Nelson Hot Yoga Teacher Dana Morgan
Our profiles of Hot Yoga teachers continues with Dana from Nelson. It’s so wonderful that these two Hot Yoga studios, Nelson and Wellington, have got behind Prana Flow Yoga and taken the time to fill in the yoga teacher profiles. (Thank you Claire!)
There is such delight in getting to know all these teachers, their different passions and journeys, through their profiles.
As you may have guessed from her photo, Dana’s other passion is coffee – you can find her at the market in Nelson sharing her joy and smiles with coffee-lovers, as well as at the studio.
Her journey to yoga came through cleaning – taking over the cleaning at a studio for a friend.
Reading through her answers, I wonder too if Dana is not something of a poet or a musician. There is a lyrical quality to her replies that makes me feel like going to her class would be a nourishing, rhythmical, life-affirming experience.
1. What style of yoga do you practice and where do you teach?
I teach Hot yoga (Barkan Method variation and Lou Casella inspired),Yin yoga Sarah Powers and Paul Grilley inspired, and Power yoga Baron Baptiste and Bryan Kest inspired, at Hot Yoga of New Zealand, Nelson.
2. How did you come to yoga?
My girlfriend was going away to care for sick family and needed someone to cover her cleaning job which was at a yoga studio.
3. When did the yoga bug really get you?
The first class – the first moment I stood on a mat.
4. How has yoga transformed your life?
Yoga has added a dimension to movement that is meta (big, outside of) – so movement has eternal meaning to me now. A wonderful mystical element has been added to my movement that is inspiring, freeing and full of passion and beauty.
5. What is your home practice like?
I love to practice in the dark, while tea is cooking, the washing is spinning and the vegetables are growing in the garden, home practice is me with myself without make up on!!
6. When people ask you, “What is Yoga?”, what do you say?
I say it is a form of movement that encourages being conscious of breathing, feeling, holding poses, moving through poses, becoming more flexible, happy, calm.
Yoga is a vehicle to find Self and a divine element of life that makes one smile and feel glad and free of tightness and restriction, yoga is a knight in shining armour that comes to kiss us and wake us from our slumber to play in the sun and not be sad.
7. What can people expect from one of your classes?
Passion, love, commitment, information, being touched, guided, encouraged, hopefully a laugh and a smile.
8. What do you love most about teaching yoga?
The impetus it affords to pursue knowledge and experience. The responsibility of teaching asks me the teacher to seek knowledge so that I may guide and lead through the rocky path of tight bodies to experience release, strengthening and lengthening. I am enriched at a personal level by my learning.
9. What do you wish everybody knew about yoga?
That it is wonderful and worth factoring into our day, it yields much for the effort required, its value in life today cannot be over estimated, it is a vehicle to process internal stuff and external body stuff and it does this with beautiful efficiency and gentle insistence.
10. What role do you see yoga playing in our world?
I believe yoga is a vital piece of a process that seeks to evolve the human and non human race into another paradigm that is better for all energy forms.
It will grow in the west and be a backdrop to allow us to consider eternal and quantum issues that will redefine how we live and interact with other energy forms. It will help us to be happier, kinder and more aware of our internal and external interactions.
11. Anything else you’d like to say?
Lets all imagine a wonderful world full of equality and kindness.
Lets use our yoga to increase happy and joy and range of movement! Breath, sweat, smile, bend, move – yay!!
12. And finally, how do people find you?
Come to Nelson, come to the Nelson Hot Yoga Studio, or come to the market for coffee, one of my other passions is coffee – I love making it!!
Namaste and keep on smiling and breathing!
About Kara-Leah Grant
