The post Beginning Yoga: Why Ashtanga is the perfect practice to start with appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

There is a moment in every dedicated yoga practitioner’s life when you fall.

I don’t mean falling out of a yoga asana like headstand. I mean when you fall deep into a yoga or contemplative practice. Falling deep into practice is where we stop looking for anything, or trying to gain anything. Where the identity of practising falls away and we move into the awareness of practice itself. You’re just falling into, or we could even call it feeling into, the process called yoga.

Falling into the process is a unique experience individual to us all, but for me it’s one of the things that defines yoga. So, the practice of yoga offers us this falling. But what is it that we are falling into, and what are we falling away from?

Falling into the breath

The reason that most yoga and meditative traditions use the breath as a tool for their contemplation is that it allows us to move towards identifying what the breath actually is and away from what we think the breath is. It’s really simple but we compartmentalise our lives. I see me, I see ‘my’ breath. It can take years to come to the awareness that there is no ‘my’ breath. There is just breath. As soon as I say ‘my breath’ I am identifying with a breath that is mine. Our practice is to see that breath is not mine, breath just is.

When we notice the breath as just the breath, our sense of separateness drops. This means that the mind’s hold on the idea of the breath falls away. So when we fall into practice we are letting go of the identity of who we are. We become the thing we are noticing. We don’t just breathe, we become breathing.

Falling away from identity

Our identity, or the story of me (in Sanskrit this is called asmita), is how we engage with the world through relationship. There has to be a me that decides to practise yoga. However, as soon as I engage with the decision to practise, I see the practice itself is to let go of my identity and focus on the things that I actually am, beyond my identity.

For example, in the practice of Ashtanga yoga the focus would be the breath (through the technique of Ujjayi), the body (through the technique of bandha) and the synchronisation of those processes through movement called vinyasa. Then my practice is to cultivate a stable awareness of vinyasa, so the quality of attention stays with the alignment of the breath and the body together. It is to see that rather than doing the vinyasas, I become the vinyasas.

Falling into the present moment

Cultivating this awareness then offers us the possibility to find space in our lives. With the mind consistently waking up to the processes of the human experience during the practice, that practice is remembering to focus on the breath, we can become aware that those processes are actually our lives. In Ashtanga yoga each counted vinyasa is a moment in time to fall into and each breath is representative of the present moment. So our practice is actually allowing us to fall into the present moment. To develop the skill to remain present is one of the goals of yoga practice.

Falling into nature

Interestingly, these moments of falling are also captured in natural settings. Watching a sunset, getting lost in the flames of a bonfire, or witnessing the flickering of a candle are places where, just for a moment, the turnings of the mind can fall away. These moments can then become the experience of the sunset itself, or the warmth of the flames or the gentle movement of the candle.

One of my favourite quotes, by Huang Po included at the top of this article, offers us the possibility to consider these moments as where our life actually begins. The falling through the void. The real Dharma. Dharma means your life. Entering the real Dharma is entering the reality of your life. This one beautiful life.

So we are falling into really discovering life, our own nature. Can we see the possibility that our practice is to fall away from the turnings (vrittis) of the mind (chitta) to actually see ourselves as nature itself, like the sunset, the bonfire, the candle flame? Setting your practice with that quality, that intention, is to me what practising is about.

Falling into awareness, awareness, awareness

I’m reminded of something that my first yoga philosophy teacher, the dear Swami Nityamuktananda Saraswati, taught me. She said something along these lines:

“Yoga is just 3 words.
The first is awareness.
The second is awareness.
The third is… awareness.”

To me, this is beautiful.

There is something incredibly powerful when you repeat an intention three times. Saying something once with deep intention can have meaning. When you say it again it increases the power of that meaning. When you reinforce it a third time it has the potential to reach underneath your conscious mind and land internally in a deeply embodied way. Language can profoundly move us.

So, each time we breathe we are entering our life, each time we link our breath to our movement we are entering our life. Each time we leave our yoga mat we are entering our life. We are, in every moment, willing and creating a new way of seeing of ourselves, a new way of seeing the world. Deeply dedicated yoga practice helps us fall into this.

The post Falling into yoga, falling into life appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

The formal practices of yoga (asana, pranayama and meditation) are deep ways to understand our world as individuals in the world of others. Remembering this is the key to yoga truly having a place in our lives. Taking our time to practise elements of getting closer to experiences that happen unconsciously helps us to see more about what makes us tick.

For me there are key moments in a yoga practice that allow me to see what practising yoga brings; what it truly means to me and where I can place my attention to notice something deeper.

Think about placing your hands together at the beginning of a class at the centre of your upper chest, like we do in the Ashtanga yoga method when we chant the opening mantra. What does this action truly represent? I see it as making a gateway from the world of external relationship off the yoga mat to this internal relationship we have with ourselves. This place is then where we chant the opening mantra from. We chant because others have chanted before us so that we may also.

Practising gratitude

But, if we just stopped for a moment and listened to the deep meaning of placing our hands together, we may get an insight into why we do what we do. What is it that placing the hands together at the front of our heart centre represents? It is so personal to all of us, yet representative of the subtle psychological things we do as humans.

For me, I place my hands together in gratitude. Gratitude for how I have found a way to understand myself a bit more in this moment, through the practice of yoga being a part of my life. Gratitude in knowing that yoga is helping me to become that little more real in how I see the world, even if I don’t like what I see. I have this practice to help me clear a path through this life.

Waking up to intimacy

The late Michael Stone used these words many times, “The practice of yoga is waking up to a life of intimacy.” In a lecture I attended of his he also translated the second sutra of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, yoga chitta nvrtti nirodaha, as: “Intimacy is the ability to let go of the turnings of the imagination.”

Intimacy. I love the way Michael uses this word as a way of describing yoga. It conjures up such a beautiful way of seeing how we relate to everything we come across in our experience. That everything in our lives is so close and we touch it with the way we see it. I expanded intimacy to also mean relationship. We are always relating to an experience, a way in which the world is opening up to us, at any given time. But intimacy is a word that really captures a way to experience how we can connect to things. Can we be intimate with everything, as if we cherished it so much?

When I am intimate it allows me to connect to things in deeper ways. Learning to be intimate with life is learning to lean in and not turn away from things that may be painful or unsettling. It allows me to be curious towards all relationships, both external and internal. We are always relating, we are always being intimate. To learn to notice this in a more open way is for me the practice of yoga.

So, when I practise yoga I see that I can never become separate from anything. The challenge is that there is some far-off place in the future where everything will be perfect and I will realise the nature of all things and be happy. This is a skewed notion. The practice always lands us in the present moment. Now. We exist here and when we find ourselves here we see that life is playing out this way all the time, and it never stops.

How we understand yoga

Yoga as intimacy, as relationship. This way of speaking about yoga still moves me to this day.

It’s interesting to me because both Michael and Ozge Karabiyik, two inspiring teachers whose work I cherished, passed away tragically, yet what they stood for and the way they met people still lives with me today. It’s like the ripple of their lives exist in the way I share and live yoga through mine.

Yoga is about us. Yoga is the space I notice between the words I am going to say, the words I say and the way words land with others. When I notice this space I am clear and truthful about what I want to say. Yoga is also the way I feel because of deep practice, playing out moment after moment after moment.

Teaching yoga through intimacy

The teaching space with which I hold is, for me, a deep way to understand how intimacy works. I see that life is intimacy. How can I help you to see that too? Importantly, how can I help you to see that intimacy by being with you while you try to see it, then getting out of the way once you have?

We all understand and touch the world as a response to our own personal histories and circumstances. This is what makes our personal humanity so beautifully unique. I can never see the world exactly the same as you. Yet, I can receive it in a way that has such depth and clarity. You can too. Most of us are just reaching out toward the same thing as humans. Things like:

Yet these realisations are based on a receptivity that others will receive these things in the world. Yoga practice makes us look at how we are seeing things towards ourselves first. How do I love myself? How am I listening to things in my own life? How am I making things play out in my own life? How do they truly land?

Yoga as a feedback loop

This all really matters. Because when I do this I can hear and relate deeply to others with honesty and clarity. I can find in myself responses that are valuable for the wellbeing of others.

So, yoga starts with looking at ourselves, it then plays out in looking at others in the field of responsive action.

Yoga, then, is a feedback loop. Again and again we meet the breath. Again and again we feel how the body is telling us about the world. Again and again we return to seeing how life is happening, and again and again we notice that all I am doing is unpacking myself in this world, so that others can respond to me and I can respond to them. With love.

How do you understand yoga in your life? It would be great to know.

The post How do you understand yoga in your life? appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

Pausing for thought

Before reading on, take a moment to contemplate these questions as they relate to you and your life:

Recognising your intention

If you’re a beginner, just the idea of starting yoga is an intention, whatever the reason. The initial intention/reason to practise is a great boon to have and to notice, especially when we embark on a contemplative practice such as yoga. We all come to yoga for many different reasons, all of which can find a relief to the pressures of our daily lives.

Interestingly, for experienced practitioners like myself, each time I roll out my mat this is an intention too, albeit one that becomes more established over the years. I roll out my mat as an intention to discover something more about myself, whether that be to experience a deeper connection with a posture, or to feel connected to something deeper within myself.

Acknowledging the teachings

The ongoing practice of yoga changes us, and the teachings of yoga, such as understanding certain yoga texts presented to us in a way that connects, are often what can help to wake us up. This is true whether they’re translated to us through a teacher, or by reading, watching or listening to yoga philosophy.

Interestingly though, in my experience of being a yoga teacher, people have changed irrespective of knowing what the actual teachings of yoga are. Their intention has been what has compelled them to come to the mat in the first place and do the work required to see themselves in a new light. After that, encouragement from myself as a teacher has been key. So there is something that the yoga teachings represent that is akin to becoming more human. Something that is felt. That goes beyond words…

Intention as a practice

For me, yoga has intention at its base. In fact, yoga IS intention. To stand at the front of a yoga mat, or even just to stand if you don’t use one, with full awareness of breath and body, is to be open to what is going to happen next. In readying for asana, noticing the gross physical weight of the body through your feet, and feeling the subtle sensation of the crown at the top of your head rising, we can awaken to the space in between those two points of reference. Our body. Our conscious awareness. The earth from which I feel, the sky from which I sense. We are then able to notice the present moment, as it plays out for us.

It’s simple but I feel it’s so important to remember that the body and breath, with which we sense the world, IS this human life. The continuous intention to notice this understanding is the potential to connect to the moment where we experience the fluid connection of life as it arises.

So, the practice of yoga is the intention of experiencing this human life as we place certain conditions on it. These conditions are asana, pranayama, meditation and chanting.

Yoga as a formal contemplative practice

Answering the questions posed at the beginning of this piece is a worthwhile exercise, and continually asking ourselves why we practice is noticing how yoga is changing us. All things are born out of intention but something like yoga, which is a contemplative practice, encourages intention in a deeper way.

Yoga offers us a way of truly understanding ourselves. I see it as a formal contemplative practice. This is a practice which we place as a benchmark, or front and centre, in our lives. One where we practise to notice ourselves intentionally and to return to it regularly. It is placed as incredibly important, because it is a process of seeing ourselves in a clearer way. We are able to work through and wrestle with all the physical and subtle aspects of our lives. It’s where we give actual time to the noticing and navigating of our awareness. How many see yoga as this possibility? How many have yoga as this intention? I’m not sure, but changing your view of yoga to seeing it as this potential is no bad thing.

Discovering our habits

There is, though, a deeper reward as a response to the intention we place on yoga practice. Because yoga is about feeling, noticing and becoming present, we begin to see how we see things in our lives. After a while we’ll be able to use practice to reflect back on what is going on in a way that helps our understanding of ourselves. Having a good yoga teacher is a great way for us to be helped with this.

Importantly, dedicated and regular practice should help us see our habits. Habits we may even have in practice itself, whether these be while we’re sitting quietly watching our breath, flowing through a surya namaskar, or trying to hold a handstand for longer than 5 breaths.

Waking up to the changes

So, with the possibility of all this practice, all this contemplation, how does it change us? It changes us because we are moved by the process of practice itself. Giving ourselves time to place conditions on the way we see and experience our lives allows us to notice our lives in a different way. We can let go of stories we have held for a long time.

It’s a simple premise, but having the intention of our practice as a formal contemplative process can help give us the focus to look and feel it as such. To actually become the thing we seek. To actually become yoga. Just for a moment.

As soon as I realise that I am being changed by yoga I can wake up to yoga. To what is new. So, yoga changes me, therefore I change. It’s an experiential, guided process, helping us to feel more alive.

As we practise, as we deepen, intention changes. But intention is always there. It never stops. It’s in the way I stretch when I wake up in the morning to feel my body. It’s in the smile I give the barista as I thank her for my coffee. It’s in the litter I pick up left by someone else. Being open to intention as a drive that shapes the process of our life is to be open to how we move and wrestle with this thing we are given TO notice. This breath, and the next one. And the next one…

The post Are you aware of the intention behind your yoga practice? appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

“Yoga begins with listening. When we listen we are giving space to what is.”

These opening sentences to one of my favourite books, The Mirror Of Yoga by Richard Freeman, offer the reader a direct insight into what entering the yoga experience is truly about: listening. But this isn’t just listening through the ears. It’s a deeper listening. It’s listening to the way that our own life is playing out through experience, all the time without stopping. It’s listening to the space that arises as we process our moment to moment awareness of being this human life. It’s listening to how I respond or react to every relationship I wake up to. For me, Freeman captures in 14 words the perfect way to enter and begin to work towards the yoga experience. They are like a personal sutra that I continue to return to and unpack.

To listen is to notice

If I am listening it means that I am noticing something as it arises. Something other than me. It means that I am noticing something in the relationship with myself; and then I am listening to the response to what has arisen. The practice of yoga for me is this understanding, that I am always in relationship with myself. I can never turn away from this, it is the process of my life and it will only end when I take my last breath.

It’s important to remember that the practices of yoga and mindfulness are imbued with developing the qualities of listening with love and compassion. Can we see the thoughts we have and at the same time develop kindness to ourselves while experiencing them? This is the ongoing challenge we face, which ultimately allows us to meet and heal the processes of our awareness and adopt new positive outlooks.

Noticing our narratives

Quite often, though, this deeper listening can be hard for us. We don’t initially like what we hear. The stories/narratives that play out in our lives are ingrained and deeply habitual. But through the practice of being with them we can reveal their feeling in our bodies, their tones and sensations. We can notice how they play out, we can feel them. We can ultimately, in time, let them go and allow how we relate to them to change. This letting go happens through creating new stories, through creating new positive habits. This is deep practice. This is yoga. So the way we habitually respond to things is deeply body oriented. It is learning to feel again. To notice. Our practices want to be waking us up to this experience.

The process of a yoga practice is to be with these narratives. To see the way we see things as narratives in our lives. As stories. Because, as Freeman writes, practice is giving space to what is. Importantly, giving space in this way allows us to notice when we are falling down. When narratives are clouding our view of the world. We all do it. We all have thought processes that catch us. To consistently listen to this is to be with the difficulty of the way we see things. For me, this is one of the most important teachings there is.

Learning our truth

My interpretation of ‘giving space to what is’ is ‘seeing things as they are’. The term in yoga philosophy for this is vidya. We are learning to see things as they are for us. Our truth. Even if our truth at the time is not easy. This process of learning our truth allows us to move in the world with integrity. It is where our ethical values can arise and can be how we meet others and move in the world. In yoga philosophy we want the discovering of our own truth to be how we then practice the ethical limbs of Ashtanga yoga, these being the yamas and niyamas.

But what happens when we listen to ourselves so much that we stop listening to others’ truths? We’ve been cultivating our truth for years, right? A deep yoga practice, cultivated over years with a teacher, will create a positive narrative in our lives. I have created this in myself with my own teacher. This can be the hardest narrative to unpack, especially as this narrative has changed our life. If that narrative is challenged, then we can find ourselves pushing up against the way it is being challenged. We can find ourselves choosing what we listen to and how we listen to it. When we give space to ourselves but don’t give space to listening to others’ views, we stop being open. We stop listening completely.

Challenging our stories

We know that the opposite of vidya is a-vidya. This translates as not clearly seeing, i.e. not clearly seeing our truth. This can be caused by addictions to our own habits and stories and this is one of the major obstacles to the yoga experience. And it’s where we see the most friction when it comes to human relationships with each other. You have your story, I have mine.

Importantly, what this boils down to is our own stories. How are my stories playing out and am I addicted to those stories? The story of my life. Our yoga practice should always challenge this very strand. To see that our stories are always in constant flow. Life is in constant flow. When we consistently challenge our stories, we are open to change around them. Importantly, we need to be able to be flexible in the way we meet the world and its innumerable, ever changing, circumstances.

So, yoga teaches us to not only listen to our own stories, but also consider those of others.

The Ashtanga yoga community, March 2018

Importantly, our Ashtanga yoga community finds itself in this exact conundrum at the moment. People are hurting, have been victimised and abused. Many women, such as Karen Rain, are calling out their pain as a response to the behaviour of Pattabhi Jois. They are pointing at the obvious: that their experience doesn’t match that of many others who practised with Jois at the time and we are burying our heads in the sand. We are not truly listening. We are caught up in our own narrative of Ashtanga yoga because it is so close to us. Because it has meaning, depth and connection to us. Because it’s Ashtanga, because he’s ‘Guruji’. “He enlightened me, so how can this not be others’ experience?”

If Ashtanga yoga was this practice that’s there to enlighten us, we would be truly open to the suffering of others, even if the suffering was dealt from those closest to us. We would engage with it. Consider it. Wake up to it. But we are not doing this. In other fields where this is happening, people are starting to come forward more and more, and we are actually starting to listen. This is powerful, encouraging and necessary, but it cannot stop there. Now that we have the light shining on our community, how we move, how we listen, is so important.

We need to listen. We need to listen more than ever. And we need to be uncomfortable. It has to challenge our view so that we can respond in an appropriate way.

We need to listen so that we can acknowledge the hurt of those who have suffered. So that we can then begin to heal the story of our own addiction to a narrative. Do we move along this path of yoga looking out for only ourselves, or listening so that healing can take place for those who’ve been harmed?

If yoga is about listening, how can we listen even though it challenges the very base of our own personal narrative?  Even with evidence that challenges the very fabric of our method?

Father first, teacher second

I have been teaching Ashtanga yoga for over 13 years now. The practice has moved me profoundly, and continues to do so. It is in my DNA. But, I have been a father for longer. I watched our first son being born in 2001, then our next two in 2004 and 2006. Those experiences moved me more. To bear witness to the birth of life, I became witness to this thing we squeeze, we breathe in and that we wrestle with every moment of every day. As they develop, I want no more for our boys than to have clarity of insight, to adopt an ethical outlook and a way to find joy in life. To be able to listen.

I want there to be a clear way that they meet others, so that there is no ambiguity, but most importantly that they meet people on an equal level. That they never place themselves above others’ experiences, but see how they can become part of the growth and integrity of others’ movements in the world.

Looking at the current situation in the yoga world helps me to see what I want my boys to learn. To be honest, open, transparent, with no way of people misunderstanding their meaning. But most importantly, to listen to those who are speaking and hear them with as much clarity as they can, especially when they are hurting. To receive and acknowledge the hurt.

Humble acknowledgement

“Vande Gurunam Charanaravinde”

This is the opening line of the Ashtanga yoga opening invocation that precedes every traditional practitioner’s practice. They are prophetic words. Loosely translated they mean, “I bow to the lotus feet of the supreme gurus.”

Guru in this context does not mean a person, but the yoga practice itself. The yoga practice is, and always will be, the teacher. We wrestle with the practice ourselves so that our stories can fall away and we can open up to experience.

When I chant these words myself, I am acknowledging and thanking the countless and innumerable people who have practised before me so that I am able to find my place on the mat that day, that moment. Every one of them. I feel their place in the world, I hear their breath in mine. Then, I breathe with them. I continue breathing with them, knowing that my breath is continuing this age old pathway forward. This for me is parampara. I include those who have suffered. I imagine that if those who have suffered, such as Karen Rain and others, had called out their abuse and been heard at the time, I may not be practising now. I bow deeper. It humbles me. And I listen harder.

Listening with love and compassion

So, the very words we chant at the beginning of our practice ask us to humbly acknowledge and listen to others. Too many of us are listening to the sound of our own Ujjayi breath and not listening to the wider sounds that are being made. Being voiced. These voices need to be heard.

So for me, I am listening. I am open to the uncomfortable and challenged by the new narrative. I am listening to those who suffered with love and compassion. I am hearing and believing their stories. I need to acknowledge and understand why people didn’t see and listen at the time. So that I can learn to be as open and responsible as I can in the way that I meet people in the many roles I have – as a father, a yoga teacher and, ultimately, a human being.

The post Listen without prejudice appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

Taking a moment to imagine…

Before reading any further, close your eyes and imagine if any part of your life had been different. Any part of your life at all. If at any moment a certain point that felt meaningful had gone a different way. Think of concrete examples. If you had chosen being too self conscious instead of travelling. If you had gone to Mysore. If you hadn’t gone to Mysore. If you had said no instead of yes. If you had said yes instead of no. If you had never stepped foot on a yoga mat. But, once considered, ask yourself the questions: Where would you be now? What would you be thinking? What would you be feeling? How would you be seeing the world? Go on, take a moment to consider this before you read on…

Skilfully reflecting

We know these questions are all hypothetical, right? But they are questions I feel it good for us to reflect on. You see, reflection lands us in the present moment and helps us to see where we are right now. To see where we’ve got to. Where our past decisions have brought us to. So, what thoughts are arising right now when I consider these questions? What feelings arise as a response? Are there emotions too that come up? We are learning to notice what thoughts, feelings and emotions have brought us to this present moment.

For those of you who are a yoga or mindfulness practitioner, this is very much part of a sadhana or spiritual practice. Yoga and mindfulness practice is about skilfully reflecting all these things in the present moment and knowing that by noticing these things we are establishing a root towards how our future plays out.

Smelling the roses

I notice in myself a constant movement between what is past and what is to come. This is because, of course, I am a product of my past moments. For example, the main personal decisions I have made in my life have culminated in me becoming a father, a husband and a yoga teacher. It wasn’t always like this, but it’s my reality now. There are other self proclaimed roles that all play a certain part and have meaning, but these are the ones that I feel define me.

However, If I think of them too much as roles then I can get caught up in what they are meant to be or the role I am meant to play. This can be defined by the culture and society I play them in. This can then perhaps define what I feel I have to be and the meaning by which I judge myself against others. If I look at these personal roles they are all about me relating to others. Seeing how other people and myself are responding to each other through this thing called life. If I stop and reflect, using the skills I have nurtured through my ongoing spiritual practices, I can experience them as they play out in my life. I can use the experience of the role to see how far I’ve come as I continue to play it. For me this is important. That I am constantly evaluating how I relate to others based on where I find myself.

In my life I can push hard for things to happen. I am really eager but I need to notice to what effect. Smelling the roses, remembering what’s brought me to this moment, helps me to understand a healthier way to move forward with consideration.

Meeting practice with clarity

When it comes to my role as a yoga teacher, I’ve had many practitioners come to me with issues surrounding where they are stuck in their personal yoga practice and problems that they face as practice continues. These issues could be physical, mental or emotional. They are all in some way how the practice is responding to their lives or where they are moving in the world.

What we often do is look at the practice as a microcosm, seeing how we’ve developed just as yoga practitioners. What we perhaps forget to notice is how the practice has developed us as people. We can look at the difficulties we face in life and perhaps see how we would face them without a yoga practice. Can we see how our practice is working on us?

For me, a yoga practice is about refining my observation. My own observation of myself. Rather than noticing where I am stuck, perhaps I can stop and see just how far I’ve come to be able to notice I’m stuck. To notice this actual time of reflection. I see this way of being caught as a very common thread in many people. I see it in myself too.

As a yoga practitioner, can I also observe all the moments of practice that have got me here and use that as the gatekeeper of the moments yet to come? I ask many people to contemplate this. To actually see how far they have come. Nearly always I receive a wry, knowing little smile.

Collecting our past present moments

It’s this juxtaposition of noticing the past that has brought me to this moment, and this moment being the place that takes me to my future that allows me to become present. It’s simple to say it, but my present is made up of all my past present moments. Observing my breath and body in awareness, whether through asana practice or meditation, really allows for me to hone the sensitivity to become present.

Remembering that yoga can be a way to unlock your own unique human nature, creating the ability to listen anew to things that may be uncomfortable, is a powerful reminder of the strength and potential of a long-term yoga practice. With all the imagery of incredible yoga prowess and yoga rhetoric that gets posted online, especially on social media, reminding ourselves that the practice is here to really move us, to shift our awareness to a more present relational nature, is so very important.

There’s so much we look forward to, so much we regret, so much that we hope may happen and so much that we are scared may happen. But we continue to practise yoga and in yoga practice we can forget how far we’ve come. A gentle reminder is key, always.

So, to actually come to this moment and notice how far we’ve come since we started a yoga practice, can be a significant way to waking up to what is yet to be…

The post Have you noticed how far you’ve come? appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

As we move into the new year, I thought it would be nice to look back over the past 12 months and highlight some popular posts from the SYL blog to help take your practice into 2018.

If you’ve read my article 5 things I’ve learned from starting a yoga blog, you’ll know that blogging didn’t always come so easily to me. But I wanted to share my experiences of yoga, of challenge, of transformation. And we all have to start somewhere. So I dived in and haven’t looked back since.

I discovered a profound and deep enjoyment in finding the ability to write again. In fact, it’s been transformational for me and I realised that writing regularly is just as much a spiritual practice as yoga itself.

So, here are 3 SYL blog posts from 2017 to help you move into the new year with a fresh perspective on your practice:

1.  Starting over: How to keep your Ashtanga yoga practice fresh

Starting over: How to keep your Ashtanga yoga practice fresh: The Never Ending Beginning Of Ashtanga Yoga
By Scott Johnson

In this post I reflect on the importance of keeping a beginner’s mind in order to keep your Ashtanga practice fresh and stay grounded in the present moment.

“I feel it’s important that we continue to hold the energy of the beginner in our lives. Of beginner’s mind. One of the many pleasures of being an ashtanga yoga Mysore teacher is cultivating a room that holds many different kinds of practitioner. All are welcome, and the set up of the self-practice method allows for both new and experienced people to be able to nurture their practices together, yet alone.” – Scott Johnson

2. Five ways to soften your Ashtanga yoga practice

5 ways to soften your Ashtanga yoga practice: How To Soften The Edges And Nurture A More Gentle Side Of Your Practice
By Scott Johnson

An Ashtanga yoga practice can be strong, dynamic and intense. In this post I share how to soften the edges of the practice and to perhaps nurture a more gentle side.

• Begin with stillness: Sit. Breathe quietly before you begin your practice.
• Widen your listening: Go beyond the inhale/exhale and notice the quiet space between the breaths.
• Let go: Notice when you are pushing and stop. Let it go, feel the body, then start again.
• Slow down: Slow the practice or vinyasa down.
• Remember why: Remember why you are practising yoga.

3. Combining mindfulness and yoga can change everything

Combining mindfulness and yoga can change everything: Exploring The Relationship Between Yoga And Mindfulness
By Scott Johnson

In this post I consider the relationship between yoga and mindfulness, and share how cultivating moment to moment awareness completely changed my long term yoga practice.

“Mindfulness captured me in my practice and created a more open attitude. It widened the focus of my practice and helped me to let go of those things in my mind that held me back. It’s not easy – there are constant unconscious reminders and life keeps coming at you – but, for me in practice, it always comes back to the tiny moments.” – Scott Johnson

I hope you’ll continue to read our blog posts and come to our classes and workshops in 2018 and beyond. Join our community below to stay in the loop and receive priority event booking.

Happy New Year!

The post Reflections from the Stillpoint Yoga London blog appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

I’ve seen so much while being involved in SYL over the years. In holding a Mysore space and getting to know people in a more personal way through the one to one teaching environment, I’ve met many people who have taught me so much about life:

• The lady who came in to say she wanted to use the practice to become stronger after recovering from cancer, and subsequently feeling her body again in a positive way. And the tears of comfort relief that flowed as a response.
• The man who gently realised it was okay to feel sadness, cry and be held by another man in comfort.
• The lady who began to see that strength was in the kindness shown to herself and her body, when for years that had been hidden, alien.
• The tenderness of the many as grief in the loss of someone close and loved turns into acknowledgement of their memory, the legacy of their life, and the gifts that will always be there in holding that dear.

These things seem so personal and of course they are. Yet I have encountered all these things in my role as a yoga teacher, in the frame of someone who guides and helps people to meet themselves through a personal yoga practice in a tender way over days, months and years. The longer I do this work the more I see that I am supporting people to develop more than just a physical strength related to yoga asanas. I notice that something else evolves too.

Strength in equanimity and balance

Strength can be awakened in a myriad of ways. From the gross to the subtle, a yoga practice offers fertile ground for discovering and nurturing parts of ourselves that are unseen, yet to be experienced as something we know in ourselves as strength. Whether it is a stronger body or a stronger mind, long term practice can wake us up to this. Yoga wakes us up to noticing that we can experience the world in an infinite number of ways. And the strength is in learning to do this with equanimity and balance, whether it’s with the body or the mind. In fact, yoga nurtures both. Yoga is both.

Seeing the body not just as a powerful tool to realise physical strength, resilience and energy in achieving physical goals, but also as a way to experience the softest, quietest of moments, feelings and emotions.

Experiencing the breath as not only a source of immense strength and power to be able to call on, but also as a way to experience the deepest relaxation and letting go.

The focus of the mind to achieve not only the strongest of wills and achievements, but also the deepest contentment that can be open to our experience.

Turning toward awareness

If we’re careful, long term yoga practice and personal sadhana (study) can turn us towards these moments. To help us see that we can hold both the strongest and gentlest awareness at the same time. That these experiences move together like the inhale and exhale. Always together, always part of each other. There is strength in this awareness. To be able to hold strong and gentle viewpoints and see the same in both. To be able to experience both the in breath and the out breath and see one in the other.

Importantly, this happens when we allow ourselves to become still. Learning to become still at the beginning and end of practice allows us to reference how we meet what happens in between these points. We can see what takes us away from being still and notice the layers of our perceptions that divert us. Ultimately, it can let us hold stillness as a fuller way of being in and seeing the world.

Strengthening the relationship between body and mind

In practice, connecting to stillness can happen in the pause between the inhale and the exhale. The letting go of concepts and stories can happen when we notice the peace between thoughts. These are ways our practice can evolve and strengthen the relationship between the body and the mind. Ultimately, in stillness, language and the way we speak to ourselves becomes known. The subsequent letting go of that language and story allows us to meet moment-to-moment awareness.

The physical practice of Ashtanga yoga opens this up to us. Over a period of time we realise that to achieve some of the postures we are wrestling with there has to be a letting go. A release. Something has to fall away so something else can open. This is how life is. Constantly meeting new moments in a way that allows for us to be present is what yoga proposes, and challenges. It’s a letting go that happens over time. Through practice itself.

The challenge and the goal are the same

When undertaking a change of direction, meeting a difficult challenge or coming up against problems, it is our awareness of it that allows us to respond. So, when we meet ourselves regularly with a consistent contemplative practice, it helps us to see ourselves like nothing else. As ourselves. With viewpoints that need challenging constantly, with a body that needs wrestling with so we can truly understands its knots. The beauty of yoga is that the challenge and the goal are the same. To realise that meeting the challenges of our lives can allow us to become open, more compassionate, empathetic and stronger versions of ourselves, and that we never stop opening.

I feel so privileged to be able to share and use this practice as a tool for people to help discover whatever strength means to them. For me, strength comes in the way we can hold ourselves while we meet others. How we can hold ourselves as we move through the many, many layers of life. Over time, we can grow this awareness, let go of things that challenge us and really see what’s possible for us in this life. Our challenge is not only to grow this in ourselves, but to also cultivate it while relating to others.

We are all growing old, but we are growing old together.

The post Cultivating a gentle strength in yoga appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

The Summer At Stillpoint 2017 season, which ended last week, has been a bit of a momentous one. When I began SYL back in 2009 with Ozge Karabiyik never did I think we would have a summer like this one. We have played host to, connected with and talked to the largest number of highly experienced Ashtanga yoga teachers we’ve ever had here at SYL, with practitioners coming from all over the world.

In May, Kia Naddermier and Greg Nardi came and taught with me for our annual Spring Gathering. In June, Anthony ‘Prem’ Carlisi taught his first UK workshop with us in 8 years, then surprised students when he dropped in to help me for our regular morning Mysore class. David Keil came and taught his annual SYL 7 day Mysore and workshop marathon. Then in August we teamed Manju Jois and John Scott for a stellar 5 day immersion into the teachings of K Pattabhi Jois. Danny Paradise popped in to say hi too. Manju also stayed to teach an intermediate series teaching intensive. We finally finished last week with Philippa Asher teaching a 2 week Mysore intensive. During this time I tried my best to uphold the real work SYL does: meeting the daily regular students who are the bedrock of SYL and make it what it is.

Connecting with others

Never did I think we could hold such a strong line-up, based on the foundations of our work as a morning Mysore shala. Yet here we are… because I am fascinated and passionate about every aspect of the Ashtanga yoga practice. There is nothing more enjoyable than connecting with teachers and people who inspire me, and then connecting those people with others. The SYL daily Mysore practice evolved from Ozge Karabiyik and myself being deeply moved by our work with John Scott and Lucy Crawford. The SYL Summer At Stillpoint workshop season grew from my inviting teachers I felt could add value to our community.

So this summer, with so many highly experienced teachers coming, there were lots of conversations over coffee and food, looking at how we as a wider Ashtanga yoga community are sharing this practice today.

All the teachers who passed through our doors this summer show humble allegiance to the method of Ashtanga yoga that Sri K Pattabhi Jois developed with his teacher Krishnamacharya. They share it through the filter of their own time spent with Jois. Of course, there are discrepancies between a lot of these teachers. These are based on their own personal filter of how they experienced the practice and learned from Guruji, taking into consideration the timeframe they were there. One worked with Jois as a father/son family relationship before westerners had even stepped foot in Guruji’s home in Gokulam (Manju | 1960s/1970s). Some had been in Mysore with maximum 8 people in Jois’ room (Prem, John Scott |1970s/80s/90s) and some had been in the bigger shala as it moved to Lakshmipuram from Gokulam in 2002 (Greg Nardi, David Keil, Philippa Asher, Kia Naddermier | 1990s/2000 onwards).

One method, one practice

We at Stillpoint have our lineage connected back to Guruji through our teacher John Scott. Even though I met Jois only a handful of times, I hold his teachings and lineage, and the ongoing teachings of Sharath Rangaswamy, with such love and admiration as through the years we have seen how our work at SYL has affected the students who come through our doors. Yet I teach through my teacher’s filter, sharing the practice I discovered through John Scott’s study with Jois. But we also connect with many, many people who have been affected by different aspects of many different Ashtanga yoga teachers.

When it comes to sharing the method, who is exactly right? Are we sharing it in a way that is preserving the exact method? Or are we sharing it in a way that preserves the tradition but blends the method to the individual? I think this is where we find the differences at the moment in Ashtanga yoga and I feel they can all be held and respected. Many different people come to SYL from many different teachers. We meet them all and ask, “How can we help?” A John Scott student, a Hamish Hendry student, a Nancy Gilgoff student, a Radha Warrell student. So many students from so many different places. So many different ways to learn, so many rich teachers. Yet one method. One practice…

A wider conversation

We can only teach from our continued learning and research from the people who come and teach with us and, more importantly, those who practise with us. It is good to remember that every one of the students who comes and places a mat in our space is teaching us how to teach, to begin again in sharing this method anew.

I feel a wider conversation needs to be had. With so many different filters how are we teaching/sharing? What are we preserving? Are all the individual methods valid, even though they may differ over the years to what is being taught exactly now? They have affected so many people in profound ways, and continue to move people and change their lives. This must be acknowledged …

Keeping tradition alive

Ashtanga yoga has such a rich tradition and history. It is one of the pre-eminent yoga practices that defines yoga culture, a base to much of the vinyasa yoga that is practised today. Sri K Pattabhi Jois lit the touchpaper from his little shala in Gokulam, Mysore that has ignited innumerable people worldwide. As more people are practising Ashtanga yoga now than ever, how do we keep this practice true? Do we adhere to the call of Mysore? Or do we look toward the many different blends that came from those who worked with Jois? I think it’s both.

Last month I watched Manju Jois and John Scott, 2 of the tradition’s most highly respected teachers, work a Mysore room together at SYL. They had never taught together before, and they teach the same practice in a completely different way. Yet the week ended with a rich coming together of respect, admiration and love between them, both holding and respecting the other’s way of sharing. Both holding and respecting the method they individually learnt from their father and their teacher…

The post The many subtle flavours of Ashtanga yoga appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

When a new student comes into our Mysore room I’ll stand at the back next to them. We’ll watch the many practices that are unfolding in front of us quietly for a moment. Together. Importantly, I’ll watch them watching and there is so much I learn from that process. I can see excitement, fear, anxiety, curiosity. I always ask them what they see. What they feel. Whatever is coming up for them, I say, is all okay. To just begin from there. Generally, when people do stand there ready to meet the room they feel that they are throwing themselves into the lion of a space that seems to know itself. That is somehow separate from them.

“Everyone is experienced apart from me,”’ they say.

“And yet we all once began,” I reply.

I then point out the many different practitioners that are participating, mention that everyone was a beginner once and then I point out the ones that were just like them the week before, the day before. Where they are standing now. With me, at the back of the room. Watching.

The process of beginning

They’ll then place their mat down. I’ll stand next to them and say, ”Are you ready?” They’ll nod, and I’ll say, “Follow me, ekam, one – inhale”. We’ll both raise our arms up and begin the process of relationship between teacher and student, meeting Surya Namaskar A (sun salutation) together. Before you know it, I’ll have stepped away from them, leaving them quietly beginning the process of synchronising breath, body and mind. I’ll move on knowing they have started on that process and begin with the next person, wherever they are. Our new beginner will have blended into the room, becoming another piece of the process of breath and movement that makes the room come alive.

Then, another brand new person will come in. I will stand at the back of the room and we’ll watch. “Everyone looks so experienced,” they will say. And so it continues…

Moving beyond language

A Mysore room is a playing field of so many different varieties. People from all walks of life learning in their own time, under their own steam. The beauty is all of it can be held there. Everyone is validated and there is no hierarchy. As a teacher I know everyone, yet not many people practising in the room actually know each other. People recognise faces, energies, the sound of a breath but may not know each other’s names, or lives. This is okay. There is a sense of something becoming known, that can go beyond names. Moving beyond language is something cultivated in a yoga practice, trusting in the sensory process of feeling and noticing without having to name.

When I stand at the back of the room with that new beginner, I myself will begin too. Begin again seeing the room as if for the first time. With feeling. With fresh eyes, just as they are. What is there that I can see that is new, that I haven’t seen? That is opening up to being seen. That never stops opening up to being seen. It is a gentle and beautiful reminder of how we can remain open.

Sometimes when someone is new I’ll put them next to a more experienced practitioner, someone perhaps a little like them. Someone who I feel their practice will speak to in a way that captures their imagination and can perhaps light a little spark. There may be a knowing nod, or expression of connection, a gentle acknowledgment of each other. Nothing more. Then sharing the space together, practising next to one another. One responding to experience, the other to beginning something unfamiliar.

Holding the energy of beginner’s mind

I feel it’s important that we continue to hold the energy of the beginner in our lives. Of beginner’s mind. One of the many pleasures of being an ashtanga yoga Mysore teacher is cultivating a room that holds many different kinds of practitioner. All are welcome, and the set up of the self-practice method allows for both new and experienced people to be able to nurture their practices together, yet alone. Because we are helping people to develop a practice of their own we are able to meet each person exactly where they are. But in this room it’s easy for beginners to feel that they are new, are fresh. What gets more interesting and challenging is perhaps keeping that freshness as we become more experienced. It’s easy to get complacent and then lose the love for practice. To think, “I know”, “I should” or “Why isn’t this happening yet?”

What if, as we get deeper into the practice of yoga, we continue as if always a beginner, never letting beginner’s mind fall away? Can we meet our practice with a quality where everything is always new? Everything is always fresh? Every breath always free?

Nurturing the quality of beginning again

There is always an opportunity to see things anew. This practice always offers us a new breath to focus on, a new sensation to hold, a new perspective to adopt. When we let go of our stories and drop in to what is present as we practise, we can become open to what is arising. And there are always things arising, things that are new, that can be seen and met in an open way.

A yoga practice is a beautiful way to nurture and nourish this quality of the never ending beginning.

Each breath is fresh and new. Each movement is fresh and new. Importantly we are establishing a feeling tone to the way we are connecting with our body and this feeling is never exactly the same. Depending on the day, the quality in which we find ourselves in practice gives us the space to see what comes up in that moment. And each moment is new. Always.

So, rather than looking at our practice as just about developing strength and flexibility, how about we develop the ability to notice these moments, moments of interest, freshness, clarity and vitality? Of nurturing the quality of beginning again.

The post Starting over: How to keep your Ashtanga yoga practice fresh appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

The world seems like such a crazy place at the moment. Things are happening that are like shifting sands daily. What to do? Keep practising, right? But what are we practising for? To become numb to the outpouring? We need a practice, but why? Perhaps to help us look after ourselves through all of this.

My last post was about softening into practice, about letting go. What happens when we soften? And what can we become open to when softening occurs?

Deep intimacy

Ashtanga yoga practice has many, many layers. All these layers are, in some small way, unique to the practitioner and evolve in their own time. You need drive, purpose and resilience to keep going on this particular path of personal self discovery:

• Drive: to continue to turn up each day to discover something about yourself.
• Purpose: to have the inclination to be open to discovery as it arises.
• Resilience: to be able to keep going when things get tough.

This is how I see the practice. Making the same shapes with this body day after day, month after month and year after year allows for a deep intimacy with yourself to evolve. “Allows” being the operative word because it is up to us to see how the practice changes us and moves us as we develop through the years of our lives. To develop a practice over a long period of time is to cultivate awareness as we change, as our bodies change and as the world changes around us.

We have a particular student here at SYL who I have been working with over the past few years. Her name is Tina and she’s happily agreed to let us share her story. She has really taken the practice on in a powerful way and it has been such a pleasure to work with her. Last year, in 2016, she came on retreat with us. I delivered an afternoon session on mindful practice and she took on board some of what I taught into her own self practice the next morning. It was a revelation for her. And not an easy one. She fed back to me that for the first time she had experienced the breath fully in her practice and that it was powerful enough to have moved her greatly. That for the first time she had felt what practice meant in her body.

And the outcome of all this, the teaching for her? She had to protect her breath. Rather than trying to achieve a posture through stretching, reaching or pushing herself, she discovered a need to achieve the posture and not let it affect her ability to breathe fully. And not affect her ability to feel.

Protecting the breath

This changed her practice completely. She realised that her trying to achieve a posture and make it look a certain way was getting in the way of her fully feeling the breath coming in and coming out. Her practice now was to protect this ability to breathe fully, and make it not so much about achieving a pose a certain way.

What a beautiful way to understand oneself! What a beautiful way to understand and develop your practice! Tina was upset that she hadn’t seen it like this before. I supported her with the understanding that her whole practice had brought her to this point. Understandably, after that experience she had a number of powerful realisations and these have now empowered her life greatly. She came up against the thing that we put aside first: the ability to feel. It is the ability to feel in our practice that can move it beyond the scope of just trying to make shapes, to really opening us up to our lives.

Tina realised that coming to practice is about making time for herself so that perhaps new discoveries can open up in her life. That for each of us taking the time to contemplate through a physical, embodied yoga practice offers us the ability to look at ourselves differently and notice what arises. It took a number of years for Tina to discover that for her the practice was about protecting her breath. Now she is able to take her practice further with this very powerful and deep realisation.

Importantly, she had to go through a personal crisis to see this, but it has ultimately allowed her to feel kinder and more compassionate to herself. That now, even though she may feel that some days are really tough because of an unknown fatigue limiting her practice, she knows that turning up allows her to find herself. To feel her breath in her body, even if doing the standing poses are hard.

Protecting the breath, letting the breath be the thing that we cultivate rather than pushing into postures, allows there to be a gentler quality to how we notice our practice. When there is this gentler focus we can then see ourselves in a more open way.

Practising with kindness

So, ultimately Tina found that when she turned her quality to protecting her breath it changed something in her. It allowed her to take more care of herself. To be kinder to herself. This was a great realisation for her. She really noticed for the first time that she was important. This then transformed the way she moved through her world.

It takes a moment to change the way we look at ourselves. It takes practice, though, to realise we have the ability to make that momentary change in our lives. That we can develop the quality to be able to look at ourselves in a kind and compassionate way. Can we develop a quality in our yoga practice that allows for kindness to arise? Importantly, can we cultivate a quality that allows for kindness to be the base of our experience of the world? If we can be kind to ourselves, we can then be truly kind to others.

Starting the day with the focus that we are cultivating a quality of kindness can transform how we move, how we act and how we relate. That we are truly important. That not only are we protecting our breath, we are protecting the quality of the most subtle part of our life. We can perhaps then learn to protect ourselves from the negative things in the world, and open up to the world in a kind and compassionate way.

The post Are you protecting your breath? appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

It’s obvious to say that ashtanga yoga is a very physical practice. That it develops deep focus, a strong will, stamina and a vibrant and healthy body. But it’s worth remembering that these attributes really help to change the awareness we have of ourselves, both in positive and negative ways. Positive because it helps wake us up to new feelings, sensations and processes in the body. Negative because if we are not careful it can reinforce old subtle habits. But to develop a daily, or very regular, personal ashtanga yoga practice shows a high commitment and regard to changing something about ourselves. And either way, with the right intention, that’s no bad thing.

In my experience of teaching daily Mysore self practice classes for the last 7 years, I have seen many people undergo real change in their lives. I have also seen those who can give themselves a really hard time. Just as ashtanga yoga can help wake us up, if we are not careful it can also help to reinforce the things that we find negative about ourselves. We can actually use the practice as a stick to continually beat ourselves up with.

So, when people come to share their practice with us at SYL we help them to nurture the practice in a strong and focused way. But, at the same time, we see if we can help them to soften the edges around the intensity of how a traditional ashtanga practice can be. We help them to cultivate a softness in their strength.

When I say soften, I’m not saying that the ashtanga practice doesn’t stop being strong, direct and focused. As I mentioned earlier, it will always be a very physical practice. But it’s a practice that we use to wake us up to the body; its limitations as well as its possibilities. I’m saying that we can use our intention to stop pushing ourselves so much and nurture our practice in a different, deeper way.

We can gently nurture our attitude and use the practice to listen to what our body is saying. There is deep intelligence in everything that we feel, everything that we see, everything that we are. We can practice in a way that is always uncovering this process.

Perhaps, then, it’s about how you practice. About your intention. About deep listening rather than blind faith. One of my favourite quotes from my long term teacher and friend John Scott, who has just spent two weeks with us here at SYL, is when he says that the ashtanga yoga method has 3 faiths:

Faith in the method | Faith in the teacher | Faith in yourself

I believe that faith in the method of the practice is not only about trusting that the method of ashtanga yoga will work for us, but also having faith that the internal intelligence around how we cultivate our yoga practice will arise too. Remember, this practice is challenging us to wake up now rather than meeting some far-off point in the distance when everything will hopefully be okay.

So, here are 5 suggestions that you can perhaps integrate into your practice to bring a softer, lighter and more open quality to how you feel and experience your ashtanga yoga practice.

1. Begin with stillness

Sit. Breathe quietly before you begin your practice.

So, rather than putting your mat down and going straight into the chant and sun salutations, sit quietly before you practice. Whether counting your breath or just noticing its rhythm and flow, allow for mental space to be noticed, acknowledged, accepted and perhaps spaciousness to be cultivated.

This spacious feeling, with breath awareness, can then be channeled into your practice and allow you to gauge when you slip away from that breath connection. Postural, physical yoga is there to trap our awareness and challenge our perception of the present moment. Sitting at the beginning and nurturing presence sets a beautiful tone to experience a fuller connection within your practice.

2. Widen your listening

Go beyond the inhale/exhale and notice the quiet space between the breaths.

One of the foundational practices of ashtanga yoga is free breathing. We use this as a tool to tie our awareness to the sound of the breath. But there is no end to how we can become awake to breathing in our practice.

A lovely way to keep your intention wide and open is to focus on the spaces between the breaths, or what I call the pause. When you focus on the pauses between the inhale and the exhale you expand how you connect with your breath. This cultivates a wider but softer approach and inevitably leads to experiencing the breath in a fuller, more complete way. This also helps to nurture the physical, spatial transition between vinyasas, where the movement actually blends into the next movement. See if you can hold your attention there too. Where the vinyasa meets the vinyasa, cultivate space.

3. Let go

Notice when you are pushing and stop. Let it go, feel the body, then start again.

Drop the ‘trying to get somewhere’ idea in asana. Stop forcing into postures and feel your way in. Remember, a yoga practice is a long term thing that has no end. The beauty of the practice is it will take care of you if you let it. Forcing a body into position can create negative patterns that can lead to injury.

Observe when you are forcing, when there is pain, and know that this is a trigger to change something. Pause. Notice. Then move differently. See if there is a different, more open way to achieve, and sense, a position. Use the exact feeling of forcing the issue to stop and notice the opposite. Let go.

4. Slow down

Slow the practice or vinyasa down.

There really is no rush. Feel. Take your time. Sometimes we can lose our way in our practice by moving too quickly. We can notice this by the way our breath and body lose synchronicity, or we struggle for breath. We can skip vinyasas or perhaps sidestep a certain position we don’t like. Meeting a posture or vinyasa with awareness helps us to open up into it. If you’ve bypassed a certain position, acknowledge it, then meet it again with a fuller, wider focus and try accessing the breath. This allows there to be more presence cultivated around it.

5. Remember why

Remember why you are practising yoga.

Every now and then, drop into the experience of the practice as it moves through you. Because that is what it is doing – moving through you. You eventually don’t practice ashtanga yoga, you become ashtanga yoga. Notice the moment. Witness the breath and body united in motion. In harmony. Then become that experience without pushing, forcing or harming yourself. Let the practice unfold in a beautifully open way. Importantly, remember what you are cultivating the practice for. What are the fruits of practice to become in your life…?

These are my suggestions. I have personally found them to be a profound way to deepen something that is already deep. And to help me meet the world in a more honest and open way.

The post 5 ways to soften your Ashtanga yoga practice appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

“Samasthiti…”

Guruji called. Then 150 practitioners came together in unison, with one unified intention.

“Om, vande gurunam charanaravinde…”

This is how I remember the times I spent with Sri K Pattabhi Jois in the last decade when he came to teach in London. The call, the response. The joining together in breath and attention was palpable when the guru called us up.

When Guruji made that powerful call it felt like he was calling me out of my unconscious mind. ‘‘Samasthiti – your breath, your body. You remember. No more practice. Pay attention…

… Wake up.”

That booming call has stayed with me. I make the same call each morning to the practitioners at SYL when we come together to chant at 07:10am.

A unifying call to attention, to come together and chant. To remember, individually and collectively, why we are here. For just a few moments in the practice room, to join together as one and remember why we come.

Equal standing

Samasthiti is commonly translated as sama (equal) and sthiti (standing). We are standing equally. Balanced and still. We are noticing the complex framework of what it actually means just to stand with equal balance, equal stillness, in that one moment. We are seeing how balanced and still we are in our lives. In fact we could also say the opposite is true and that we can also notice how out of balance we actually are. We notice it so we can perhaps begin to find balance.

In ashtanga vinyasa yoga, samasthiti is held at the beginning and end of each posture*. Because we are only ever in samasthiti for one breath we can find that the posture is both a transition and a point of reference. And that one breath point of reference we find ourselves in is an exhale. A letting go. We are returning to equal standing, to balance and stillness. To neutral. Where neutral means to see what opens up when we let go into ourselves. It is from here that we move.

A deeper meaning

With the understanding of neutral the meaning of samasthiti can be a deep practice all of its own. The intention when you begin your practice, from standing, creates the tone of what is to follow. When you are at the front of the mat, in neutral, are you ready? Samasthiti – then be ready. But be ready for what?

Ready to move

Be ready for what takes you off balance. Be ready to keep your focus steady when it wobbles. Be ready to not turn away from whatever comes up. Be ready. Ready to move. To move where? To move into wherever arises. But most importantly…

Be ready to be moved

I see samasthiti not only as a posture but as an awareness practice all of its own. In fact as awareness itself. And the awareness of ourselves in posture is really what I feel we are cultivating through our yoga practice. The awareness of samasthiti is the still and balanced focus of the whole practice that follows.

Notice where your attention moves. And what moves your attention. See that this movement is subtle and that practice moves us in a deep way. We know the body moves. Look deeper. Feel deeper.

Ready to move on

For me, this is the practice we are taking off the mat. The deeper held focus of seeing that it’s not only my yoga practice I am being ready for. I am cultivating that same readiness in my wider life too.

The ripple of ‘Samasthiti – Ready to move’ is the real teaching that I take from my yoga practice. That I am ready for the movement of change whenever it comes. Ready to meet people, ready to feel, ready to engage, ready to listen, ready to truly understand, ready to act, ready to be moved by the whole damn world. And ready to see it all, standing equally.

To remember

Remembering this is key. Yoga practice helps you see that your life is always moving. It’s also a training to be ready.

For me this time of year is incredibly poignant. It is now 5 years since Ozge Karabiyik, co-founder of SYL, passed away (2nd January 2012). I remember a dear dear friend, a colleague, a practice buddy, someone I could call a sister and a beautiful practitioner and teacher. Time flies. What seems like yesterday turns into today and will turn into tomorrow. But at the same time it doesn’t seem to move. She remains these things in my memory. When I think of her she continues to move me. She helps me to be ready for my life. In each moment.

Being ready for all that comes is key. How will you move in 2017? Are you ready?

*On the understanding that you’re practising the full vinyasa method based on the full vinyasa count.

The post Are you ready to move in 2017? appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

In the beginning

When I first began Ashtanga Yoga back in 2002, I remember turning up to my first workshop particularly stressed. Two of my close friends were fighting with each other and I was stuck in the middle of it. I left my young family for the weekend because I’d only been practising Ashtanga for 6 months and wanted to discover more about it. I was transfixed by it. Transfixed enough for it to have changed my life to take such a trip away from Louise and Herbie.

My first Ashtanga teacher Les had told me about Oxford and how there was a rich Ashtanga yoga community there. I decided to go and see John Scott who, at the time, was one of the most prolific Ashtanga yoga teachers – and I believe still is. I chose him mainly because I had his book. And he looked kind. And bendy. This was way before YouTube!

Although I was very new to the practice, I had fallen for it. I was enjoying the way my body had strengthened and opened. The sensation after each practice was warm, new and exhilarating. Then I met John. His workshop was a revelation. I remember being deeply moved by the way he taught and shared the practice – for the first time it felt deeper than just a physical practice for me. I also remember trying to convey how I felt to him afterwards but making an embarrassment of myself (or at least I certainly thought so).

Driving home after the workshop I reflected on the whole weekend. Even though the situation between my close friends hadn’t changed – there was still tension between them and I was still stuck in the middle – I wasn’t being disturbed by it anymore. I couldn’t stop feeling a deep sense of peace and contentment in myself. This was so new. I couldn’t understand why I was feeling the way I was. I just was. This was the first time yoga had really moved me. And it was in that moment that I realised I’d found a teacher who could point me to something deeper than I could find myself.

Yoga as movement

“Yoga as the movement from one point to another, higher one” – TKV Desikachar

This is a great explanation of the meaning of yoga by the teacher TKV Desikachar (The Heart Of Yoga, Chapter 8: The Things That Darken The Heart). This is a really lovely definition and I see so many ways that this meaning can be translated. In fact, the understanding and meaning of yoga can be so personal that each person can individually relate and connect to their own as yoga plays out in their own lives. Yet, Desikachar’s reference speaks to me particularly. Yoga has moved me and it continues to do so. Since I began in 2002 it has moved me to a place I never believed possible. But what I find interesting to ask is: What is being moved? To where? And what does “to another higher movement” mean?

A still point of mindful awareness

When we practice yoga we are breathing and moving and directing our attention to those two things: breath and movement. We are training the observational qualities of our awareness and learning to focus our attention on the things that support us being alive: our breath and physical bodies. This can allow us to notice the very essence of what it means to be alive.

In the practice of Ashtanga yoga we are learning to focus on the body in movement in one breath, then the body in movement in the next. The movement of breath and body from one moment to the next. And what is it we are noticing? The point that notices. We are training the awareness that notices the breath and body and allowing that to stay attentive to whatever arises. So, even though our body is moving, our attention is staying still and focused. A still point of awareness.

When we become that still point we find we can get nearer to truly moving into ourselves. A state where time feels like it can stop and we become present to just where we are and what we are doing. We just feel the body as the body and the breath as the breath. Without labelling. Then we feel our life as our life. Without labelling. This can allow us to see and feel that little bit more clearly.

Even if you are a beginner, that sensation at the end of a class where you have rested your body is you having moved from one place to another. I say to all our beginners: really notice how you come in and then notice the effects when you leave. It’s these points in time I find so interesting as a practitioner: how a practice moves me from one state to the next.

Where can we find our own still point?

We all have still points that just arise. When we see a beautiful sunset and are transfixed. Perhaps when we are watching a bonfire late in the evening and are taken away from our thoughts into the light and flicker of the flame. These are naturally arising moments that can just happen. But they are states that we can re-discover. That we can cultivate.

In a yoga practice, this place comes up mostly when we are taking relaxation at the end of our practice. When we’ve let go of having to be anything, having to do anything and allowing ourselves to let go. This is why it’s so important to relax at the end of practice. To let the movement in our body go, and then reintroduce movement back into the world after relaxation as quietly as possible.

Movement through relationship

“Being still does not mean don’t move. It means move in peace.” – E’yen A. Gardner

This autumn, 14½ years after that first John Scott workshop, I spent a much-needed 5 days practising with John in Scotland. Since 2002 we have become friends. I was with some other really close friends and it was a time to “just be” after a particularly busy 6 months. When I turned up John asked me if I wanted to practice with him in his teaching group after the main class. I politely and respectfully declined. I wanted to be a student again. His student, just for 5 days.

A new friend Peg, and her daughter Meghan, were also there to practice with John for the first time. Over those 5 days I watched Peg and Meghan be moved the same way I had been 14 years earlier, even though they’re far more experienced than I had been. I watched as John gently changed their view of their yoga practice so they began to feel and notice themselves practising in a deeper way. I also watched how they moved from one place to another, to a lightness in how they looked, with deep warm knowing smiles being the new look. How seeing their practices in a new, slightly different way helped them to transform their view. It was mesmerising. I found myself falling again for the practice simply by relating to someone else’s transformation through my friend and teacher. I was personally moved again.

Moving into the world

This made me notice something else. It’s such a turbulent time in the world at the moment. So much confusion, negativity and battling with others. Where can we even begin to make sense of it all? The answer, I think, is in each other. Those of us who have a practice are able to come together and to return to the simplicity of how we breathe, how we move and how we relate to ourselves. Perhaps it’s from here that we can then begin to see the world in all its beauty and, at the same time, in all its frailty. How the ripples of movement and openness in our practice become the ripples of how we see the world. When we practice we come back to the simplicity of this body, this breath. Then we can choose to act. We can choose how to move in this complex yet beautiful world.

At Stillpoint Yoga London we see the practice as a real way of moving toward a balance of strength and letting go, both in the physical body and also in life. We invite you to come and meet us each morning to breathe and move through dedicated yoga practice. And perhaps to find your own still point.

The post Have you found your still point? appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

“How one walks through the world, the endless small adjustments of balance, is affected by the shifting weights of beautiful things.” – Elaine Scarry

Each morning at SYL people come in to practice yoga. All have their own reasons. We, as teachers, move through the room just seeing how we can help. A gentle comment here, a light encouragement there. Fully present and safe physical hands-on adjustments that allow a person’s physical body to connect with their breath and to let go toward a new sensation. Or perhaps support towards a new posture.

Our intention for others is always the same as our own teachers had for us. To be able to find some kind of balance in our practice and lives and recognise when we are practising in a way that is detrimental. To align ourselves toward the balance of subtle and gross, breath and body. In my last post I talked about the breath being the fulcrum of our practice and lives. We now want to go deeper. We want to see how our practice allows for a more balanced perspective.

Balancing challenge

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” – Thomas Merton

This Ashtanga yoga practice is hard when you begin and it can take a while for that challenge to be a little more gently held. But that’s no bad thing. Being hard means bringing up all the ways you see yourself and meeting that. Perhaps it’s tight hamstrings, or sitting at a desk all day, or a troubled relationship. We can bring all these things to a yoga mat. In fact, all the things you think you are, and all the things you feel you are, can play themselves out on the mat itself. But if a yoga practice isn’t challenging us, can we call it an effective practice?

A practice that pushes our buttons helps to see what buttons we actually have. To see what buttons we have brings them out and allows for us to have a relationship with them, to work with them and perhaps to begin to let them go.

So our practice is about really noticing that it is hard and, at the same time, seeing the ways in which we can develop the opposite of hard. And I see the opposite of hard as the ability to take care of ourselves. We can practice effectively, and with great vigour and energy, but at the same time taking care and learning to practice with kindness and compassion to ourselves is such a valuable ability to nurture.

Balancing our practice

I see people using the practice to beat themselves up. That if something is a certain way or hasn’t been achieved then it somehow takes away from how they see themselves and how the practice is working for them. That they are somehow less because of their yoga practice.

Yet, I also see the same people have the ability to meet true balance in their practice. That place where they meet the development of the energy of their own body and breath with the will to stay focused, calm and attentive. So how can these two things be?

If we meet the practice regularly then we are allowing ourselves to meet the ebb and flow of our lives too. Some days are good, some days are bad. Some practices are good, some practices are bad. Perhaps focusing on cultivating the ability to have a good or bad practice takes away from just practice… pure practice. Not naming our practice as anything gives us the opportunity to meet the practice in an open way and to just be with what is required for that moment, at that time.

“My point is, life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The pina and the colada.” – Ellen DeGeneres

So our practice and lives can mirror each other. I invite you to see if you can cultivate the awareness of the breath and body together to be the way we meet our world, because the practice wants to be exactly that. One where we are able to progress, not only in the potential our yoga practice has for this physical body, but also in the development of the compassionate awareness of it. Bringing that into our daily lives is where we begin to transform the way we act and move in the world.

Noticing when we are not balanced

I like to use the practice to really notice when I am out of balance and the practice of Ashtanga yoga really shows that up.

In Ashtanga yoga we are balancing the achievement of a posture/vinyasa with the actual body and breath that is opening into that asana. We have all the sensations feeding back and telling us how it feels, and then we have the mind that tells us if we are doing it right or wrong based on those sensations. We are cultivating the ability to be able to balance the body and breath while keeping the awareness on these different areas.

The Ashtanga yoga practice challenges us beautifully to stay present, to be here and to return if we lose our focus. We are cultivating balance by consistently seeing that we are off balance and recognising this. Yoga is then the tool to get back on track.

Balance in our lives

Like Ashtanga yoga, life can be hard. But that’s no bad thing. That’s why we need a practice. To be able to traverse the many things that life throws our way and to meet them with some kind of awareness and choice.

Like life, you want to hold your practice in your hand so lightly. Like it’s the most precious thing. Because it is. And to continue to meet it like this means you meet yourself in the same way.

At SYL we cultivate a balanced environment that allows for everyone to be part of an inspired practice group. This cultivates trust and the ability to relax and let go. Come and join us either in our daily classes or on one of our beginners courses.

The post The delicate balance of yoga and life appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

A regular yoga practice offers us many things: strength; flexibility; a deeper sense of who we are; but also things that are true to us as individuals, that can shape our own lives and how we see our personal worlds.

You see, we are all beautifully unique and each of us has the ability to transform our perspective of the world we live in. But, together as human beings we also share the same ways that we perceive the world and each other. Our senses. Our ability to communicate. Our bodies. Breath.

Smile, breathe and go slowly – Thích Nhất Hạnh

We begin with breathing

More often than not, when we first begin the path of yoga, the last thing we remember is the breath. We forget it’s there. With so much else going on when we are learning to practice we can miss the thing that is the most important.

Yet being aware of the presence of the breath is the actual reason TO practice. It is each breath that ties us to this living present moment, therefore it is focusing your awareness on this breath that actually ties the mind to this present moment too.

Remembering as well that the breath’s very presence is the reason why we are here in the first place. The reason we are alive. When we were born into this world what was the first thing we did? We breathed in.

Try this 90 second breathing practice right now:

This short breath awareness practice demonstrates that we can return our attention to the present moment by allowing ourselves to notice the breath that is here right now. All yoga and mindfulness practices are pointing our attention in this very direction.

When the breath control is correct, mind control is possible > – Sri K Pattabhi Jois

When you breathe you move

One aspect of a yoga practice is the merging of the physical with the ever more subtle. The body with the breath. The breath, the mind. The ability to continually engage and align with the awareness of both breath and body at the same time is one of the goals of Ashtanga yoga. This concept is called vinyasa (breath/movement) and is what is developed through the method of Ashtanga yoga.

The thing is, there are so many other things going on when we practice that the thing we can most take for granted continues to get restricted and lost. Yet the biggest deal about yoga asana practice is the eventual ability to cultivate the breath as the focus point of our whole practice. It becomes the rhythm through which the experience of yoga unfolds. And a posture/movement deepens when the breath becomes the focal point.

Making the breath known

So, from those first heady beginnings when we are struggling to balance all the things we are supposed to remember and at the same time breathe; we slowly, over time, begin to soften our bodies, which means our breath begins to make itself known.

As we progress and the practice begins to form a regular pattern in our lives we begin to relax more into what we are doing rather than struggle to find breath. We don’t know this at the beginning, we just feel tight and think there’s so much to remember, but the long term payoff is our ability to breathe fully. We all do it though. From the beginner student, who is learning brand new ways of being challenged, to the advanced, who is opening up to deeper ways of being challenged. In my experience, what aligns the two is the experience of being able to use the breath to meet these challenges.

Free breathing

In our yoga practice we are looking to maintain a soft and steady posture and focus (in Patanjai’s yoga sutra this is explained as Sthira Sukham Asanam). The breath is at the centre of this awareness. If a yoga posture is steady, the breath is steady.

This means one of the goals of practice is the maintenance of a full inhalation and a full exhalation. This is what Guruji used to call ‘free breathing’. Free breathing: the ability to be free in your body and to notice a full breath. So we could say we are practising to find the space to breathe more.

I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am – Sylvia Plath

Following the path of the breath

So, Ashtanga vinyasa yoga becomes breath/movement yoga. Simply, when we breathe, we move. The breath, then, is laying out a path for our bodies to follow.

Whenever we lift or rise up in a posture we breathe in; and whenever we go downward or let go we breathe out. The inhale and the exhale pave the way for the body to respond. If we use this as the fulcrum of our yoga practice it becomes a much deeper process.

Take one breath at a time

Once the breath is full and deep, and the body is responding, we can then harness the breath to root our practice. The root of our practice is to unite our experience and become aware. We are able to use the energy of the breath to maintain and develop awareness.

In the Ashtanga vinyasa yoga method the practice is strung together on the rhythm of the breath. Sri K Pattabhi Jois likened this to a mala, which is translated in Sanskrit as garland, where “each breath/movement (vinyasa) is a bead to be counted and focused on” (Eddie Stern, Yoga Mala).

So we tie our mind to this breath by counting each breath. This is called the counted vinyasa method. This method keeps the mind, body and breath together and united.

Noticing when there is no breath

It’s also good to be aware of the different parts of the breath and this can really help us to give our practice a different focus. Not only is there an in-breath and an out-breath to notice, but if we really were to unpack breathing we would want to notice the points in between the breaths too. The spaces where the breath meets.

It is these points that it helps to be truly aware of. Is there tension here? Do I feel stuck? Am I forcing breath in and out? To notice the spaces between breaths is to get into an even more subtle awareness of your body and breath moving together. This helps so much with the transitions in our practice.

Remembering to breathe

So, if the breath is the fulcrum of our lives then we are able to use it as a factor that grounds us and transforms us. It is no coincidence that in many of the contemplative traditions around the planet you have the breath as the major focal point of transition from gross to subtle. A simple example is that most of us can probably remember a time when we’ve been in a vulnerable situation and someone told us to ‘take a deep breath’.

I feel our practice is teaching us to remember to breathe. With awareness, wisdom, clarity and skill. Just as in the middle of this busy city there is a place that offers quiet contemplation, support and refuge each day called Stillpoint Yoga London; know that in the middle of your busy life there is a place you can return to every moment that offers its own source of potential stillness. It flows a quiet wind through the veils of our lives and if we harness it, becomes the experience of how we move through our days.

So, if you’re ready to learn to take a deep breath in your own life then I invite you to join us. Either on one of our beginners courses if you’re new to yoga, or at our daily morning Mysore classes if you have experience of Ashtanga yoga.

The post When I breathe I move appeared first on Stillpoint Yoga.

By Scott Johnson

“I think self-discipline is something, it’s like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.” – Daniel Goldstein

Yoga classes these days come in so many varieties and there are so many different ways to practice yoga now that you can be overwhelmed by all the options that are on offer in the vast yoga skyline. The different methods of teaching and sharing yoga, though, are all offering you one thing: to see how yoga practice can transform the way you see yourself and your life. Here at SYL many people come looking for different benefits from developing a yoga practice and we personally feel that practising yoga is about engagement, empowerment and transformation. But in fact, when we ask beginners the reasons they want to begin a yoga practice, the most popular are to become stronger and more relaxed.

We support your yoga practice, from wherever you come from, by helping you learn the physical practice of yoga asana (postures) and breath. It is through meeting the body regularly in this way that you begin to slowly shift your perspective. We then help you to develop a self practice for yourself. We have personally seen over the years that this has been key in people sustaining and developing a new perspective in their lives.

“Self-discipline is not a restriction: it’s a path to freedom.” – Joseph Rain

At SYL we share, and develop with practitioners, the assisted self practice method of Ashtanga vinyasa yoga. We often get asked how the self practice method of Ashtanga yoga works. In fact, we even get told that perhaps there’s no point in coming to a class where you’re practising by yourself as you may as well do that at home. It’s cheaper too, right? I always respond and say “Well, great, if you can do that then we are not needed and that’s perfect.”

You see, we feel that when we teach we want people to get this so much that we eventually won’t be needed. That someone has developed the ability to confidently practice by themselves is a major success for us. Even if they don’t come to us anymore and they practice at home we see it as no loss, but the practitioner’s own gain. Of course we are there to continue to encourage and nurture but we don’t want people to feel bound by us. That’s the whole point. To be able to inspire people to be disciplined enough to practice on their own. People who take up a personal practice are doing something radical in their lives by committing themselves to a practice that can support them through different phases of their life.

“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu

So, here are a few things we’d like to share about this method of yoga and the benefits of developing a self practice.

A brief history

The self practice method of Ashtanga yoga stems from the teaching of Sri K Pattabhi Jois, also affectionately known as Guruji, who developed the practice in Mysore, India. The practice can also be referred to as ‘Mysore style’. It was always, and currently is, taught in this method as this was the basis of a deep teacher-student relationship where you had many people practising together, but a teacher able to help a person individually without having to stop a whole class.

As the Ashtanga yoga practice became more popular, it turned into a led class where everyone practised as a group at the same time, all being led together by the teacher through the series of postures. This changed the emphasis from individual to collective and, whilst no bad thing, as it greatly popularised the practice and is invigorating practising together in a large group, it lost the individual responsibility of the practitioner learning the practice for themselves. It also moved Ashtanga yoga toward a more ‘power yoga’ emphasis, losing the personal development that is learnt slowly over time, breath by breath, as an individual becomes stronger in their own time.

How it works

With the self practice method you are practising in a class environment with other people but, unlike other yoga classes where there is a teacher at the front showing everyone what to do, this class is different. The teacher or teachers are there in the room working with you individually in the class, whether you are learning the postures as a beginner or are more experienced and need assistance to deepen a pose. This means that within the class environment you get a one-to-one experience. There is also no particular timeframe you have to adhere to which means you can turn up to the class at any time, roll out your yoga mat and begin your practice, learning individually from whichever teacher is present, even if you are a complete beginner.

If you are a complete beginner and come to a self practice class the teacher will show you the breathing method, then help you with learning a sequence of postures. In the case of our self practice class it would mean you would learn the first sun salutation on the first day. Then you have your own practice. Once you are breathing and moving on your own, practising what we have showed you regularly, you then learn more as your body and strength grow.

If you already have a practice, or are perhaps familiar with the sequence but need encouragement and reminding, then we help you to remember and refine your practice by assisting, directing and adjusting you into postures, again helping you with developing the balance of strength and flexibility to achieve the opening of yoga asanas.

The sound of your own breath

Learning the self practice method is about choreographing the movement of the body with the flow of the breath quietly and on your own. So, when you are practising on your own the only thing you hear is the soft flow of your own breath. Also, when you’re practising in a Mysore self practice room, it is quiet. Generally, the only sounds are the quiet voice of encouragement by a teacher and the sound of everyone’s breath. When cultivating your own breath and movement you are contributing to the sound of the room too.

Becoming patient

And here’s the thing. Because the practice is about you learning, it takes time to cultivate. In fact it never really stops cultivating. There is never an end. When we practice yoga we are uncovering every part of our experience – physical, mental, emotional – at any one moment. So we are dealing with remembering the sequence, the breaths, the alignment, and so on. This is why the traditional Mysore self practice method is a 6-day-a-week practice. It becomes part of your life that you return to each day to cultivate. If we can’t fit in 6 days then that’s okay, but being able to return to a regular practice as often as possible helps us to shift many areas of our lives.

Relationship

When you practice on your own there really is nothing else getting in the way. Just you, your body and your breath. So you could say you are developing a relationship with yourself. How you process and develop your practice is how you open up to this relationship over time.

But also, this is where we come in. This is where we see the magic of developing a self practice really happen. Because we hold the space for all of this to happen, we share the method so you can take the method and play it out for yourself, in your own life. We are not imprinting anything on you. We are meeting you and saying, “Try this physical practice and see how it goes,” and we are being with you as whatever comes up for you comes up. We do this because this is how it has been done for all of us by our own teachers.

Fostering independence

Our whole purpose as yoga teachers is to somehow stoke the fire in you that allows you to run with the practice for yourself. This is where the ‘assisted’ part comes in. We are there as a support as things come up while this learning is taking place, i.e. helping you to remember the sequence and names of postures, where to breathe, encouraging a deepening into your practice, etc. But ultimately we are helping you to become responsible for practising by yourself. We are then there to help you deepen this focus while all the time continuing to support you safely through your practice.

Developing a self practice takes participation, commitment, learning and growth. But, by their development alone, these same things are being nurtured consistently in your life and will become the framework from which you begin to meet the world away from the mat. Which, ultimately, is what we believe we are really practising for.

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