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Published: March 20th 2023
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For all four of the pre-covid years that we have stayed on the island of Koh Phangan, formal yoga study was a driving force for our being here, as this is without doubt a yoga epicentre, with numerous yoga studios actively nurturing this culture. Our yoga courses had always set the tone and provided the structure for the day. Stan and I have together taken over 300 hours of intensive hatha yoga course studies in previous years here, and I have added other yoga philosophy studies as well. One might say there was a bit of obsession driving my studies, and this will be no shock to anyone who knows me. But the real surprise this year was to not follow that pattern. I stayed home, quite content to simply focus on my own daily practice, while Stan got up every morning, six days a week, for six weeks, to attend a two hour hatha yoga class on his own. He was completely motivated and at 76, no doubt inspired many others in the class, most of whom were half his age, not just by being there and able to do most of the asanas, but by being confident and connected
enough to offer teachings to others on respecting and listening to your body. This is called wisdom. It is also called being present.
And it is precisely these aspects - cultivating the wisdom and compassion to listen to my body and honour it accordingly - that I realized I needed to incorporate into my decades long ambition driven Ashtanga and Iyengar based yoga practices. In addition to Stan modelling this in his own practice, a completely unexpected, unplanned, and exceptional situation presented itself: there were three yoga teachers all staying at the same small resort, along with an amazing space available for sharing yoga teachings. So the three of us took turns sharing yoga teachings from our own practices over a period of almost three weeks. I offered a couple of classes sharing teachings from three different traditions I have studied over the years - Sivananda , Iyengar, and Ashtanga - and each of the other two teachers shared many teachings from their practices - including Sivananda, Vinyasa Flow, and Kundalini, as well as much pranayama / breath work . Unlike me, who has practiced for five decades but not taught formal yoga classes since the 70’s, the others
are both professional yoga teachers. It was an excellent experience for me to teach again, as it reminded me of my roots and what I have to offer from my own evolution. But it was also an excellent experience to accept new teachings, which I am now incorporating into my practice: wisdom, self-compassion, and listening to my body, adjusting my asana practice as need be to show respect for this vessel which allows me to do all these wonderful things, like travel, and meet new friends, and experience breathtaking ocean sunsets, and listen to a variety of beautiful foreign languages and foreign birdsong, to exchange smiles with others, and to fully witness life as it unfolds. Much gratitude to all of my teachers, past and present, and in particular to Nathalie Sauvegrain and Carina Marcelin-Gabriel for sharing their vast yogic passion, wisdom, and teachings, and to my buddha Stan, who has always listened to his body more attentively than I.
Thank you for your interest in our travel adventures.
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