what is yoga?
If you asked 100 random people what Yoga is, you’d get a lot of different answers. One of my favourites is: “It’s for bendy people isn’t it?” (no it’s for stiff people :). It is true that yoga can be a lot of different things and yes bendy people do find their way into it, maybe because they find some of the physical poses easier than ‘stiff’ people. It has grown into a huge global fashion business, and it has even been referred to as a religion or a cult. Confused? A good definition that we often comeback to is that by Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras: Yogas-citta-vrtti-nirodhah. Yogas (Yoga is); citta (of the mind-stuff); Vrtti (modifications); nirodhah (restraint). A relatively modern anglicised translation by Edwin F. Bryant is: Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of the mind.
Patanjali organised yoga into eight parts, as pictured, starting with Yama at the top working clockwise. The ‘stretchy stuff’ is Asana or postures, which tend to dominate the world of yoga these days.
THE LINEAGE
Kerry and Declan trained with the British Wheel of Yoga (BWY), completing the Level 4 Diploma in Teaching Yoga Certificate so we are members of and insured to teach by the BWY, the Sport England recognised Governing Body for Yoga in the UK. This is the highest level of yoga teacher training currently available in the UK and took over three and a half years.
The BWY was founded 60 years ago by Wilfred Clark, pictured, (1898-1981). Many of the teachers and training was influenced by some of the first yoga that arrived in the UK, brought over from India by teachers including B.K.S. Iyengar and T. K. V. Desikachar.
The father of Desikachar, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888-1989) is referred to as the father of modern Yoga. His students included Indra Devi (1899–2002); K. Pattabhi Jois (1915–2009); B. K. S. Iyengar (1918-2014); his son T. K. V. Desikachar (1938-2016); Srivatsa Ramaswami (born 1939); and A. G. Mohan (born 1945).
our approach
Our teaching has its foundations in Hatha Yoga (influenced heavily by Iyengar). We trained with some amazing teachers including Belinda Emberson, Bob & Be Insley, Rebecca Papa Adams and Zoe Knott. We studied the classic texts including the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. We’ve also gone on to study with new and varied teachers with different movement ideas. A new line of teaching emerged from Iyengar through a student of his, Vanda Scaravelli (1908-1999), who went on to inspire teachers like Peter Blackaby who have inspired us. We describe our type of yoga as functional, as it aims to keep us functioning (physically, mentally, emotionally etc.) as best we can, as we age.
