My Journey with Yoga
My journey with yoga began as a teenager, through the classes offered at school for sport. I certainly didn’t resonate with the teacher, a lady who appeared to be in her mid-60’s, dressed in shawls and all the jewels and smelled of incense. As a 13 year old school girl with her friends, this was quite amusing and the 45 minute meditation that she would always start the class with, visualising rainbows and waterfalls and angels coming down from the sky to guide us on our highest path, left us in a fit of giggles more often than not. The class would always end with angel oracle cards, meditation chimes and some stinky oil. If you picked the Arch Angel Michael card, you had basically won the lottery in her eyes. Despite how not seriously I took the class (and even getting thrown out of the class a couple of times!), there was always this curiosity surrounding yoga lingering within my bones.
I continued to dabble in yoga throughout out my teenage years by going along to some classes with my best friend and her mum. I also enjoyed doing yoga with my mum’s home yoga DVD from time to time and the yoga class once a week at the gym when I was in uni was a “good stretch sesh”. The sparks of curiosity came and went through my teenage years and early 20’s, eventually igniting a full flame when I attended my beautiful friend Micaela’s class at Kirra Hill on the Gold Coast.
Micaela’s teaching was the most perfect blend of authenticity and play and she was invitational in her approach, whilst still honouring the traditional roots of the practice. These classes were the first time I had experienced a teacher who welcomed my desire to challenge myself but also to soften and find ease (even if the class that day was a sweaty vinyasa style!). Prior to this, I thought I always had to be one or the other and the inner people pleaser and hard worker within me often chose the challenging route. As our teacher-student relationship developed into 1:1 teaching, the benefits of a slower practice, prioritising nervous system regulation and presence deepened my love for yoga. I am forever grateful to Micaela for her teaching and am proud to say she is one of my closest friends to this day.
Whilst nothing compared to Micaela’s teaching, when she stopped teaching group classes I had real fun trying lots of different yoga studios to find teachers I resonated with. This led me to experiencing many other styles of yoga, including Iyengar, Hot Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga and even Puppy Yoga! Whilst Traditional Hatha was a harder style to come by on the Gold Coast where Vinyasa seemed to be the more predominant flavour, it remained to be my favourite. By then, my love for yoga as a physical and mental wellbeing practice was strong and I was set on completing a 200 hour YTT in Hatha Yoga. I was craving a solo travel experience and whilst part of me really wanted to do my training in India, the motherland of yoga, there was another part of me that felt nervous to do so as a white female in my mid-20’s. At the time, the best choice for me was a solo trip to Bali, enrolling for the 28 day meditation and yoga teacher training with Samyama. I was drawn to this training for its Traditional Hatha roots, its focus on meditation techniques and was curious and excited to experience the 3 day silent retreat that the training included.
(TO BE CONTINUED)