Did you know traditional Hatha Yoga is a progressive practice, meant to be taught in a scientific and systematic way? Or that it’s promise is to move you towards your innate potential?
Random posture flows might keep us entertained for a while and keep us physically healthy and active (much like an aerobics class). But if practice is to reveal the deeper promises of this powerful tradition – well, don’t shoot the messenger, there’s a tad more to explore before we get to a living embodied experience of actual ‘Yoga’. You know, freedom, inner enlightenment? Or even somewhere close to it.
And on some level, we know this!
Dismissed or Disregarded
I knew this! But for a long time, I was confused by the Yoga ‘offer’ out there. And, even when I came to teach, bought into idea that the ‘more to explore’ could be dismissed or disregarded as something mystical, unobtainable, something for recluses, sages, renunciates who live in caves, the spiritual weirdos or whatever.
I’ve come across teachers, (and still do) who happily say they don’t study or practice Yoga beyond Asana (poses). And don’t get me started about the businesses who sell yoga for ‘normal people’. Seriously?
Why does this matter… well look at what are experiencing!
- More and more teachers either afraid, not paid to, disinterested or not committed to the deeper study, hard work and committed personal practice it requires to teach it, and or.
- Classes with no substance beyond yoga as asana or for strength, flexibility, stress, fitness, etc.
This is not only doing the yoga tradition a great disservice, but it also does every human being a disservice. And… it keeps us all in ignorance and suffering.
We can all achieve great things
Yoga is a powerful practice and when we’ve trained our minds and fortified our bodies appropriately – we are reminded that we can all achieve great things.
Yes, greater than a six pack or a set of shiny new abs or any other external material goal.
What needs amplifying is how this beautiful tradition (when it is taught as it was meant to be taught) has the potential to show us all how to become more resilient and capable beings.
It helps us to master our minds, body, energy and life itself, how to face what needs to be faced and get on with all that needs to be done, with compassion for ourselves and each other.
We need this for ourselves more than ever right now, don’t you think?
Life isn’t easy!
It’s not meant to be an easy path, sugar-coated for the faint of heart. Life isn’t easy. That’s the point.
Yoga is about empowering us to live it large and fearless regardless! It was a gift to humanity to end suffering! And if our yoga practice isn’t working towards that – we are not practicing Yoga.
What we are doing is choosing to distract ourselves with meaningless flows that may simply be feeding our existing imbalances and keeping us stuck. Some practices could even be sending us backwards in terms of our personal growth! Especially if they are not appropriate for who we are and where we are starting from!
So, although it’s easy as a business to go along with the crowd and give people what they think Yoga now is (a creative flow that entertains you, gives you something to insta!) we want more than that for you and our students. And it’s not what we buy into. It’s not what we do.
Give you momentum!
What we do is honour the tradition and the practices that will give you momentum to take you on a journey closer to where you want to be in life.
Classes here are staged in the traditional way to help us all build sustainable practices that will serve us throughout our life. Get us somewhere close to our potential. What else is life for, but to explore our innate promise!
Does this speak to you? Because if so, we are here – for you.
If you’re new or returning to practice and want to practice Yoga with a time-tested approach, join us for the preparation and purification stage of Hatha Yoga.
We call it Stage 0, Restore and it’s where we can all get on the yoga path and start our journey towards that bigger goal – finding greatness through yoga!
The preparation stage is like giving your body and mind a ‘factory reset’ and includes traditional yoga practices that help restore balance and harmony to the nervous system so we can get ourselves back into equilibrium and power ourselves up from there!
Classes are at our beautiful Nene Court studio, every Thursday at 6:30pm.
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Podcast | Out of the Archives
Lean into the idea of discovering your ‘greatness’ through Yoga. This podcast is from our archives. Check it out.