Have you ever known anyone faced with a life threatening illness? Have you or someone you know been confronted with an unexpected and potentially life threatening situation where everything normal went ‘into a spin’? How did you, or they react? Perhaps questions of the real meaning of life arose. It won’t come as too great a surprise to know yoga and retreat play important roles helping us adjust to major life challenges such as those posed by changes such as these.

At any given time, the chances are that someone you know is going through something of  a crisis. We receive a phone call (an email just seems too impersonal and distant) alerting us to their situation. It could be a call for a chat or a call to action. Their news might be urgent, asking us to travel a distance and give up work and even the needs of our immediate family to be by their side.

Sometimes just having someone to talk to, or someone who is not only trusted but also compassionate and considerate is needed. What might we tell them to do? If they are open to the gift of yoga, what would we recommend they do to manage their moment of crisis?

Few of us may boast the necessary qualifications to offer sound professional advice to others, such as close friends, in their time and hour of need. What we, as yoga teachers and practitioners is a form of guidance and the encouragement to draw upon the practice of yoga to help them ‘get through’.

Yoga therapy teachers offer a pathway to dealing with the stress and adjustment imposed by changing life circumstances, such as that of unexpected health issues where major changes are required in lifestyle and behaviour. Teachers in yoga therapy are experienced in dealing with ailments and illness from a wholistic yogic perspective.

Their gift of knowledge can be as simple as advice on gentle postures that assist with post operative recovery following medical treatment, or it might be guidance on meditative practice to help a student prepare for essential medical procedure involving interventionist trauma, such as complex surgery and medication.

One aspect of growing older is the growing likelihood that we, or someone close to us, will face even more serious life (and death) situations with age. When mortality suddenly becomes an ‘issue’, individuals usually begin to reassess how their life has been lived so far. What can also occur is an assessment and reordering of lifestyle so as to recover and restore the quality of life to which we’ve been accustomed. How reassuring to know yoga can not only assist the body recuperate after, say, surgery, but also help us keep focus on a path to inner stillness of the mind.

When someone you know is facing a challenge brought on by a sudden health crisis, either through accident or age, share your gift of yoga with them. If that someone is you, draw upon the strength and clarity of yoga’s healing power to keep the mind still and focus as you take important and essential steps on the path to recovery.

The support of friends and family can never be replaced or undervalued in any crisis. How much we choose to do for ourselves when the inevitable stress of life arises is up to us. Remember what yoga can do to help us manage.

Use yoga’s gift to engage with the body to guide us towards recovery using the yoga therapy approach. Yoga’s level of strength, support and nourishment is limitless once we adopt it’s wholistic approach encompassing respect and nurture embodied in teacher training.

Breathe in the beauty of yoga. But be careful to not over commit our body to recovery which can lead to disappointment and frustration. The guiding hand of yoga therapy and retreat is one approach at our disposal where the benefits are boundless!

What we might refer to as crisis, even at life’s end, can be managed with the love and support of others, appropriate medical advice and a yogic approach to healing and acceptance. Let’s offer that advice and support to others in their moment of need, by engaging in the teaching of yoga therapy through Byron Yoga Centre’s yoga therapy teacher training course. The course is a great opportunity to immerse ourselves in the knowledge and awareness of wonderful experienced teachers who have a deep understanding of healing and health appropriate for yogic mind and body management. Take the plunge and revel in the blessings offered by such an opportunity.

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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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Like you, I like to live a life which shows my passion about the environment. Like you, I recycle paper and glass waste at home. I try and buy locally produced food and goods from my neighbourhood greengrocer or weekly market, rather than those shipped half way round the world at the town’s corporate supermarket. When I visit an ATM I select view on screen rather than print a receipt. I try and cycle whenever I can. I even tear off the plastic window from bills envelopes (I’m told it’s the Virgo in me) when disposing off mail. And I practice yoga because of a sense of stillness and harmony a regular practice offers me. So when people more learned than me urge we tread lightly on the planet, I want to follow their lead because it sits comfortably with those values. Why then is there such a fuss over whether our response to climate change is right?

Recently, there’s been a spate of stories casting a cloud of doubt over what to do in response to climate change. Is the globe really warming? After all, parts of Europe and North America have just experienced one of their coldest winters on record. Some scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are now being discredited because statistics on melting Himalayan glaciers have been off the mark. Climate skeptics are on world tours while sections of the mainstream media are accused of falling short of rigorous scrutiny of the best available facts.

What we’re told and what we believe is dividing public opinion. Some think it’s a case of what you want to believe while others are happy with what science is able to tell us. Sound familiar? Have you ever felt a test of faith when it comes to understanding or accepting something you know little about? Some times there are no answers for why things are the way they are. Yoga practice and yoga retreats serve to instil a sense of inner calm to help us deal with the frenetic pace of life. The experience can help bring life into balance by taking a step back for contemplation. They also serve to bring clarity to understanding those things in life which require belief and trust alone.

When I hear of the dissenters of climate change theory, I try to empathize in case they have a point. Then I get stuck. But does it matter if I don’t fully understand? Is it really such a bad idea to try and take lighter footsteps for the good of the planet?

The easy thing to do would be to pretend the science is a fiction and we have nothing to worry about. Perhaps it IS a part of the planet’s natural cycle and that world governments and most of the science community are over-reacting. Then I remind myself that few things in life are free (or easy), and that I’ve inherited the world left my by my ancestors. Remaining true to my yoga practice is sometimes a challenge, but I know time on the mat leaves me feeling nurtured and still, just as I like my life to be. I enter a place of calm particularly with morning practice, which stays with me as I undergo my daily routine. I undertake yoga retreats to further my understanding and acceptance of the blessing offered by my yoga. When I’m compelled to engage with others in business or pleasure, I hope they acknowledge and appreciate the sense of stillness and harmony my practice brings to me. I want others to share in those gifts. If I can live more in harmony with the environment by minimizing my impact on it, then it seems I’m showing and sharing the benefits of my yoga in the world at large too.

A yoga practice helps develop that sense of harmony which science is urging us to honour. Does it matter if the extent of the challenge is uncertain? If much of the world’s most respected scientific opinion asks us to conserve, recycle, reuse and offset where we can, why not simply ‘do it’? Doesn’t such a path reflect what we as yogis aspire towards? If the truth is hard to bear, can we afford to close our eyes and leave it to others to act on our collective behalf?

To me, the aims of action on climate change sit comfortably with my desire to live a life of balance and harmony. That’s why I practice yoga. Denying this opportunity to restore balance is like giving up on the blessing of our yoga practice. We’re being shown the opportunity to take a new approach to interacting with our natural environment. As yogis, we already understand and respect the value in such an approach in our daily life. Isn’t this chance to change the way we interact with nature worth trying, regardless of the science and the skeptics who choose to question such a path?

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It’s time for me to cease being a dilettante and dive deeper. I have been practicing and teaching intermittently for ten years and my enthusiasm for yoga has greatly varied. In the last three years I have experienced lower back pain which has, at times, been quite debilitating.  This shook my confidence in my practice and my ability to teach.

I have taken this as a big lesson and I’m grateful that it has expanded my compassion and taught me to slow down, observe and accept. Of course, this lesson is a work in progress and I have times when I am impatient with my body for continuing to harbour pain. I would like to learn more about how I can manage my lower back to better strengthen, align and avoid future dysfunction.

I am expecting to learn far more about anatomy and physiology on this yoga training to help expand my intuition into grounded knowledge. I have a fairly rudimentary understanding of anatomy and physiology and hope this course will be the impetus I need to study this further. I hope to learn more about the emotional and psychological aspects of asanas so that I am better able to practice and teach to cater for each individual’s current state of mind.

I am looking forward to being able to observe others in the course and learn from the students and instructors on what needs further improvement. I am also looking for the many little ‘tips and tricks’ that teachers explain that lead to an ‘ah ha!’ moment of moving deeper in an asana.

I have a lot of love for meditation and philosophy and I hope to cultivate more diligence in my personal practice as well as being able to teach this to students.

Brook

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