come to a place in my teaching where I feel comfortable in front of a class for 90 minutes. I want to feel confident in my teachings, in my sessions and in my knowledge. I’m getting there day by day, but it is something that requires time and a whole lot of awareness. Also, I think it requires time to let all the information from the course sink in.

In the last week, I have had a bit of an epiphany in terms of my dharma. I do love teaching yoga…love love love it! There is something however, that gets me so excited that I feel as if I’m going to bust out of my skin….and that is… I can’t wait to get home and bring yoga to kids and teens. One of the teachers on the course Stephan suggested that when one searches for their dharma, a good place to begin looking is in your memory banks.

When I go back to my childhood hopes and dreams and begin tracing my aspirations from then until now, two things are very clear…teaching…and youth (kids and teens). Among the many things I wanted to grow up to be were: a 2^nd grade teacher, a paediatrician, a counselor for teen dealing with eating disorders, for kids with cancer and for troubled youth and more recently, a High School English teacher. As I reflected, I began to sense a pattern. Obviously yoga has brought my life an immeasurable amount of joy and at 23 years old, something I keep hearing is “You’re so lucky to have found yoga at such a young age”. I truly believe that I am that lucky and I want to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity that I had, to bring yoga into their lives.

So many people find yoga because something has gone wrong. Physically, they’re breaking down; knees, lower back, high cholesterol, obesity and so many other things. Mentally, they’re losing it; high stress, depression and anxiety, among many other emotional crisis’. They come to yoga because someone told them it would help them fix whatever is broken. What if we beat them to the punch? What if we worked on prevention as opposed to therapy and rebuilding? Children are the future…we hear it all the time. So why not give them the tools to be happy, healthy and whole now, so that they can build the future with those things in mind?

We all know what yoga has done for us and can do for so many. It brings us physical health and well being, awareness in body and mind, peace, calm, serenity and a purpose. Through the eight limbs of yoga, my life has been transformed, and I can’t begin to imagine what my life would look like if I had those concepts surrounding me from the very beginning. So many kids are becoming involved in sex, drugs and alcohol at such young ages. Not to mention the high rates of childhood obesity, ADD, ADHD and the rise of the couch potato. If you allow kids the opportunity to learn awareness and become in tune with their bodies and their minds, it’s my hope that they won’t feel the need to toxify their bodies, use prescription medication, seek excitement in unhealthy ways and generally “turn of”. With the knowledge I have gained here, the Pre and Post natal yoga workshop and my love for and experience with children and youth, I plan to go forth in the world and make our future a little brighter by bringing yoga into their present.

Short term, I would like to continue teaching general classes for all ages with a focus on kids and teens, as well as incorporating my interest in Yoga Therapy into private classes. I’d like to start my venture by hopefully teaching Yoga for dancers at a local dance studio and then after I have built up the experience, I would like to approach the board of education and propose incorporating yoga into their physical education programs. Eventually I’d like to open my own studio focusing primarily on kids and teen yoga with the opportunity for the students to experience Karma yoga (volunteering in the community as a group) and eventually yoga camps and retreats with a focus on yoga and issues that kids and teens deal with that are unique to them.

That is all for now. I can’t begin to process it all, but I’m so excited for my future. Thank you and Namaste…

Nicole Yarn

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If you’re a keen observer of daily events, it would be hard not to rate the recent turmoil affecting air travelers in northern Europe right up there with the major stories of the year. Who would have thought an active volcano in remote Iceland could bring the world’s aviation industry to it’s knees (or should that read ‘ground’) while nature took it’s course, throwing the travel plans of thousands of people into chaos? Is there a link between erupting volcanoes and yoga?

The recent travel chaos caused by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano has been described as the greatest disruption to air traffic since the Second World War. The travel arrangements of thousands of people through some of the world’s busiest airports across northern Europe and the UK simply came to a halt. Airlines were unable to fly for fear of a combination of engine malfunction and aircraft damage, with the industry unable to predict how long travel would be affected due to intense plumes of ash in the sky. What a reminder of our vulnerability and susceptibility to unforeseen climatic events!

We are all aware there’s ultimately a cost of human endeavour impacting on the environment. To think such an occurrence as an exploding volcano would play havoc with modern day transportation to such a stunning extent is intriguing to say the least. Turmoil such as this happens in part because of the unexpected. We are never able to predict with certainty when things will go wrong. Yoga offers the practitioner a path to managing and accepting disruption and imbalance from unexpected change. Yoga allows us to embrace rather than escape from these moments of ‘mini turmoil’.  

Yoga delivers a sense of calm and inner stillness by connecting our mind, body and spirit. Just think how your mind is still and focused after an hour or two on the mat! Yoga practice and yoga retreat offer a path to inner peace and peace of mind and body is as close as a regular practice. 

Yoga offers a doorway into inner stillness to bring life into balance. Yoga also offers strength and direction to deal with events which threaten balance and harmony. Yogis know we needn’t endure inner turmoil even when our outer world descends into chaos and confusion.

One way to bring inner stillness is to engage in a yoga retreat and enjoy a week long program of yoga, rest, meditation and cleansing diet which can do wonders towards achieving balance and harmony. This is particularly relevant when the stress of daily routine begins to take a toll on our general state of wellbeing.

We have no control over nature. What really matters is how we meet the demands of changing external circumstances. Yoga practice helps keep ourselves in balance with our physical and emotional environments especially when our outer world is in turmoil. The inner stillness that comes through yoga is a powerful and accessible path to stability and harmony.

We sympathise with the tens of thousands of air passengers stranded in the recent crisis. The likelihood is that such an event will soon forgotten, to be replaced with a new set of challenging circumstances. Let us remember as life presents such challenges, not to fight change but accept what is. Let us meet challenge and change with love and surrender and use our practice of yoga to restore and maintain inner peace and stillness.

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After the course finishes I’ve decided to stay on at the Byron Yoga Centre for a few more days as I’d like to teach a whole class on my own before leaving (rather than sharing a class teaching with my fellow students on the course). I’d like to teach enough times to really make sure I feel confident to walk back into the world and teach on a regular basis.

I think my muscles need a well deserved break, along with my mind. I’m allowing myself time for the training course to integrate into my mind and apply into my daily routine.

I then plan to head back to Melbourne and live my dream, which is to instruct in the yoga studio where I began this journey. I want to teach a free class with some of the teaches from the studio and family and friends. I’ll ask them all to complete a feedback from and then self evaluate before approaching the manager for a chance to teach a class once a week.

I plan to continue exploring my style, attending other classes all over Melbourne and really experience this diverse art. Someone said to take the best and leave the rest. Therefore I will be observing the classes and developing my knowledge, eg. how the classes are structured, the focus of sequences, how teachers use props, whether they offer adjustments and corrections, how they make their classes flow, how they create energy in the room etc.

I already have a passion for teaching and it sends my nerves in a spin with enjoyment. I believe I’ll be able to go far on this journey and am grateful for the light shed upon the path by the Byron Yoga Centre.

One day I will find my own style that resonates within me, allowing me to make classes flow beautifully. May I see you again as our journeys cross paths, may the light forever be shine brightly upon you all.

Alanna

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There is no deep reasoning behind my decision to enrol in the level 2 course really, not this time. It just seems a logical next step. Previous events, circumstances have me led to this, I’m just following my heart really.

I have been involved in the Byron Yoga Centre for a couple of months now and I really enjoy contributing. I feel excited and a bit bored ‘operating’ in the scope of my level 1 knowledge. So maybe I’m looking for more diversity as a yoga teacher and as a practitioner.

What am I hoping to gain from the yoga training course? First and foremost a deeper understanding of yoga as a whole. Not daily asanas but the theory and lifestyle behind it. I want to improve my own practice and gain all those little details that bring life into the asanas.

From the Level 1 training I gained (quite) a regular daily meditation and pranayama practice. But I feel that my technique needs quite a bit of work. I realize it is a lifelong process, but we are able to develop ‘multifold’ during an intense course like this and last but not least, I want to develop and grow as a person. To become a better person, if you will.

I learnt so much about myself during Level 1 and I do feel that I am entering the Level 2 course with a complete different mindset. That is why I am I am hoping the process will no longer be as ‘painful’ as the last course was for me.

Well painful in a different way. I realize today, that I don’t have to be perfect nobody use expects that, only me. I’m looking forward to the challenges I am sure you have lined up for us.

L. Tael

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I enrolled in Level 2 yoga teacher training because my Level 1 training with the Byron Yoga Centre was such an AMAZING experience for me.

It deepened my level of understanding of yoga, my self……life! So I am very keen to delve even deeper into this incredible practice that sustains me and nourishes me so much.

Also, because I want to be an EXCELLENT yoga teacher, teaching people good, inspiring, safe yoga…so, I’m hungry to learn more! I have been teaching beginner yoga classes for the past 6 months since my Level 1 training and have loved teaching with a passion, so I am looking forward to coming back and consolidating what I learnt, what I have been teaching and getting onto some more advanced teachings as well…going deeper!

It is my intention to do a different yoga teacher training each year so that my understanding grows, my knowledge increases and I can continue to be inspired, motivated and in connection with, like-minded and like-intentioned individuals.

Mostly I am doing the course because I love yoga and I love learning to teach yoga…I want to increase my sense of living in the moment and doing what I love, I want to live health, harmony, happiness, I want to be inspired, learn and grow more, increase my knowledge…have the tools to be an excellent teacher so I can help let this wonderful practice ripple out into the world!!

In the broadest sense, I’d like to take my teaching to the next level….from beginners, to more intermediate. I’d also like to take my self practice to the next level and increase the intensity and frequency of the potentially limited times I have to practice.

Importantly for me I’d like to learn how to keep it all part of my everyday life; integrate it all into my ‘real’ world…LIVE it, all of it; the diet, ethics, lifestyle etc.

I’d like to get clearer about where to take my teaching; how to make a sustainable living from teaching yoga! Business ideas, advice etc….

Specifically, I’m wanting to gain more knowledge, so I can become an excellent yoga teacher.

I’d like to: learn how to  sequence different types of classes, come away with good class plans, gain a deeper understanding of anatomy and physiology; gain a deeper understanding of what to do for people with different injuries; how to prevent from further injuring themselves and also how to strengthen areas of weakness.

Yay! Bring it on!

Kristin

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At the moment I feel saturated with information, and feel I need to take some time to process it all and start putting it into practice. I feel inspired, and also a little bit nervous about ‘getting out there’ and getting stuck into teaching. Mostly however, I feel excited about being able to start applying all that I have learnt.

When I go back to Melbourne my plan is to work 2 days a week contracting in a corporate role and to start teaching yoga classes as soon as possible. I hope to get a class or two in my local yoga studio, an am also going to look at teaching at gyms and corporate classes, or wherever I can. Initially I want to keep my 2 days contracting so that I can have a reliable cash-flow, and can put my energy into teaching, and have to worry about how many students turn up to my class.

I am open to teaching anywhere (e.g. not just in a yoga studio) and to teaching a variety of different classes, e.g. from Beginners to General classes. After taking Ana’s Prenatal workshop I am inspired about Prenatal yoga, and exploring and possibly teaching Prenatal yoga. I’m really interested in teaching yoga for Anxiety and Depression; I have my own experience with this so feel I could really teach from the heart. I feel there are so many directions I could take, so far now I just want to get out there and see what feels right for me.

When I have more experience, I would like to themed workshop, with other teachers e.g. weekend workshops or ‘urban retreats’ where people can come and do 1 or 2 whole days of yoga and have a break from their hectic lives and reconnect with themselves.

In terms of my own growth, I would like to continue on with my own study of asana, pranayama and meditation e.g. do elective courses, workshops for teachers, and once a year I’d like to go on an overseas retreat with different yoga teachers so I can keep refreshing my skills and be inspired.

In the future I am interested in running a yoga studio, possibly in a partnership with another yoga teacher. However, this is something that I envision doing after I have built up experience as a teacher. For now, I would like to really be able to focus on teaching, without having to focus on running a business at the same time.

I hope to start a family this year – it would be really special to teach prenatal yoga while I am actually pregnant!

It is really exciting knowing that there are so many options with teaching, and that I can choose to teach according to where I am at in my own journey, e.g. Prenatal or kids yoga.

It will be an honor to share some of the benefits and joy that I receive from yoga with my future students!

P.Prabat

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This week I attended my sister, Miranda’s,  debut yoga class at Red Tent Yoga*, here in Byron Bay.  My sister has recently completed the Byron Yoga Centre Level 1 & 2 Teacher training course, so she is ‘cutting her teeth’ as a new yoga teacher in town.   Now, with two yoga teachers in our family, we are all the more richer!

It was a delight to be a ‘student’ in her class and open to my sister’s own individual style and approach to yoga and to teaching.  At the end of the class, Miranda asked me for my ‘valued feedback’.   As a teacher who has been practicing yoga for 20 years and teaching for almost 15 years, it wouldn’t be surprising if I was to evaluate her class as being too simple or unsophisticated.  But, to the contrary!  I am again reminded of a significant lesson that yoga and other spiritual paths can teach us:  less is more.

Miranda’s class was beautifully simple and pared back.  Her instruction was neither under-done or over-done.  Just enough of the key points for each posture were conveyed.   By immersing myself in the simplicity of her instructions, I was able to again experience old, familiar postures with ‘beginners mind’.   Somehow, it helped me access the essence of what yoga should be all about…

I was also impressed by the competency Miranda displayed in safely setting her students up in the postures, adeptly making sure they had the appropriate propping.  This is a testimony to John Ogilvie’s philosophy that is threaded throughout the Byron Yoga Centre trainings:  “safety first”.

So, here’s to you, Miranda, and your fledgling career as a mighty-fine yoga teacher!

* Footnotes

Ana Davis is a senior teacher on the Byron Yoga Centre teacher trainings and specialises in pre and post natal yoga workshops. Miranda and Ana are teaching Deep Hatha Yoga Classes at Red Tent Yoga in Byron Bay.

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The yoga teacher training course has more than meet my expectations it has been wonderful. The first two weeks were emotional for me, but I had a big release and feel so cleansed and so safe, I would love the opportunity to stay and learn more.

I am amazed at how much everyone especially myself has grown a lot of what I have learnt here I will take with me and use in everyday life, it has been a wonderful spiritual journey which I did not expect and I think is the first time in my life that my soul feels right, thank you so much for having express my gratitude! Thank you.

J.Flowers

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The teaching staff at Byron Yoga regularly attend other courses and workshops to continue their learning and share this new experience with their students.

Gitam Garden, who looks after course enrollments at the Byron Yoga Centre, recently completed the ten day intensive teacher training program and now teaches regular classes. Gitam shares her recent experience with Donna Farhi, a teacher of great renown.

Recently I had the great good fortune to attend a Donna Farhi yoga workshop on spinal integration in Adelaide.

I have to admit to a certain nervousness about participation, I have heard stories about Donna’s manner. The friend who had introduced me to her work and previously attended a workshop, described Donna as a person who did not suffer fools, and would give them ‘that look!’ I resolved not to open my mouth for the entire five days!

Right from the first two hour introductory session, I was captured by Donna’s presence. Her physical form is tiny, but her energetic presence is everywhere, and her light and graceful way of moving on the earth was a joy to behold. I asked a good many questions, and never once saw ‘that look’. In fact I felt only friendship and loving energy from her, and a deep, deep passion in the exploration of movement of the body.

Its hard to put the experience into words now, I can only say that I learned so many little things about being in my body and connecting to the earth. Since the workshop I have begun to assimilate them into my practice, and slowly into my teaching style.

There were about 30 participants at the workshop, mostly from the Adelaide area, although I met a lovely woman who had come from Perth, and one from Lismore, and I saw yet another arrive back at the Gold Coast on the same plane as me.

An added bonus for me was that my daughter Sita lives in Adelaide, and I stayed with her and got to spend the evenings being mum, an opportunity that doesn’t come so often these days.

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I am so blessed to have the memory of my work with you during the Bliss Baby Prenatal & Postnatal Training and wanted to give you a bit of an update…I am currently 24 weeks pregnant, and am having a baby girl!! We are both doing very well and healthy, and she is growing more and more every day! I definitely feel the weight of my growing belly now, a lot heavier than a yoga block strapped around your tummy!! Baby and I are keeping up a daily practice of Asana, Pranayama, and Meditation, all of which I am finding to be amazing!!

The things that I learned from you have heavily impacted my decisions in pregnancy, from the changes in my asana practice, to my labour and birth choices. I have chosen to have the baby at a Natural Childbirth centre in Auckland, with the assistance of my husband and a midwife….

I am working with a lot of standing, grounding poses, in preparation for the birth in December…you are right, it does feel like training for a marathon! I am so grateful to have had the time with you in Byron Bay before this all happened.

I am also teaching some prenatal yoga at the moment at a studio in Auckland. It has been not only relevant, but so fulfilling to be surrounded by 15 other women going through the same things that I am. I am channelling you a lot during my classes, and hearing your voice in my head as I guide these women through their practice. I know now that this is truly my calling, and am working on getting my own business off of the ground here in Auckland that specializes in yoga for women in all cycles of their life

J.Allen
BYC Graduate and Bliss Baby Prenatal & Postnatal Training with Ana Davis March 09

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