"Exuberance is Beauty" ~ William Blake By Donna Farhi, All my life I have had a dream that I would live in a house with a long winding driveway lined with oak trees. In my early forties, I bought thirty acres of bare land in the South Island of New Zealand with no water, electricity, septic system or house. Over a period of seven years, the task of building a house and putting in the infrastructure of power, electricity, fencing and a water recycling system was all consuming. Once … [Read more...]
Growing a Strong & Resilient New Zealand with Yoga
Ali presenting historical & contemporary insights into how NZ’s yoga trends have changed over time. by Ali Hale Tilley, Perhaps the biggest highlight of my year in 2018 was presenting at the Hauora Yoga Conference, held at AUT’s beautiful North Shore campus. Thanks to the energy and efforts of Persephone Singfield, Richard Beddie and the Exercise NZ team, the Haoura event gave yoga presenters like me a chance to contribute to the Aotearoa yoga community. During the pōwhiri, our … [Read more...]
How to Claim Back the Freedom of your Body with Interoceptive Awareness
By Sonya Simpson, Interoception, sometimes considered the 8th sense, is the felt sense or mindfulness of the body, and Interoceptive awareness is the ability to process the signals you receive from your body. Some examples of this are; levels of energy and how to respond, pain and what to do with it, and sickness and its interpretation. Well-developed interoception has been shown to increase resilience [1], help with emotional regulation [2], improve health and wellbeing [3], support pain … [Read more...]
Slowing Down & Cultivating Interoception at the Hauora Yoga Conference
By Kylie Rook, New Zealand’s first Yoga Conference, Hauora, far exceeded my expectations. It was really great to see that the New Zealand Yoga Community is already on the G-O S-L-O-W wagon in terms of building interoception, improving vagal tone and allowing students to find what feels right for them. In many cases, this means letting go of the arbitrary alignment cues and even ‘classic poses’ to guide the students into a more felt experience and a deeper understanding of their own … [Read more...]
Finding an Internal Sense of Safe Alignment in Yoga
Through trainings and teachings I've done over the last couple of years and my own personal experimentation and study, my lens of "safe alignment" has drastically started to change. By Amy Green, To me, the inaugural Hauora Yoga Conference felt like an important step in this country's yoga evolution. The welcoming ceremony set the stage for a different kind of gathering than had ever been done in the NZ yoga community. Here were numerous teachers, speakers, presenters and enthusiasts, … [Read more...]
Embracing the Wisdom of Our Tribe at the Hauora Yoga Conference
by Sonya Simpson, When Donna Farhi was mentioned as a speaker at the Hauora Yoga conference I knew that I would move heaven and earth to attend. She is a teacher from my yoga lineage, she wrote the book Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit that I carry around all dog eared and tatty (the book not me… well, sometimes me as well) and I feel that it is a rare thing that brings her out of her cosy place of residence to speak with us in Auckland. The Hauora Yoga Conference was just that rare … [Read more...]
Top 10 Best Yoga Articles of 2018
LoveLake Festival – rocking the best hugs ever. Demonstrated here by Jase Te Patu and Luke Tomlinson. Photo by Cameron Sims of Plant Culture. by Lucinda Staniland, In the last days of my 2018 work year, I couldn't shake a nagging feeling that I'd forgotten to do something important... After much racking of my brain and searching of my to-do lists, I decided that I'd just have to leave it and moved on to packing my bags and preparing for a family holiday. And finally, just when I … [Read more...]
Can the NZ Yoga Industry Form a Cohesive Collective Body?
Yoga teachers & students attend J. Brown's 'Gentle is the New Advanced' workshop at the Hauora Yoga Conference by Lianne Divine, I haven't had much to do with the NZ Yoga community over the years. I refrained from joining the now disbanded NZ Ayurveda Yoga Therapy Association and have had no Professional Yoga Teacher's body to support my 20 years of Yoga teaching experience and NZ Government Qualification Standard training in a 4 year fulltime Diploma in Yoga and a Diploma in Ayurvedic … [Read more...]
Yoga Therapy in New Zealand: A Panel Discussion
Photo Credit: Bhavani Davies, Sanctuary Hill One of the many conversations we explored at the inaugural Hauora Yoga Conference was about yoga therapy in New Zealand. This conversation took the form of a panel discussion with with a range of esteemed local and international yoga experts: Donna Farhi, Katie Lane, Jac Wilson, Leanne Davis and Felicity Molloy, and hosted by the wonderful J. Brown. In addition to being an outstanding MC, J. also recorded the entire discussion and … [Read more...]
On Forgiveness, Redemption & #MeToo in the Yoga Community
by Donna Farhi, Now that the finger has been let out of the dam, there’s been a deluge of #metoo stories coming from our Yoga community. When we do start naming names, what then? In the past, even when teachers have been revealed for serious breaches of conduct, many of those same teachers were immediately forgiven without skipping a beat, and continued onwards with their glorious careers, seemingly unscathed. A recent article in a New Zealand newspaper by Michele A’Court called “Redemption … [Read more...]