Taupo Yoga Teacher Anandi Greene
Anandi spent around three years in India during her twenties, which led to her first ever Yoga class.
It was an Iyengar class and she was hooked immediately!
She did her first teacher training in Pune and went on to help her teacher open a new school just off the beach in Candolim, Goa, something she says was a very magical time.
After Goa, Anandi travelled to Thailand and taught Yoga at the Healing Child Oasis resort in Mai Nam, Koh Samui. This was a centre for healing and fasting with yoga practiced on the beach each morning.
A big difference from her next teaching job in Scotland where she taught just outside Edinburgh for three years.
After another trip to India, it was back to New Zealand and Anandi’s been loving watching yoga grow in Taupo over the six years she’s been back.
1. What style of yoga do you practice and where do you teach?
I presently love to practice Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, and sometimes some Iyengar too, I really enjoy both styles of Yoga.
I teach at The Yoga Tree, Taupo, our beautiful new studio opens on March 11th 2011 it is right across from the Cinema in the centre of town, above Kathmandu, it is a large, fully equiped, bright and light studio with a shower and meditaion space and plenty of room for all!
2. How did you come to yoga?
In my early 20s India was calling. My best friend and I set off with our back packs and followed our hearts and our dreams, it wasn’t long until I was practicing yoga daily at The Iyengar Yoga School, Pune. That was 16 years ago, I continued to go to India every year for six months for the following 3 years to study with my teacher.
3. When did the yoga bug really get you?
Pretty much after my first class I was hooked. I loved the way Yoga brought light into my life, a feeling of strength and clarity and so much more awareness. My whole year and working life would then revolve around how I could get back to India to practice more Yoga!
4. How has yoga transformed your life?
I have now been teaching Yoga for 13 years, it mirrors into everything I do, I feel a much calmer, open hearted and aware person, I couldn’t imagine how my life would be if yoga weren’t at it’s core. Also the people that I meet through yoga and the community that we have now here at The Yoga Tree in Taupo are all a mirror of the brightness and openness that yoga brings.
5. What is your home practice like?
I am so lucky to have a small Yoga Studio in my home where I have been teaching from during the last three years. I practice from my home studio five days a week for up to two hours. I like to practice Ashtanga Vinyasa most but sometimes love to practice some Iyengar, I have the Iyengar syle wall ropes up in my home studio and it is great to use them to help with alignment and to hang upside down too!
6. When people ask you, “What is Yoga?”, what do you say?
Yoga for me is a way of life, a way to bring ourselves to our highest potential as people, a way to open our hearts, cultivate more awareness.
Yoga creates a strong physical body to help us feel good and enjoy the journey of life.
Yoga is a gift.
7. What can people expect from one of your classes?
People can expect to leave a yoga class feeling lighter, brighter, calmer and more balanced.
Through Asana and Meditaion and breath awareness the classes bring a general sense of well being to those who come to practice. We usually take time to warm up and then practice either Ashtanga or in the Hatha classes a variation of postures each week. Always ending with plenty of time to relax and restore. Classes are friendly and it is a wonderful way to meet like minded people.
8. What do you love most about teaching yoga?
It is so amazing and constantly wonderful to see how yoga helps people and transforms them. How in even so long as an hour, a class can brighten someone’s day and make their eyes and hearts sparkle. I love to share this amazing science and philosophy, and love to see how it helps people feel better mentally, physically and helps us all to grow!
9. What do you wish everybody knew about yoga?
That yoga really is for everyone and that you don’t have to be flexible or strong to start, these are qualities that come with time, that it really is about being you and that you are already just perfect as you are…. but yoga can even enhance on that, and that it will bring positive change into so many areas of your life.
10. What role do you see yoga playing in our world?
I see yoga as something that can make a positive change for the better in our World. With every person that feels the light of yoga spark in their heart and then mirrors that light to all around, slowly, changing and opening the minds and hearts across on the planet.
11. Anything else you’d like to say?
You are never too old, too tired, too stiff to try yoga, just come along with an open mind and heart and come and give it a go!
12. And finally, how do people find you?
From 11th March 2011 please come along to our lovely new studio in Taupo, right accross from the Cinema and above Kathmandu. Or please call me on 07 377 1129 or 021 136 8793, or email me anandi@yogatreetaupo.co.nz. I’d love to share some yoga with you!
congratulations on the new studio space! this was a great read. when we head up to taupo, we’ll drop in to see you! 😀
what an impressive gentle lady, anandi is
experience that shows, often, in words like, “Yoga creates a strong physical body to help us feel good and enjoy the journey of life” –
joined to, “you don’t have to be flexible or strong to start, these are qualities that come with time, that it really is about being you and that you are already just perfect as you are…”
add, “You are never too old, too tired, too stiff to try yoga, just come along with an open mind and heart and come and give it a go…”
and you end up with, “With every person that feels the light of yoga spark in their heart and then mirrors that light to all around…changing and opening the minds and hearts across on the planet”
i guess it doesn’t matter that that last quote came before the one before it does it?
naw, that’s kinda the point of ya’ll’s interview 😉
nice post kara-leah!