Lizzie for Free : a yogi's blog
The Free State of LizArchive for yoga classes london
Salutation Nation
To Salute
To pay respect to or honor by some formal act; to address with expressions of goodwill, respect; to make a bow or other gesture to as in greeting, farewell, or respect; to express respect or praise for; honor; commend.
Nation
A large body of people associated with a particular or set of beliefs that is sufficiently conscious of its unity.
Amidst the backdrop of wars, droughts and other human-induced disaster around the world, there has never been a more important time for the global yoga movement to stand up, show solidarity in nonviolence and the spirit of togetherness. Each of us has a role to play in creating the world we live in through our thoughts words and actions. By doing all we can to create positive energy in and around us, we can manifest a better present for all animate beings. By practicing yoga on the mat with a satsang, friends with a common focus, a common good, in mind is one of the best ways to experience this. The outcome can be euphoric and contagious; the more happiness and positive energy created, the more people want to participate. After all, isn’t it most people’s innermost desire to be happy?
Hence the birth of Salutation Nation
,a nation-wide event launched last summer in the US by lululemon athletica to raise awareness about the physical and mental health benefits of yoga. The event was such a success that this year they have expanded their reach to include London.
I’m very humbled and honoured to have been asked to lead the outdoor yoga event, so please accept this a your invitation:
You are Cordially Invited to Salutation Nation,
Free outdoor yoga session from 9-10am
on Saturday Septemer 10th (bring your mat).
Kensington Palace Gardens, Round Pond
Bring your friends, or go out on a limb and ask the neighbour you’ve been meaning to introduce yourself to!
At the end of the day, we all have the same amount of potential to do good in this world; yoga is about cultivating the positive force within and connecting with others to spread the joy. All you have to do is show up.
Viva positive intention!
Viva lululemon!
Bryony Bird Interviews Me!
(Louis playing and baby-talking throughout in background)
BB: What drew you to your first Yoga class?
LR: I was living in Washington DC and was pretty active physically (running marathons and swimming), but also had an active mind. I felt if I didn’t exercise I might blow a fuse, and sought out yoga to help quiet my thoughts. I was also drawn to the principles of yoga having studied eastern religions and philosophy in university.
BB: What kind of style were you introduced to?
LR: There was a yoga shala down the street that was quirky and authentic. At that time I didn’t know enough to ask what style it was – it was slow classical type of yoga with a lot of meditation. The teachers wore orange and led meditations by instructing the students to ‘empty the mind’. The concept of an empty mind was difficult for me to understand at the time, and despite feeling very good after the classes, I didn’t find myself there on a regular basis.
It was perhaps more of an esoteric type of practice than I was ready for at that time. It was four years later that I went to my first Astanga class which I really took to; it appealed to my need for physicality but my self-competitive nature made it difficult to move beyond the asana practice and into the other limbs of the practice. By means of exploration I came to the Iyengar practice and other methods.
BB: What made you move away from Astanga?
LR: It was not thought through- I moved to Amsterdam in 2000 and was practicing Astanga and Iyengar. I had a shoulder and neck injury that came from stress and not practicing some of the postures correctly, and I found myself re-evaluating why I was practicing yoga and what aspects were becoming more important for me. Eventually I was ready for a practice that more overtly threaded the teachings and philosophy together with the asana practice, and discovered Svaha yoga with Patrick and Gos. That became my entry point into the yoga I practice today.
BB: What kind of style do you teach and practice at this moment?
LR: By definition, I teach the Jivamukti method, and my philosophical understanding of yoga and teaching style is strongly influenced by the founders of the method, Sharon Gannon and David Life. Having said that, we are all constantly evolving, and for me as a teacher and practicioner it’s fundamental to continue to practice different methods and to study with different teachers to continue my own evolution.
BB: How important do you think it is to label yoga classes with a name or a method?
LR: I think labels are helpful to the students to know a little bit about what kind of class they are going into. Yoga methods and teachers vary so dramatically that it can be helpful to the student to have a point of reference. In a Jivamukti class, for example, there are certain types of asanas (eg. side bending, twists, backbend) that must be included in the practice, there is a focus of the month that sets a theme for the class. Along with this, music usually plays a role in the class.
BB: Who are your teachers?
LR: My students are my best teachers of the body and of what it means to be human; then there is my son who teaches me everyday about learning to listen – not just with my ears. My yoga teachers are Sharon and David, Thich Nhat Hanh, Richard Agar Ward, and many other great teachers I take classes with around town. My greatest life teacher has been learning to live with impermanence, especially as it relates to the ever-changing state of the body and mind.
BB: How did you get into Thai Massage and Cranio Sacral Therapy?
LR: Ironically I wanted to spend some time with a friend who happened to be doing a thai massage course, so I decided to go along with her despite having never had a thai massage. I really took to it. At the Thai Yoga Massage training one of the teachers was also a Craniosacral Therapist and I had a session with him that was subtle but powerful. He was nurturing, but managed to stir up some old experiences and emotions. After a couple of weeks I returned home and the same area on my body he had been working on experienced a huge opening. I felt spaciousness and freedom in an area of the body I had never even thought much about. I didn’t understand how it worked but it was something I kept coming back to and I realized something much deeper was going on.
BB: How do you learn therapies- theory vs intuition
LR: Everyone is different and learns differently. For me it’s an organic and intuitive visceral exploration. The therapist’s role is to be able to understand the body and its deep connection with the energy, physicality and emotional/ mental disposition of the client, and the experiences that have contributed to their overall state of being.
BB: How has being a Mother influenced your career decisions?
LR: It has clarified how important practicing and teaching is for me. The first time I left the hospital was to give client a massage and it felt fantastic, it was a great reminder that I have capabilities (other than mothering).
It has helped me to balance things and to prioritize. I can’t place my needs first, or even my client’s needs first anymore. In a way this has improved how I treat and value myself, I have to have integrity not just for me, but also for my son. I have it in my personality to be a ‘yes’ person, and at times in my life I have been miserable but have continued without speaking up just for not wanting to rock the boat- to please others. I’m learning now to create boundaries and to be okay with saying no.
BB: You have your own blog- Do you think it is important to engage with modern technologies when you are teaching ancient healing arts?
LR: Not at all. Some of the best teachers I know don’t even have email. I think if it’s an interesting platform for someone to better understand their ideas and it can serve to provoke others to think, then it’s certainly worthwhile. It can help bring people together and stay connected to ideas. If all the teachers of yoga were luddites then the global satsang would lose some of it’s energy as these electronic mediums are the backbone for global events in the evolving art of yoga to stay afloat.
BB: You are now a Yoga Teacher and Therapist in a new studio in Marylebone. Indaba Yoga. Is it important to be regularly in one place rather than moving around?
LR: Its always been my intention not be a stressed out or burnt out yoga teacher and for that I am very much looking forward to teaching regularly in one place. Ultimately it helps students and clients because the more I know their practice, their minds and bodies, the more it becomes a joint healing process that we share.
Lizzie teaches at Indaba Yoga Studio in Marylebone Wednesdays and Fridays at 10am and 4pm, and Sundays at 10am as well as offering Thai Massage and Craniosacral Therapy by appointment.
Goodbye Canalot Studios, Hello Indaba!
Today I moved my belongings out of unit 123b Canalot Studios after a good two years of offering thai yoga massage, craniosacral therapy and private yoga lessons.
While I’ll miss having a private space to operate from, I feel positive about the changes in store. I will be working out of Indaba‘s beautiful and serene skyview studio in Marylebone, as well as focusing more on home visits. In fact, the G-Wiz arrives in less than a week to help me get from point A to point B more easily!
Indaba is due to open any day now, and the mix of yoga, pilates and bodywork is a fabulous combination that is sure to leave any yoga practicioner feeling more balanced, spacious and nurtured.
…And for those too busy to make it to the studio, home visits are individualized to restore the body and mind.
Carpe diem! Do something for yourself to make a positive change.
Early Bird Helen Stylianou Catches the Worm…
For a couple of years I’ve practiced with Helen at Alaric’s house without knowing very much about her; only that she always arrives early looking like a million bucks, exuding friendliness and warmth from her glowing skin and big smile. Maybe she’ll let me in on her secret…
FL: Helen, tell me a little bit about your background.
HS: Well, I’m an ex headhunter – in fact, I headhunted headhunters. I did that job for many years, and was successful at it. Since I was raising a single daughter, I wanted to give her the best I could manage and I worked hard. Actually, I finished headhunting only a couple of years ago, it was something I could do when I started teaching yoga. Throughout most of that time I was also weight training and competing…I guess you could say I had a competitive nature, but the truth is I’ve always been in need of some kind of fitness regime.
I have one brother and sister. I am the middle one but was always the strong one of the three; taking care of the others and instinctively maternal. Exercise has kept me sane in many ways, but in the end of my bodybuilding career, it became unhealthy. I couldn’t go a day without training 2-3 hours. My body was contracted and I started to injure myself. I prolapsed two discs in my lower back.
I realized I was trying unsuccessfully to fill a void in my life. My daughter was getting older and I felt I needed to do something for me. Ironically my ex-boyfriend had a friend who had friend who was an Iyengar teacher. I went to the institute in Maida Vale to Alaric’s class. It was funny, I walked in, never having done a yoga class before to the intermediate class with my water bottle and gym outfit on and he said ‘Oh we’ve got a gym body here have we?’ I did the class and I never felt my body work in that way before. I got Alaric’s humor and his very individual and dynamic style of teaching, and I loved him from the start. He made me laugh and at the same time work hard.
I finished weight training as soon as I started yoga, but it took a while to get the weight trainer out of the yogi, so to speak. I really had to work to soften my body.
I didn’t go back to the Iyengar Institute for awhile, but instead I went on to Triyoga and found ashtanga. I fell in love with ashtanga, which appealed to my competitive side. At my first class the teacher said something evocative and I started to cry. When the teacher saw me crying she told me that normally it takes a long time for someone to get their emotions up to the surface like that – that I was ready to explore what was going on inside. I went home and I knew what I wanted to do. I did my teacher training at Triyoga and it was great. All during that time I kept my eye on Iyengar teachers and I thought to myself, my god, what do they know that I don’t? I kept going to the Iyengar classes and seeing Alaric and his students observing people’s practices in a way that I couldn’t – they were seeing things I wasn’t seeing. I got the sense I had only touched the tip of the iceberg with my yoga path.
Finally one day Alaric invited me to do teacher training with him. I was so humbled by his invitation. It was the best thing I have ever done. I had been teaching dynamic yoga teacher until then and it was very difficult for me to transition from teaching in this way to the Iyengar way. I asked myself what makes an Iyengar yoga teacher, and I felt myself questioning who I was. Alaric really got into my psyche at this time and helped me – I was always honest with him about my fears. He knew what I needed to do and helped me to see it too. Instead of saying I was teaching wrong, he was sincere in his belief in me and said, as long as your teaching rather than leading, you’re doing the right thing.
Since I’ve qualified I’ve felt more at home with myself. It is such an honor to be an Iyengar yoga teacher. I’m now an introductory level 2, qualitified Iyengar teacher and I finally feel at home with my teaching. The initial training takes nearly two years to complete.
My practice is about continuing to learn. To teach the yoga postures one must embody them in oneself. I am always hungry to see more, to understand more about the body and the psyche. I’m very interested longer term in learning more about remedial yoga and teaching people with injuries.
Where does the emotional and personal aspect come in to Iyengar yoga as a teacher?
I think it depends on the individual. For me, as a mom, and as a recruiter I am used to listening to people’s stories to help them make choices. I find it an honor to have people open up and cry in my class. I want them to feel safe to do that. I would love for my students to take one point away after each class, and in this way they build a yoga practice.
FL: Do you still do any dynamic yoga?
HS: I go to Iyengar classes 3 to 4 times a week. I go to Sheila Haswell, Patsy Sparksman (I assisted her for a year and a half and she helped get through my exams), and Alaric, as you know. I respect all three teachers immensely, they all have a real human quality about them, and that’s what attracts me to them. Additionally I do an hour and a half of my own practice daily. I don’t go to dynamic classes any longer.
FL: Any methods you didn’t like?
HS: Scaravelli was too slow, I didn’t try lots of other things because I kind of found my practice from the start.
FL: How many classes do you teach a week?
I teach 11 classes a week, and any more than that I think it’s too much.
FL: What is the book that’s inspired you the most?
HS: The Iyengar Way, by Mira Metta. I carry it with me everywhere I go. It’s a fantastic book. I’ve had it from just about day one and it’s helped me immensely. The other one is by Judith Lasiter, Living your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life.
I’m looking forward to practicing with Helen at Indaba Yoga, where she will be teaching two classes a week Tuesday 9.30 – 11am & Thursday 6.00 – 7.30pm. See more information about Helen’s retreats and workshops on my Recommended Retreats, Workshops and Events page.
Hangin’ with Raphan
Raphan Kebe has a special place in my heart. I will always remember him from my Jivamukti teacher training as being strong in mind and body; a nonconformist with a heart of gold and a hug that could calm the inconsolable. Over the years I’ve gotten to know Raphan as an amazing body therapist and yoga teacher, who combines in his classes his training in martial arts and interest in human anatomy and somatics with his experience with various Yoga/Pilates schools, the work of Edward Clark and that of his good friend Jonathan Monks.
FL: How long have you been practicing yoga?
RK: My very first class was at the Iyengar Yoga Institute South London in 1999, but I had an interest before that. I did gymnastics as a little boy and always had a physicality about me. I didn’t go to my first class needing to be ‘fixed’, but I wanted to try something different with my body. At the time I was going to Goldsmith college and the Iyengar Institute was close by. It was a big room with ropes with people hanging off them. It looked like and reminded of gymnastics but with props but the format, going for an hour, everyone doing the same thing…I didn’t know what it was supposed to be or what it was supposed to feel like or even the purpose…but it got my interest. I didn’t go back to the institute even though I kept thinking about it.
It was a couple of years after that first experience that I found myself going back to yoga because of injuries from playing the bass guitar- primarily back and wrist problems. I saw every type of therapist possible, and it was a chiropractor that turned me on to pilates which led me back to hatha yoga. I remember these weekly classes where I was the only man, and the only one under fifty for that matter. But I went back every week and liked the atmosphere. It was cool. Eventually I looked into teacher trainings and found myself on my first teacher training with Sun Power Yoga.
FL: Where did Asthanga fit into your background, and what’s your daily practice like now?
Well, I’ve actually never practiced Ashtanga. I’ve worked through some of the series with Jivamukti and some other Vinyasa schools, but I’ve never been interested in studying that method per se. Back then the Ashtangis I met were not really friendly, the guys seem to take it and themselves so seriously, I just didn’t like the vibe. The women whom I practiced general hatha & Iyengar yoga with, in contrast, created a real feeling of welcomeness and community. I can also get bored easily so doing the same thing all the time was just not for me.
My practice right now is about improvisation using principles from the Feldenkrais Method, martial arts and movement patterns that interest me. My daily practice changes, sometimes I will move and it looks like I am dancing, other times I will practice only 5-6 postures for 2 hours. Some days I just practice calisthenics.
What’s important for me is that I divide my Yoga practice between on-mat and off-the-mat, in the physical sense. I find that we tend to move according to what we stand on (eg. mats), but when we take away the mat we are left with simply the ground and ourselves. Practicing without a mat allows me to vary my practice, expand my concept of space, balance and movement and my understanding of dynamic equilibrium, or really our human ‘error management protocol’.
FL: How often do you attend classes of other teachers?
RK: I have to say that at this stage my asana practice is mostly on my own. I go see Jonathan (Monks) when he teaches and I used to visit Edward Clark and Tripsichore but otherwise I don’t really go anywhere these days. I guess things are probably gonna change with Indaba and you all teaching there, huh… I’m planning on doing everyone’s class at least once. (smile!!!)
FL: Who are your greatest sources of inspiration?
RK: Jonathan Monks is like a big brother, you know. He’s introduced me to Rolfing and Feldenkrais and to what I call a truly somatic way of practising Yoga. He’s helped me realise that the physical practise of Yoga is not only external but very much internal too; made me explore the connections between the centre and extremities, etc… Edward Clark (Tripsichore) who probably without even knowing it has helped me tremendously in staying myself by not conforming to what I sensed was simply wrong. They are certainly my most influential teachers.
After that I like the Shadow school, Budokon from Cameron Shayne is quite cool too and to be honest I’m inspired by any teacher who strive to respectfully bring more and not just stand there claiming big shoulders to sit on, if you know what I mean..
FL: Any yoga practices you’ve tried which you couldn’t stand?
RK: No, in that case I would put the blame not to the method but on the teachers – there aren’t any methods per say I don’t like.
I don’t like being taken through sequences or asanas that don’t reinforce a somatic understanding of movement and/or postures – To me only when we have this understanding of knowing where our limbs are in space, or whether or not our toes are clenched or relaxed and how it affect our breathing can I move inside to examine what is going on under the surface. I also find it upsetting when I hear talks of me not being ‘the body’ yet at the same time being told that I should be able to feel when to stop, where to push, whether to go further or not or even feed myself this way or that way. It’s contradictory and simply confusing. A bit like teachers coming from a Brahminic tradition teaching Tantric exercises or Tantric guides not asking for any innate sense of the body’s energy mechanics; I won’t say more on that…
Practice should make you feel better in your own skin. If you do the same practice every day without being aware of how your body feels, there isn’t much chance that your mind really knows where it is mentally or emotionally. And if that’s not understood then it really doesn’t matter what the chakras are or what I mean when I say ‘masculine and feminine energy’.
A big turn off for me is when schools teach yoga as if it’s a religion – dogmatically, consciously and subconsciously. When people expect you to live your life in a certain way whether you fully understand why or not, to me that is not yoga and that’s definitely not teaching. Now don’t get me wrong I get the relation between say Yoga and Hinduism but I’m talking here about understanding for example that a vegetarian diet might be the best for you at a certain point in your life but not necessarily for everyone at any given time, that’s it.
In terms of the physical practise there might not be ‘wrong’ methods as what I wanted 5 years ago might not be what I need now or what fits with where I am in my life today, as such there is no such thing as one way is the right and only way.
Look, at the end of the day, Yoga is about finding freedom – in your practice and in your life. There are different ways to get there, I think that’s what freedom is about.
FL: What makes and how long does it take to be a good yoga teacher? How long should one practice before considering doing a teacher training?
RK: How long does it take to be a good parent? How does one educate without forcing an experience onto someone. I don’t know what makes a good teacher but I think it has probably some to do with your ability to listen and also not listen, and that, it looks like, takes years of getting it wrong at times and getting right sometimes.
For teacher training, I actually don’t mind seeing young dancers and gymnasts with 10, 15 or 20 years of experience in the physical field doing teacher training as a lot of what is taught out there is purely physical and they sure have a lot of that practise; but I agree that Yoga is a ‘little’ more than that and as such a few years of relating Yogic practises to one’s life experience is probably going to be a good thing. But then I say we shouldn’t blame the new teachers, simply the way they’ve been trained to teach, but hey-don’t get me started on that … (smile!)
