At-A-Glance
Yoga has radically shifted my perspective on life and helped me change many long-standing unhealthy behaviours and habits. Being able to ‘Let go’ of my old way of life has allowed me to transform in ways that are beyond the superficial.
- This personal transformation has given me a new lease on life and inspires me to share my experiences and what I’ve learnt from them, in the service of others.
- My goal as a teacher is to demystify and inspire, to help empower people to take responsibility for their health and well-being and find joy in the process.
- This is a deep-dive article. Grab a cuppa, put your feet up, and let’s get started!
- Reading time is around 37 minutes.
Tell us About Yourself and Growing up
I’ve always been interested in the mind and the body, and from a very young age I found reading books and climbing trees both equally engaging.
After school I’d get together with a rough-and-tumble group of local friends and we’d venture out on our bikes to investigate the neighborhood. We’d climb trees, play sports and do dangerous stunts. On occasion we’d venture into the bush behind the local golf course and shoot bottles with our homemade slingshots.
Pinball machines were really popular while I was growing up, but also cost more to play than the average 9 year old could afford, so we made our own using nails, rubber bands and wooden pegs. For the ball we used leftover marbles (the ones we didn’t shoot from our slingshots). We dove headlong into every new trend, from pump powered water rockets to Coke branded yo yo’s and would do our utmost to reverse engineer and push each and ever thing until it was either more awsome or broken. Nothing was sacred or off limits, unless we got caught by the adults and were forced to stay indoors.
While I had a great deal of fun with my firends, I was just as happy to spend time pursuing my own interests. There was a Jacaranda tree in my garden that I loved to climb. It was good exercise and I would swing on it, hanging upside down and do all sorts of dangerous things without giving it a second thought.
When I had tired myself out, I’d sit near the top, looking over the fence into the road, wondering where everyone was going and let my imagination take me to new and exciting places. It was a wonderful stage of life that I remember very fondly.
I’m extremely curious by nature and interested in the inner working of things. In pursuit of this I would often take things apart, sometimes breaking them in the process. One day when I was about 12, I took apart our family stereo while my parents were out shopping. I managed to get it back together but had a few parts left over. I got into quite a bit of trouble for that one! From then on, I would experiment with old junk left on the side of the road that was otherwise destined for the local tip, never to be seen again.
As a teenager, I found myself increasingly drawn to the esoteric and the search for the truth and meaning below the surface of things. This would often lead me off the garden path and scatter my attention. When I should have been doing my schoolwork my mind was usually elsewere. I read a great deal (not school books) and started to do a bit of writing here and there (not school work either). It was mostly note-taking about things I found interesting and might pursue at a later date.
What else? I’ve tried and enjoyed so many sports and hobbies over the years that it is hard to recall them all. Biking, skateboarding, swimming, windsurfing, ice skating, running, making models including electric cars and working rockets, stamp collecting, bonsai. Breaking and then trying to fix things, as I mentioned. I suspect this was what likely led to my future career in IT and technical support.
What else? Drawing, sculpting, hiking, skiing, astronomy and photography. Fooling about with tech and gadgets in general. I also enjoy cooking and eating and listening to a wide range of music. There is plenty more actually, but you get the point. I embrace life and never feel bored!
I always find it surprising to hear people complain about boredom, when so many avenues for enquiry and just waiting to be explored.
When I was a kid and was curious about something, I had to wait until after school the next day and take a trip to the local library to look it up. The process took hours. Now more and often better information is available online. It’s literally at our fingertips and only seconds away, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
It’s mind-boggling to me that despite the almost unlimited possibilites, teenagers of today often don’t seem to quite know what to do with themselves. You see them half asleep and staring at their smartphones. This seems to be the case whether they’re on their own or while sitting together in their bored little groups. But what do I know. Perhaps their doing their homework?
What have you done for Work?
bI have never been shy about coming forward and began working in one capacity or another quite young and not long after starting primary school.
The first job I got paid for, was bagging fruit and vegetables for an Italian fruit and veggie shop when I was about 8 years old. I recall the owner had had a bump to his head in an accident and lost his sense of smell and taste. A typical day with Joe included a hot lunch of chicken and veggies and I got paid a couple of bucks in cash at the end of my Saturday’s work. It was glorious.
I liked this feeling of independence. Being able to save up for the things I wanted, without having to talk anyone else into buying them for me, was a revelation to my child’s mind. I was off and running and continued this trend of part-time jobs though primary and high school. I washed cars, mopped floors, mowed lawns and eventually got a job at a deli-come-bakery behind the counter selling bread and cakes. Anything unsold at the end of the day was either taken home by the staff or thrown out, so I was quite popular at home during this time.
I worked, for a while, at Sydney’s Luna Park in the tin-can alley section. It was good fun and paid enough for me to go out with my friends. A few years earlier we would have gone ten-pin bowling and played video games but now many of us had upgraded our interests to include nightclubs and girls.
Around this time I had forays into various jobs that included making boxes, being a gopher at a printery, and trying to sell t-shirts to office workers (that one didn’t go well or last very long).
Next up I worked as a short-order grill chef making breakfasts and serving them to the lawyers and barristers at the courthouse coffee lounge in Sydney’s CBD.
This saw me through until I was about eighteen and left school, ready for a full-time job and a composition apprenticeship in the printing industry.
Career-wise, I’ve trained and worked professionally as a compositor, graphic artist and book designer, computer network administrator, IT trainer, consultant and project manager.
With nearly every aspect of life coming, or ending up, online, the skills I have learned over the years are valuable to me and my clients today.
The common theme in my life is that I relish a good challenge and solving tricky problems in a hands-on way. I think understanding something very well requires you to get your hands dirty by doing it for yourself, over and over again.
Making mistakes and refining your approach is a great way to learn and there is something intrinsically right and satisfying about building knowledge and experience from the bottom up.
What led you to Yoga?
I married at age 20 and Jana and I had our one and only daughter, Emily at the end of the same year. From that moment on, my work and family commitments took priority and I allowed many of my previous interests to take a back seat.
In wanting so much to provide and care for others, I stopped taking good care of myself, neglecting many of my personal needs. When I eventually realised this, I found myself in middle age, in poor health and low spirits. I bumped into Yoga during my search for a way out of this situation.
Like many people, I’d heard great things about yoga and wondered how much of what was said about it was true. I was ready for some well-overdue change, so the timing was perfect. The prospect of trying something fresh and new that might combine my natural interests with the promise of improved health and fitness piqued my curiosity and sounded like a great fit.
I started attending a weekly group class at my local gym. (The same place I learned to swim as a child and would later teach my daughter the joys of swimming. It would also be one of the venues where I would later cut my teeth teaching yoga). BlueFit Health Club
Initially, I hoped yoga might help me lose some weight and get into better shape. However, to my great surprise, I discovered there was much more to yoga than I’d anticipated and that its effects upon me would prove life-changing.
How has Yoga Affected your Life?
Every time this occurred, something fundamental shifted inside and changed how I perceived myself and the world around me.
I can only describe it as a kind of that feels grounded and foundational. It’s like something we ought to know by default if we could only get out of the way and allow ourselves to do so.
Learning not to punish myself by pushing so hard all the time took a long time for me to get my head around.
I think we all struggle with this in one way or another and it’s something that my personal yoga practice reminds me of and encourages me to think about, so I don’t forget.
Practicing Yoga has taught me to live life more fully and more authentically. Rather than ruminate on what might go wrong if I try something new, I do it and find out what can go right!
It’s always a single and often simple action that begins the ‘process of change’ in our lives. For me, this was deciding that I had suffered enough and was ready to get started on making some long-overdue changes.
Accepting that we can’t control everything in our lives, nor make everything perfect is a big step towards freedom from rumination.
Because getting caught up in the worry of what might go wrong is self-defeating and can be paralysing.
Alternatively, acting from a place of trust and without fear is empowering.
Living this way can make the difference between a life constrained by the fear of death, and one that focuses instead on ‘the practice of joyful living’.
In practical terms, this attitude towards life results in better health and well-being because it encourages us to stop ruminating and to be more confident in our choices and actions.
This helps us to ‘get on with it’ and not take those things outside of our control so personally.
Embracing this approach to life played a huge role in my recovery from serious illness, and are just some of the many powerful lessons yoga helped me to learn and put into practice.
Why do you Teach Yoga?
I believe yoga to be the world’s most effective system for personal transformation and maintaining good health over time.
At the heart of yoga practice, you’ll find simple tools and methods that help enormously with general health and well-being. Yoga is not rocket science, despite it sometimes being presented as such.
When I teach yoga, I often find myself in a state of flow, something athletes describe as ‘being in the zone’.
What Training have you had?
I’ve had many Teachers over the years. Some at Schools or other training institutions and some of them have been people I have met along the way or worked for.
In my view, the desire to learn from others and make self-learning a habitual part of your life is far more significant than any individual or formal training you may have had, regardless of the discipline.
To that end, I devote a part of every day to reading, writing and learning.
I’m also a bit of a workshop junkie because I love to receive information from different angles and different people. I believe it’s important for everyone, and especially relevant to those who teach, to have their current perspective, ideas and methods routinely challenged.
I believe this helps us to ‘more fully develop’ and become more effective at ‘whatever it is’ we choose to do.
As far as formal yoga studies are concerned, I’ve completed an advanced diploma of yoga teacher training with the Yoga Institute, in Sydney Australia (Dr Michael De Manincor) and followed this with the Svastha Yoga of Krishnamacharya: Therapy Program (Dr Ganesh Mohan) which combines the most effective skills-based aspects of traditional Yoga and Ayurveda with Modern Medicine.
I strongly believe that to move forward in life we must continue to learn. Not only to increase knowledge or for the sake of novelty but to learn more about ourselves and each other.
This makes life better for us individually and in turn, those around us who we interact with.
What Style of Yoga do you Teach?
I don’t teach any particular ‘style of yoga’.
So-called ‘styles of yoga’ are a new phenomenon that moves us further away from the original intentions of Yoga by focusing almost entirely on how to move, rather than presenting the exercise component of yoga as a single part of a multi-part system.
I teach yoga according to the principle of the ‘viniyoga of Yoga’ which traces its origins to the ninth-century Yogi Näthamuni and is among the oldest traditions of Yoga in the World.
Essentially, that yoga is ‘most effective’ when adapted to suit ‘the needs of the individual’.
The viniyoga of Yoga can be described as the intelligent and systematic application of yoga tools and techniques according to the unique needs and circumstances of the individual.
To Learn More about Viniyoga
Teach what is inside you, not as it applies to you, to yourself, but as it applies to the other.
T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice
To Learn More about this Lineage
To Learn More about this Lineage
The Student-Teacher Relationship
While certain situations can benefit greatly from a more nuanced approach, these tend to present themselves later, rather than right out of the gate.
My general advice to new or student teachers would be to listen very carefully to what someone is asking for and to do your best to provide the simplest thing you can think of, that will address the most important aspect of it.
If you’re a student, and this is true whether you are an absolute beginner or have been practising yoga for a while, it’s a great help to your teacher if you can pass on your primary expectations for your time together.
If you are unsure, that’s fine, just be open to the unexpected and a bit of good old-fashioned trial and error as the process unfolds.
Finding Joy is a Seriously Important Business!
To that end, it isn’t helpful to overly complicate your self-care practices or the thoughts and emotions that arise when thinking about them.
A good yoga practice is enjoyable while you’re doing it. Anticipation of doing it again should be joyful and not something that makes you groan, feel stressed or inclined to put off until ‘you’re in a better mood to deal with it’.
Take the Time to Consider How you Use Your Time
We all have places to be and things to do. We want to be as efficient with our time and energy as possible.
We like to think we know ourselves best and know what’s best for us. But do we? Really?
Many people today consider spending hours each week (sometimes daily!) in gyms lifting weights and running on treadmills as perfectly normal behaviour. It’s healthy. Everyone knows that!
The fact that we do this until we are exhausted and sore and then repeat the whole routine before we have recovered tends to get overlooked and is rarely discussed. It’s almost as though acknowledging how much we are suffering will make it harder for us to cope with it.
We spend hours and hours exercising without a second thought and yet the moment someone suggests we lie down and relax for 5 minutes, we suddenly feel pressed for time!
At the same time, we think nothing of spending hours watching Netflix, sipping drinks and nibbling on snacks to help us wind down only to balk at the idea of taking a relaxing bath and going to bed an hour earlier to catch up on some much-needed sleep.
Our sense of time fades into the background, sometimes disappearing altogether when we feel engaged in activities we enjoy and we can’t stop thinking about the time, all the time while doing those things we don’t.
This is especially true when we believe others might be wasting our ‘precious’ and ‘altogether limited’ time.
We can spend hours aimlessly browsing the internet, but five minutes spent ‘struggling’ to learn how to do something important can feel like an eternity.
Without a doubt, we humans are very strange creatures.
We would do well to remind ourselves of these contradictions and disconnects when we feel tempted to take ourselves too seriously or believe we know what is best for us.
Important matters deserve time, attention and consideration. To think clearly, we must be in the correct frame of mind. Feeling relaxed and unhurried, not stressed and pressed for time and certainly not feeling angry or scared.
Slowing down and relaxing is time well spent. Practising this process helps us cultivate the state of mind required to reflect upon our habits and the beliefs and motivations underpinning them.
No, it’s not a waste of time to care for yourself and attend to your needs. Nor is it a selfish act.
Self-care is a crucially important and non-negotiable responsibility. You owe it to yourself and to everyone you come into contact with, whether they’re strangers, your collegues at work, your friends or your loved ones.
A healthy and happy you is good for everyone involved.
A Natural Disconnect
Most of what we do in modern life is disconnected from nature and what might reasonably be considered natural.
The bulk of our time is spent indoors, performing tasks requiring us to stare at a screen. This unnatural behaviour causes stress that is felt in the mind and body.
We eat unnatural foods and drink stimulants to give us enough energy to make it through the workday. When we’re done we drive to another building where we’ll spend time running on a treadmill staring at another screen. We do this, presumably, in an attempt to offset the harms of the day.
We go home, clean up a bit and then plonk ourselves down on the couch to eat and drink some more garbage while zoning out for a couple of hours staring at yet another screen.
Eventually, in a half-awake, half-asleep zombie-like state, we make our way to our beds where we’ll stare at our phones, aimlessly scrolling through who knows what until our eyes finally glaze over. It’s then that we attempt to get some much-needed sleep, but are just as likely to spend time ruminating on the day and worrying about what might come tomorrow. Perhaps we’ll get up and have a drink, maybe a snack?
When this inevitably all catches up to us and we get sick, we wonder what happened and look for relief in the form of a pill or a potion, ideally, so we can keep going, or at least get back to it all as quickly as possible.
What on Earth are we doing to ourselves?
We don’t see this behaviour for what it truly is, preferring to frame it all as ‘normal life’.
The pursuit of a career, keeping fit, rewarding ourselves for our hard work and staying informed. Sometimes we get sick. No idea why. Nothing to see here. As you were, keep going.
There, that sounds much better!
Of course, what I am describing here was not what ‘I’ did for years or what you or anyone you know might be doing now. It’s just a story.
Respsonding to Stress with Self-care
We live in an almost continuous state of stress and tend to respond to this stress via behaviours that result in even more stress. This is not our intention, we are only trying to cope with the many difficult challenges of life.
While it’s true that bad stuff does happen to us sometimes, for no obvious reason and out of the blue; this detail of life does not negate the simple fact that most of our problems are caused by bad habits. It is the exception that proves the rule.
It’s a vicious cycle that we must become aware of before we can hope to address it to any meaningful degree.
We live in a world where we are bombarded with false promises, fake studies, shortcuts, hacks, cheats, secrets, magic pills, wonder drugs and miracle supplements. Just Stop Already!
If you have a problem that took years to develop what makes you think it can be fixed overnight? Seriously.
Wanting to solve your problem quickly is normal and desirable but is it realistic?
I know people who have been living with chronic health issues for years and have been taking drugs to relieve the symptoms of the condition for just as long. They decide to give an alternative approach a try, only to give up and return to their old habit and drugs after a few days because the problem was not yet resolved.
We want quick fixes and lack the patience to let things play out. We want what we want and we want it now. It’s human nature 101.
Doctors understand this. Therapists understand this. Teachers understand this. Your parents understand this. Its for this reason that we tend to be offered (and offer others) relief for our suffering rather than the very difficult challenge of dealing with the root cause of our problems.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There is a better path but it requires something from us that most people do not want to take on.
The mindfulness practices of yoga will help bring your habits and behaviours to your attention, making what you are doing clearer. Over time you will learn the value of self-care and how to prioritise it in your day-to-day life.
Simple good habits, performed well and often is the name of the game! In this way, we can avoid many common health issues, rather than be forced to respond to them after the fact. Prevention is always better than the cure.
Realising that you are your biggest problem in your life is a revelation!
Understanding this and acting upon it will change everything.
After all, once you have nobody else to blame you will realise its time to act.
I believe that a general lack of self-responsibility accounts for the bulk of our suffering and why we often remain stuck with long-standing problems that we are unable to move beyond. The ‘Avoidance of taking Responsibility’ is very complex from a psychological perspective.
Taking responsibility for yourself includes taking care of yourself. Self-care being at the heart of self-responsibility.
Of all the challenges in teaching people how to improve their health, let alone their lives, understanding self-responsibility and how to apply it in the form of self-care is the most difficult.
It’s something most young people are not taught at home and certainly not at school or later at college or university.
Partly because this knowledge is not widely understood in the first place and partly because the concept is misunderstood and then misrepresented in so many common ways. Additionally, I think the social politics dominant today provide us with more nicely packaged excuses for our bad behaviour than you can poke a stick at.
People live and die on auto-pilot, often without truly wrestling with life’s deeper questions, at least not until much later in life when we have more time to think and when we are more likely to be struggling with problems and regrets.
I think this is because we focus most of our attention on copying and reducing suffering rather than taking the time to resolve the underlying causes of our problems and the bad habits we create and reinforce in response to them. We become better at what we do.
Once you ‘get this’ and start acting it out in the form of better habits your entire life will change for the better.
Yoga is for EveryBody
Including you, just as you are, right now!
Paying it Forward
I am particularly passionate about introducing beginners to yoga. To be there and lend support to students while they take those first small steps is an opportunity and responsibility I take very seriously.
To hear people say how great they feel, compared to only an hour or so beforehand, always brings a smile to my face. To be able to plant these little seeds that later (sometimes years later) can bring about powerful personal transformation is something I feel deeply grateful to be able to offer.
A personal example of this was being introduced to a simple, yet powerful, mindfulness meditation as a teenager. This experience had a profound impact on me and I have continued to use the practice and variations of it to this day.
There are times in life when we realise we have been holding on to a situation or habits that no longer serve us and that we are ready to make changes.
It’s then that we start to recall the many hints and nudges we had along the way and just like pieces of a puzzle, they begin to fit together.
It makes the hairs on my arms stand up and gives me a shiver down my spine when I think about this.
Ideas we may have resisted, or brushed aside as irrelevant, begin to take on new meanings and we can see how we might use them to help ourselves.
I think it’s within this attitude of welcoming change and being willing to change our perception, that we encourage moments of personal realisation.
My appreciation and gratitude for that early meditative experience is now greater than ever because I understand first-hand, how powerful a catalyst for change these timeless teachings can be.
Teaching mindfulness practices to others allows me to pay it forward, bringing it full circle.
Making Connections and Putting it all Together
Every stage of life presents the opportunity to learn something new and interesting. I would say learning is the greatest of my passions, all considered.
Regardless of the ‘thing’ I am doing – being absorbed in the moment, in the experience, is a great joy to me.
Although I know deep down, that none of us can be truly good at everything, I believe very strongly that putting in some effort, with a willingness to learn can take you a long way.
It’s not only the novelty factor of new experiences that attracts me but also being able to see the connections between them and ‘join the dots’. I find this to be very rewarding and satisfying.
I think we should try to maintain an attitude of open curiosity. Not only to the things we enjoy, but also to those things we don’t like, think we can’t do, or don’t want to do.
I’ve often found that my initial aversion was no more than a lack of understanding, or appreciation, of the subject and that by taking the time to dig into something, you can uncover many sources of inspiration that go hand in hand with the challenge.
Yoga is just like that. Every teaching has another one beside it, above it and just below it, waiting for you.
Because one of the primary goals of yoga is to integrate mind and body, the process naturally allow us to explore and learn about both simultaneously.
While you may find yourself feeling lost from time to time, there is always something simple, sensible and practical that you can do to address the difficulty you’re currently facing.
Trusting in the process and knowing that however you may be feeling right now, it will pass.
Yoga helps me to bring my skills and life experiences together tangibly and sensibly while better integrating them into a more cohesive and meaningful whole.
Whether you’re looking for a reliable way to manage general health and well-being or are searching for answers to Life’s ‘Bigger Questions’, Yoga has you covered and should be sitting at the top of your ‘To Do’ List.
Yoga Works Best When You Do It!
Key Take-Aways
Yoga has radically shifted my perspective on life and helped me change many long-standing unhealthy behaviours and habits. Being able to ‘Let go’ of my old way of life has allowed me to transform in ways that are beyond the superficial.
- We all face difficulties growing up and in life in general. Don’t let these experiences define or limit you.
- Simple things done well are the key to change.
- See beyond who you are today towards who you could become tomorrow.
- You and only you have the power to change your life.
- Make learning how to move beyond coping and towards thriving a priority in your Life.
- A little faith can go a long way.
- Practice becoming good at things you don’t enjoy, not only what you love.
- Carefully consider where you choose to focus your attention.
- Too much of anything can be a bad thing.
- If your goal is health, what you don’t do is ‘just’ as important as your actions.