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 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...]