Open Circle Yoga comes to Myoga

Namaste all

I am excited to confirm that I will be teaching a Monday lunchtime class at Melissa Billington's Myoga Studio at the Powa Centre, starting the 21st of this month.

Myoga Class Timetable

The idea of teaching at a Yoga Studio is something that has intrigued and perplexed me for a long time. As my own teaching style cannot be easily categorised into any of the recognisable yoga modalities the main barrier has always been a genuine concern on my part that I may be a round peg trying to fit into a square hole.

As my own Yoga practice has, for a long time been defined by my unwillingness to be bridled by the tenets (for want of a better expression) of a specific style of Yoga I did not feel any synergy with the idea of teaching at a studio that has already defined it's own identity.

What did that leave me with? Answering this question properly is going to be a real journey:

I started out my teaching career with a thing called Bodybalance. A modern fusion of Yoga; Pilates and Tai Chi set to contemporary music. This was a gym based class and it had a very specific formula in the way it was taught. For starters, it inherited a method of teaching by example that came from other more traditional group-fitness classes, such as Step. It followed a very structured blue-print of ordered "tracks" where a track is defined by a specific piece of music and choreography. From memory it would be ordered as: Warm-up; Sun Salutations; Standing Poses; Balance Poses; Core; Hamstrings; Hips/Twists; Relaxation.

Each track was tightly choreographed to the music, I learned the value of "counting the beat" when teaching this class in order to know when to transition to new positions/postures. This was actually quite challenging for me as it demanded the sort of qualities you might more readily expect from a dancer. There were quite strict rules about how to queue, as verbal communication was regarded as a key factor in becoming an effective teacher. Staying tight with the music; communicating well with your class and demonstrating good (or accepted) technique were all skills that needed to be merged together and played out concurrently. The ratio of female to male teachers was very high, and there is no doubt a big reason for that is that men struggle more with the sort of multi-tasking qualities needed to pull this off.

The truth is, being a Bodybalance teacher was (and is) quite a talent. It takes a lot of work and you most definitely need certain inherent skills (such as a basic sense of timing and musicality) in order to be a good teacher. It was a tremendous learning curve for me and at the same time helped (at least partially) address an area of great challenge in my life: A serious lack of self-confidence topped off with a good helping of low self-esteem. It was the beginning of a journey into self-belief and purpose, and one that had to be backed up by hard work to bring it all together.

There were some scary memories from my days teaching Bodybalance. Moments when I forgot the choreography and went off on a momentary creative tangent of my own design. It didn't happen often, and if nothing else the simple fear of forgetting was enough to push you to practice the tracks over and over until it really felt like it was drilled into your sub-conscious. I need to credit Bodybalance for allowing me to craft a strong set of basic teaching skills which I've carried with me to this very day. Even more than that, it has influenced quite significantly my teaching style, which to be honest, proved to be another nail in the coffin in terms of putting me at odds with more traditional Yoga teaching methods.

Eventually, my reasons for leaving this system were that I needed to grow. Perhaps if I were to be honest it was also a case of feeling like I was a small cog in a very big wheel and I was never going to go anywhere beyond the place I was already at. The structure of this class began to feel very limiting to me and I wanted to explore other ways of teaching. The only choice was to become a Yoga teacher and I needed that feedom.

Initially I did that without seeking a formal qualification. Instead my training and experience in Bodybalance coupled with my own very dedicated asana practice formed the basis of my classes. When I did seek teacher training it came in the form of Erich Schiffmann who coins the phrase "freedom yoga". His approach is to be inwardly guided and to connect and trust your own innate wisdom. It was in perfect sync with my own philosophy and to this day I don't think I could have picked a better person to seek a qualification from. At the end of the day I don't really think a paper document means you are either a good teacher or a bad teacher, but it does mean you cared enough to make the effort. In reality, who I am as a teacher has little to do with my teacher training, it is mostly a product of my own evolving practice and philosophy.

The method of teaching in front of the class, as it so happens works very well for what I want to offer:

1) Non interference

Hands on adjustments are not something I am inherently against and this is not a question as to which way is right or wrong. Touch is a form of communication and connection with others. There are dangers though. I have been injured by teachers who became quite ambitious on my behalf and pushed me too far into a pose. In the context of Teacher/Student, there is a balance of power heavily tilted towards the teacher. Both people are playing a role. However the role I choose to play is not that of a traditional teacher. I am not trying to create a vision for my students to aspire to. I wish to be a facilitator of a very abstract concept: to help the participant connect to their own evolving inner truth, body mind and spirit. To adjust a student I am therefore doing two things in conflict with my objectives: (a) Inflicting my vision upon them (b) Externalising their experience. I realise a new student needs guidance, but for me I limit that to keeping them safe and following basic alignment rules with which to wrapper their experience and growing conciousness around.

I'm working on a very basic premise here: That I am not the true teacher of the self. That is you. That is where I found my own truest teacher and it is what I want for my students as well.

2) Flow

I do not see Yoga asana as a discrete set of poses. I see the whole class as one pose connected by a thread of alternating breath and continuous movement. The truth is I often hold poses when I'm teaching a class, but just because the external movement has stopped, the internal movement, the breath, the flow of energy; thought and emotion still continue to occur. Pacing is a very relevant part of what I do, and there is no better way to be a facilitator of timeless flow than when you are experiencing it yourself first hand. I know there are systems of Yoga that prohibit the teacher from doing any of the poses in the class, and again I don't argue against the reasons for this approach. I will say I have been to many such classes where the combination with this and making student adjustments, the rest of the class is left to fry in a challenging posture for what can seem like a small eternity. Far from bliss it becomes a sort of torturous hell where you see if your will is strong enough to outlast the teachers absenteeism from the rest of the class. Often, when the teacher realises they have lost their sense of flow they will then rush the next side, which in my view only amplifies the imbalance. This is one aspect of Yoga where I feel closer to Ashtanga, as it becomes more about the student and the flow, than it is the teacher.

One of my students very recently came to me after class and told me she felt like the whole class felt like a dance. Her comment made me smile for the rest of the day. I don't want my Yoga peeps to feel they have done a set of individual yoga postures, I want them to feel like they have experienced a holistic asana practice.

3) Creative Evolution

Before teaching a class I have an idea of what the theme will be, but being in the moment, being in each pose, I am often guided to allow the Asana flow and connections to alter and evolve from their more regular patterns. For this reason no two classes are ever completely identical. At times very similar, yes, but sometimes a little different or sometimes a lot. Very cool things can happen that I could not have predicted because one moment suggests the next and you cannot circumvent that process. You have to let it happen and trust each moment to guide you to the next. This is not about random-yoga. I call on my own experience to use the building blocks and connect them in a way such that the sum is always far greater than the parts, perhaps even transcending them altogether. Certainly there have been some classes that went so well that I find myself feeling sadness in the knowledge that if I were to ever try and recreate it, it would only slip further away, but that is the nature of how I teach

So having said all of that, I found my home as a teacher at Gyms or independently at community halls. For the last 2 years I taught at a studio called Purebalance. It was a good fit because the owner did not teach Yoga but a contemporary blend and she was very open to my approach. Myoga is in some ways a brave step for me as I come closer to an established system that more deeply honours many of the traditional mechanisms we associate with Yoga. The truth is owning your own Yoga studio in a country as small as New Zealand can be a challenge financially. I have always liked what this studio represents and it has been reflected in the broad range of events Melissa has allowed to occur at her venue. One of the reasons I'm going to teach there is Karmic: I genuinely want to support and help Myoga grow from strength to strength. Another reason is that it feels like a great next step for me, to be closer to a traditional Yoga audience and share what I do with them. It feels like it is time and that I am ready: I have a much deeper sense of peace and understanding in what I do and what I offer, and of course what I get back from it.

The business model is slightly unusual. Members of Melissa's studio get to come to my class for free, as it is covered in their membership plan. Existing and new people to my Open Circle classes can use or purchase my existing concession cards and will effectively have access to both this class and my Wednesday lunchtime class at St Andrews. I am committed to giving this class time to grow roots and become strong, but like my class content, I am open to see how it evolves, and each moment will lead to the next. Hope to see you there.

Myoga Address

Peace

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