by Kara-Leah Grant I adore Jase Te Patu - he's a man with so much heart, and so in love with New Zealand and his Māori culture. Plus he's passionate about yoga - both the practice and the teaching of it. When he and I sat down to have a chat about Power Living's Yoga Teacher Training here in New Zealand, it was immediately apparent how Jase has grown since we last spoke two years ago. The passionate boyishness has matured into grounded strength, tempered with an open vulnerability. And, … [Read more...]
Will Power Living Ravage the Wellington Yoga Scene?
by Kara-Leah Grant The same month that the new owners of Power Living Wellington signed a lease on their Johnston street premises, unbeknownst to them, Hot Yoga Wellington signed a lease on their second premises just around the corner on Featherston Street. Two new yoga studios, both featuring heat, one with the capacity for 60+ students in class, in a city already bulging at the seams with yoga studios and teachers. Has the market finally reached saturation? Will Power Living, with the … [Read more...]
Duncan Peak on What Modern Yoga Really Is
[Editor's Note: This article was originally published March 5, 2014. As Duncan is appearing at Wanderlust NZ & Australia 2015, I've up-cycled it for people to take a second look.] by Kara-Leah Grant I'm loving this interviews series with Wanderlust teachers because every time I've walked away impressed by the yoga teacher I've interviewed. This time, I was talking to Australian bloke Duncan Peak - and he is a bloke in every sense of the word. He went from high school into the military … [Read more...]
How Many Years of Yoga Practice Does it Take to Get Flexible?
by Kara-Leah Grant This is an impossible question to answer - at least, to answer definitively, but I'm still going to give it a damn good crack. And with good reason. Despite the fact that yoga has nothing to do whatsoever with flexibility - that flexibility is a side benefit of one's yoga practice and no measure of the depth or strength of one's yoga practice - yoga and flexibility are intimately intertwined in the modern idea of yoga. There's a good reason for this. We are predominantly a … [Read more...]
Whereupon the Giant Flashes Back to Early Childhood and Wakes Up
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm on a 500hr Yoga Teacher Training with the Power Living Crew called Allow the Giant to Emerge. I'm triggered, massively, and have spent four days of mired deep in my shit. This Thursday evening I'm exhausted and I'm sitting in a Core Belief session with Keenan Crisp and Kristi Clark leading. (Which is really all about working with vasanas.) I'm sick of hearing about core beliefs, I'm sick of hearing about people's childhood memories, I'm even … [Read more...]
But First The Giant Must Dissolve in a Puddle of Tears on the Yoga Mat. Again
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It's post-Bali yoga teacher training with the crew from Power Living and I am totally spaced out. I don't know whether I'm coming or going. One minute I was in conversation with Duncan & the PLAY crew poolside at Potatohead in Seminyak, then I was in a taxi and off to the airport, flying for eight hours overnight, arriving the next day in Auckland, driving 2.5 hours to Tauranga to pick up Samuel, sleeping some more, and driving four hours to … [Read more...]
Allow the Giant to Emerge: A Review of a Power Living Yoga Retreat
by Kara-Leah Grant It's Friday and I've been home from Bali and Teacher Training with Power Living for four days, however I'm only just getting my feet back on the ground. I knew the training would be intense, but I had no idea how damn intense it would be, or how much it would throw me. As you'll find out in the articles after this one this is a good thing. I've had a major breakthrough, thanks to the process the Power Living crew put me through last week. Who are Power Living? Power … [Read more...]
What are Vasanas and How Do They Affect Your Yoga Practice?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Earlier this year I took a short workshop with Duncan Peak from Power Living. In the workshop he mentioned the term 'vasana', defining it as character traits or tendencies and he talked about how our practice stirs up these tendencies and brings them into consciousness. Now I'd never heard of vasanas, and struggled to remember the term after the workshop, which happened the day before Wanderlust. The day after Wanderlust, I was driving from … [Read more...]
A Review of Modern Yoga: An Accessible, Detailed and Nuanced Take on Yoga for the 21st Century
by Kara-Leah Grant I love yoga books, and I'm often disappointed by them - not because they don't have great information, but because too often they're just a collection of postures or sequences with very little information about actual Yoga. My favourite books are those that deepen one's understanding of yoga, as a state of presence, as well deepen our understanding of postures - which are simply a tool of yoga. Modern Yoga by Duncan Peak does both of these things. And even better, it does … [Read more...]
Wanderlust Auckland 2014 Delivers the Perfect Yoga Festival
by Kara-Leah Grant It's the day after Wanderlust and I feel like a brand new woman. My body is worked, in the very best possible way, and my posture feels significantly different. It's like decades of misalignment has finally been worked through. It's not unexpected - I started the day with three yoga classes back to back. That's 4 and a half hours of intense yoga. After a two hour break where I stood and watched lithe and limber Cameron Shayne teach a martial-arts inspired flow, a … [Read more...]