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...]
Scott Lyons on What it Really Means to be in Flow
by Lucinda Staniland, Flow. We've all heard about the concept of a 'flow state' - but what is it really? What does it feel like in an embodied sense? And what stops us from experiencing it? Dr. Scott Lyons has an intimate relationship with flow. He's a Clinical Psychologist, a Mind-Body Medicine practitioner, the co-founder of Embodied Flow™ yoga with Tara Judelle, and a voracious learner who has explored many healing modalities. (Seriously, check out his bio - it's off the hook). He … [Read more...]
How Does Yoga, a Self-Regulating Practice, Regulate itself as an Industry?
by Melissa Billington, MYOGA Freedom & The Amazon Academy The advantage of growing up in the alternative health realms is that I’ve seen the evolution of these arts & sciences over a number of decades. My mother was doing yoga while I was in the womb & a few years later she became a massage therapist. When she worked in a health food store, I would hang out in the back. When we were Buddhist we chanted and had an altar in our home. Our family heritage to the pre-colonized Powhatan … [Read more...]
Note to a Younger Self: Systemic Abuse & Individual Response in Yoga
by Donna Farhi, On December 16, 2017, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered a landmark report; the conclusion of an extraordinary five year investigation into systemic and decades long abuse within the Catholic Church. The upshot of this broad sweeping report is the conclusion that the Catholic Church can no longer continue to operate within the protective insularity of it’s own institution and may soon be forced through new government … [Read more...]
Hamish Kenworthy on Why He Doesn’t Regret a Single Moment of Opening Up
by Lucinda Staniland, The first time Hamish Kenworthy came onto my radar was in 2016 when The Yoga Lunchbox conducted a search for The Best Up and Coming Yoga Teachers in Australia and New Zealand. We were flooded with hundreds of recommendations from yoga students, but some of the most touching, enthusiastic and sincere testimonials were for one Hamish Kenworthy of Apollo Power Yoga in Christchurch. Hamish's students all described his extraordinary energy, his jokes and sense of humour, his … [Read more...]
Yoga Teacher, Heal Thyself
by J. Brown, Originally published on J. Brown Yoga. There is a performative aspect to teaching and promoting group yoga classes that sometimes leads to a denial of the teacher’s actual state. The conventional dynamics at play between teachers and students, both interpersonal and economic, are presenting obstacles to the kinds of exchange that encourage effective yoga transmission. Maintaining integrity often means having the courage to buck trends in order to reconcile our intentions with … [Read more...]
Denise Payne on Why She Doesn’t Want Liberation in This Lifetime
by Lucinda Staniland, Denise Payne is a big-hearted yoga teacher with more than three decades of experience on the mat. Most recently, she spent the last eight years in Bali, where she taught at Ubud's favourite yoga studio, The Yoga Barn and also at Bali's most notorious prison, Kerobokan, where she started a yoga program with Myuran Sukumaran, one of the Bali Nine. In today's yoga landscape, Denise has what I consider to be an unusually deep grounding in Yoga, including twenty years spent … [Read more...]
Jennifer Allen on The Dissipation of Expectation in Yoga
by Lucinda Staniland I've never met Jennifer Allen in person, but on watching her video conversation with Kara-Leah Grant, it didn't take me long at all to learn everything I needed to know about her. Google can tell you that Jennifer is the founder and lead facilitator of Jayayoga, a popular yoga studio in Auckland. But perhaps more importantly, and you'll quickly pick up on this when you watch her interview, she has an incredible loving-mama-bear kind of energy, and she's … [Read more...]
Sandey Hoskin & Kylie Rook on Handstands, Creative Sequencing & Showing Up
by Lucinda Staniland Meet Sandey Hoskin and Kylie Rook, two yoga teachers who are committed to doing the hard work of showing up, being seen and constantly learning. They are also part of the team (alongside Fiona Liu) who are leading a brand new 300 Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training at Om Yoga Studio in Auckland. Sandey has been a teacher of teachers for a long time, and she's been teaching yoga teachers at Om Yoga Studio for the last four years. She's also been busy bringing some … [Read more...]
Vincent Bolletta on Asana, Movement & Yoga Therapy
by Lucinda Staniland, Meet Vincent Bolletta, one of New Zealand’s foremost yoga instructors and teacher trainers and the founder of hañsa Yoga, a unique style of yoga that integrates both eastern and western thought and methodologies. Vincent's been in the yoga game a long time—he's been practising yoga since 1989 and teaching since 1991—but alongside his considerable knowledge and experience in the field, he still cultivates a beautiful sense of excitement, joy and curiosity towards the … [Read more...]