by Kara-Leah Grant I've known Melissa Billington since 2008 and been close friends with her since 2010. We've had -literally - hundreds of discussions about the nature of yoga, what it means to teach and what it means to practice. Melissa has also been a regular writer on The Yoga Lunchbox. She used to teach yoga on The Morning Show, back when it was filmed in Wellington. And a couple of years ago wrote, produced and acted in a one-woman show called PocaHAUNTus: Shapeshifting history into … [Read more...]
Learn How to Practice Yoga By Yourself with MYOGA Online School
by Melissa Billington, MYOGA Online School My partner loves chess and when he asked me to play I said I’d be willing to try, but that backgammon is my game. Chess seems too complicated - too many things to keep track of and too many possibilities. I like the mix of math, chance and skill that backgammon requires. And it plays out quickly. However, I really like this guy so I sat down with him and he explained the name of each piece and where it could move. It was tedious and I was still … [Read more...]
Drishti and The Relativity of Truth
by Melissa Billington How you’re looking is how you’re going to see it. And how you’ve seen it is how you think it should be. Unless you see it and change it. A story is not just a story. It’s your view to life itself. Your interpretation creates your world. This is a quote from my play, PocaHAUNTus—shapeshifting history into Herstory, that I’m in the middle of writing. Writing this play has been an enormous challenge because one of the main premises is the relativity of truth, as the … [Read more...]
Why We Need to Take Our Yoga Practice Back to The Basics
by Melissa Billington, Ear2Earth Yoga is a self-regulating practice. It’s a yoke, a disciplined and regular practice that harnesses our innate animal power/prowess and enables us to see our own self-sabotaging habits and tendencies. And, armed with that awareness and new tools for transformation, we are empowered to change those tendencies and habits of self-sabotage into tendencies and habits of transmutation and transformation. We can become the opposite of our deepest darkest fear, … [Read more...]
It’s time to hand the baton on – MYOGA & Powa Centre: Your opportunity?
by columnist Melissa Billington, Ear2Earth Early on in my running ‘career’ I was pulled out of running hurdles to make up the needed numbers on our team for the mid and long distance races. I never considered myself a long distance runner, even when I was one! I preferred the immediate victory of seeing (or not) a clear flight over hurdle after hurdle, laid down in my path. I felt more capable managing the spurts of running required before, after and in between hurdles, than I did the … [Read more...]
Why MYOGA uses a seasonal structure to map it’s yoga classes
by Melissa Billington Over the last few years, I've been using a seasonal map to organise my yoga teaching. Until I witnessed myself gesturing the same way when I referenced the calendar year, I didn’t realize that I had an innate sense of time being egg-shaped instead of linear. For some reason I’ve always seen winter at the narrow top of the egg, summer at the wider bottom and spring and autumn on the longer sides. Growing up in the four seasons of the northern hemisphere on the northeast … [Read more...]
What’s the point of winter – whether of the soul or of the seasons?
by guest author Melissa Billington, Creatrix of the Powa Centre & MYOGA Driving into Wellington there’s a big billboard by the docks that reads, “Cancel Winter.” It’s advertising warmer climes, in this case, Nelson. I know we can travel and many with means become snowbirds following the warmth of the sun around the globe. Yet I wonder if we’re missing something crucial by avoiding the dark and the cold and the seemingly difficult. I’ve lived in equatorial countries and the monotony … [Read more...]
Reflections on organising Global Mala Wellington 2010
by guest author Melissa Billington, organiser of Global Mala Wellington So if I look at what was (instead of what I wished would be), there were about 160 people at Global Mala Wellington, about ninety on yoga mats and another seventy on the edges, plus uncounted people coming and going around Frank Kitts Park. There were people who were very helpful, enthusiastic, supportive and who had ideas and resources to offer. And there were others who were along for the ride & … [Read more...]
What if yoga is like religion?
by guest author Melissa Billington, from MYOGA For years I’ve seen the fear people have around Yoga, some claiming it’s a cult or a religion and refusing to take part because they would be seen by the upholders of their own religion as hypocritical or blasphemous. Many yoga styles and schools are based in a religion and there is even Christian yoga. While many more styles and schools stick to their claim that yoga is an art, a philosophy, and a science, but not a religion. The word … [Read more...]
How do I go about becoming a yoga teacher? Part V
This is the fifth article in a series which has examined what it takes to become a yoga teacher. This installment is from Melissa Billington, who owns MYOGA in Wellington. Melissa writes: Teaching yoga is a product, or a flowing over, of who you are. Yet Ekhart Tolle writes; If you can be absolutely comfortable with not knowing who you are, then what's left is who you are—the being behind the human. A field of pure potentiality rather than something that is already defined. Give up … [Read more...]