Meditation is the practice of mastering our minds – taming their tendency to wander wildly and learning to reengage, bringing our awareness back to the present moment. When we meditate, we stop projecting into the future or playing the past over in our minds like a broken record. Instead, we settle into our skin, finding our centre within and through this, a sense of equanimity enabling us to better deal with the fluctuations and impermanence of life. Instead of being about the destination, meditation is very much about the journey and our sensory experience of it. When we are released from the shackles of the mind and simply allow ourselves to ‘be’ we can find clarity, lightness and a deeper sense of connection to life and to those around us. We feel more alive, more focused and more complete.

The asanas or postures in yoga were originally designed to prepare the physical body for meditation, so the combination is a naturally synergistic one. For this reason, we at Byron Yoga Centre have decided to hold a yoga and meditation retreat, starting February 19. Run by our resident philosopher and dedicated meditator with over twenty years experience, Stephan Kalhert, the retreat is designed to help those new to meditation as well as those who are experienced practitioners, but would like to deepen their practice and enhance their understanding of its philosophy and history. Held at our stunning Tallows Beach location, this is the perfect opportunity to get back in touch with yourself and learn the tools to gain clarity, calm and concentration in body, mind and spirit. Its going to be a beautiful and profound experience and we look forward to share it with you.

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~ Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured. ~ B.K.S. Iyengar

It is not a surprise that more people turn to yoga in times of crisis. When we are depleted, emotionally, physically and mentally the need to take care of our well being becomes more important than ever.

The recent floods across NSW and QLD have resulted in multiple deaths and thousands of people losing their homes and livelihoods. The devastation caused is unquantifiable and the impact on people’s emotional health and capacity to function is huge.

This is an undeniable fact and practicing yoga at a time like this may seem trivial. However, it is precisely during times of great distress that we need all the support we can get.

Yoga can provide a refuge of calm from whatever chaos is occurring in our lives. It provides the space for us to check back in and, when we are suffering and stressed, gives the body and soul the chance to relax and rejuvenate.

It also teaches us to live moment by moment and breath by breath. This attentiveness to the present moment is vital if we are to make lucid decisions, cope with difficult situations and is particularly important when the thought of the future is overwhelming and only adds to our already heightened sense of anxiety.

By surrendering to what is and accepting that we cannot change what has happened, we can only deal with what is in front of us right now, we are no longer paralyzed by our attempts to control the uncontrollable.

Through yoga, we can learn to be present, finding our centre and stillness amongst the changeability of life. In this way we can alleviate our suffering. This is the practice of yoga.

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If you have an intrepid spirit, a desire to reconnect with nature and tune back in to body, mind and spirit, then the combination of yoga and surfing may be your perfect match.

These complimentary traditions are both forms of meditation in motion. They encourage us to connect back to the present moment, to our surroundings and to ourselves. All the while developing our energy, endurance, flexibility and body awareness.

When we integrate yoga and surfing, a synergy takes place. At once, the surfer becomes more agile, has a deeper understanding of his body and breath and is less prone to injury, while the yogi gains strength, endurance and enhances his connection to his surroundings.

The beauty of both yoga and surfing is that they are far more than just forms of exercise. When we become completely present and completely peaceful, an alchemy of self, spirit and surrounding takes place. There is the opportunity to see that we are part of something greater than ourselves. In yoga, there is the union of our individual selves with our greater selves, or Atma. In surfing there is the harmony and synchronicity of our body with nature. When combining the two, we are taking a holistic approach towards yoking body, mind and spirit.

This is why, in conjunction with the highly experienced boys from Mojo Surf, we’ve designed a seven day retreat for beginners through to advanced yogis and surfers alike to explore these parallel traditions in a safe and fun environment.

Our surf/yoga retreat, starting January 15, is located at the unspoiled Tallows beach. There will be daily yoga and surf lessons, pranyama, beautiful, fresh food and plenty of time to relax and explore the surrounding areas. If you’re up for a bit of adventure, some time to chill out in paradise and tap back into yourself, then jump on board – it’s going to be sensational.

Check out the website for more details: www.byronyoga.com

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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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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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