Mark’s week explored wonder in yoga – and wonder generally. Wonder is a multilayered concept and he looked at it from diverse angles: the awe inherent in everyday life, and the curiosity that we can bring to daily experiences.

Wonder is one of the 9 rasas or core emotions – the others are Love, Joy, Peace, Anger, Courage, Sadness, Fear and Disgust. Wonder asks us to develop the qualities of “mystery and curiosity” leading us to experience life moment by moment as fresh, vibrant and alive.

During each asana practice he encouraged his students to be constantly examining how they felt, how their body was responding, what was new, what was different. Don’t think of your poses as good or bad, or of having a weak side and a strong side, he encouraged the group, just be curious about how you’re feeling. Notice what’s different from before.

His practice isn’t one that he pigeonholes into any particular school: he will have periods of Vinyasa flow, but then hold a pose for a long time. He will use props in one practice, but none in another. He will suddenly take a few minutes to get everyone to laugh manically and then return to the mat. Amongst the many curiosities he took us through, my favourite was one using Tree Pose. As we did the pose, he asked us to lean back into it, which was very challenging for our balance. Then we all came and stood in a line, close enough for our arms to touch at wrist level when we raised them again for Tree Pose. And this time when we leaned back, it was wonderfully easy, and somehow we were giving each other support – even though no-one was any more stable than before. That was a small wonder!

Another morning he gave everyone a blindfold and we did the whole practice without seeing each other – or the floor or the ceiling, for that matter. It demanded a much higher level of concentration as we no longer had the visual clues of what everyone else was doing – but at the same time it was curiously freeing. It completely removed any temptation to compare our asana with anyone else’s, and focussed our minds into our bodies.

There were other sessions during the week: classes on the philosophies of yoga, two yoga nidra sessions, and a daily restorative session in the late afternoon – plus nights of conversation, visits to a village across the bay and time to wander around Savusavu. A rich and satisfying week that opened up new horizons for all who were there.

Mark returns to Daku Resort in June 2013.

A lovely start to 2012 – a dynamic yoga week with Michelle Jayne. We were up every morning to start the first workshop at 7.30 – and soon sweating hard.  Her practice is influenced by the Power Yoga approach, but her major mentor has been Ana Forrest. She first met Ana when she trained with her in 2008, and immediately found a deep sympathy with her verbal descriptions of body placement. It

A different sort of sun salutation

gave her a deeper understanding of how to create space in your body, and how to move from a sense of suffering (interpret this in the sense of finding an asana difficult / challenging / tiring) to finding curiosity and joy. So as we moved through the morning practice she encouraged us to hold certain poses and find the joy in them – often an attitude of mind, but sometimes a sense of discovery in what we could do.

Two-legged down dog

The afternoon workshops explored ideas of patterning of the mind and how to respond when you hit the edge in an asana, and then the late afternoon practice allowed us to find relaxation in extended stretches. This was the time when we had some others join us to explore and enjoy the benefits of working with long poses and the support of straps.

Stretching it out

And then there was time for the beach, for snorkelling on the reef, for shopping in Savusavu and for a cruise on a yacht. Altogether a great start to the year’s yoga programme.

Out on the yacht

An extraordinary week with Noah Maze: the experience of learning from him was a daily endorsement of his huge reputation. Noah leads a very strong practice, well beyond the normal comfort zone of at least half the class. But with his meticulous work on the preparation of each pose, and the Anusara based emphasis on correct alignment, every student found that they were able to grasp the requirements of each new asana. As each day went by, although not every pose was mastered, everyone was astonished (and gratified) at the leaps in confidence and achievement they experienced.
Every morning practice lasted for two and a half hours, with a focus on standing and balancing poses and a lot of work on the strength based postures of headstands and handstands. Noah worked through each pose in different ways, teaching his students how it could be approached from sitting, standing and lying down. And, delightfully, he laces his teaching with humour – mimicking the New Joisey ATTITUDE of “whass da big deal?” as he hooked his arms under his knees and spread his hands in mock challenge in order to show the class how to prepare for astavakrasana (Eight Angle Pose); the shrill cry of the peacock he let out in pincha mayurasana (Feathered Peacock Pose)……making everyone relax, laugh, pause, refresh their mind and absorb the confidence he exudes.

Noah helps with a back bend

If I were to single out the greatest gift he gave us during the week, I think it would be exactly that: confidence. He is uncompromising in his demands – but his unwavering belief that it can be done pushes each student into fulfilling intentions they had no idea they could achieve. The class was of very mixed ability: two teachers, several others who had a well established and confident practice and several more who had only practiced yoga for 2 or 3 years – and one man who was just one month in. Each and every one knew they had taken bounds in their practice and in their understanding of what was possible for them.
There was more: time for teaching the life-affirming philosophy behind the Anusara practice, for meditation and chanting, for friendship and laughter within the group, for good food and dancing, for Fijian music and kava drinking. And for falling into a deep, exhausted and happy sleep every night. Namaste, Noah.

Everyone

Noah demonstrates a pose

Noah teaching inversions

Almost a year ago I spent a week doing yoga with my son at Mark Whitwell’s course in December. I wasn’t the only mum – and so I had the idea of writing about it from the point of view of doing a retreat with your son or daughter. It was subsequently published in Issue 32 of Australian Yoga Life. Here it is.

Sons, daughters and yogis
It puts a different spin on things to be students alongside your offspring. No more of Mum being the one who is telling everyone what to do! Recently I attended an overseas retreat conducted by Mark Whitwell that included three mothers with their adult children in tow. There was me and my 19-year-old son Charlie; Catherine and her two twenty-something daughters Dorothy and Paddy; and Lisa with her (not yet adult) 11-year-old boy Joe. Young Joe was simple: he wanted something that was easy and fun.

After the first practice, Joe described it to Lisa as ‘awesome’. Catherine is a yoga teacher herself, and her daughters Dorothy and Paddy saw it as a great family holiday with yoga thrown in. It wasn’t necessarily the beginning of a new dedication to yoga – but then Mark emphasised that yoga is a different practice for different people – and even excused the girls turning up late for class with the remark: “Sleep can be yoga too.”

Since then, Paddy hasn’t stayed with the practice, but says: “ I am playing tennis – which for me, and at this point in my life, is my yoga.” And Dorothy describes a general opening of horizons – maybe thanks to yoga, maybe not. “I don’t know if the experience has changed anything directly, perhaps it just helped to open my eyes. I feel like I am a little bit more open to new ideas or experiences than I might have been before. It was definitely a combination the people, the place and the yoga, not just the classes.”

But for each and every one of the mums it `was a special time. Lisa does yoga regularly now with both Joe and her husband Tim: “I was delighted to have Joe involved and my heart felt like it would burst when I looked over and saw him so involved and clearly enjoying the process.  He loved the opportunity to get to know people, hear their stories and learn about some of the spiritual and emotional aspects of yoga.  When I asked Joe the other day if my leg massage was hurting him, he said, “pain is not the enemy” ….. a quote Mark used during the retreat.”

For Catherine, it was an act of love, offering her daughters something she wished she had found earlier: “I wanted my daughters to have that experience now, in their 20′s, rather than coming to that sort of personal and spiritual awareness through longer, more circuitous and perhaps more painful paths in their 30s, 40s, 50s – as many people do.  I wish my mother had shared a yoga retreat with me when I was in my 20′s!”

And for me, it was just time together. Sometimes Charlie fell asleep during the longer talks; I’d look over and see his eyes shut and notice that regular breathing and once – just once – a tiny little snore. But there were plenty of times he was taking it all in and on other occasions he and I would discuss what had been said. I enjoyed that, walking down the beach throwing his ideas back and forth, engaged in a conversation that was entirely neutral in that I wasn’t telling him to do anything or prising out information about his life.

Then there was the physical aspect to the retreat. He mastered the poses with ease – and more. Stuff that I’d been working on for the last year he did with the natural grace of a 19-year old. He was already athletically in excellent shape as a rock climber, so had the requisite strength and balance, and was soon doing an impeccable headstand – but I took a secret delight in being able to bend more deeply that he could. But what pleasure to be able to do these things together, with no real competition behind it. And there was playtime too – laughter when he pushed me over whilst attempting Warrior 3; shared winks as we peeked sideways from downward dog; gritted teeth as we held the star position; and laughter as he swayed in tree pose and gave up entirely.

And sometimes I just held his hand when we lay in shivasana. Now how many mums get to do that with their 19-year-old sons! And who knows what links we’ve built with our children during that time? They may not acknowledge it quite so openly, but it certainly nurtured our hearts.

Mark’s next retreat takes place from December 11 – 18. It’s priced at US$1250: see Yoga in Fiji for details.

John Ogilvie is a teacher who challenges and cajoles his students into things they’ve never thought they could do before – and their practice is greatly enhanced in the process. His recent course at the beginning of June had every student doing a handstand by the end of the week – some with his help and some without. Initially nervous, the students worked their way into the posture and found its reward in new confidence. And that’s the way John’s week worked – he introduced new and demanding asanas to the class, helping everyone through with humour, encouragement and, where necessary, a helping hand.

New possibilities opened up. He spent an entire session focussing on Virabhradrasana III, using the wall and the floor to attempt the pose at different angles, encouraging a thorough exploration and understanding of it.

He taught the class how to help partners into poses that stretched the back, working feet into shoulders and pushing in and up. It was quite uncomfortable, but afterwards everyone – and particularly those who had sore backs – found their back muscles relaxed and their overall posture far more comfortable.

One of the students was 5 months pregnant and inevitably John had to adjust the poses for her. It became a lesson in letting go for her, as she realised that her usual command of her body had to be softened and she had to give in gracefully to the demands of the baby.

There were two practices a day, one as the sun rose and one in the evening as it set. In between there was time for all the good things Fiji has to offer – swimming, snorkelling, kayaking, visiting local villages, having a spa massage and just relaxing.

He’ll be back same time next year!

A week’s yoga retreat with Mark Whitwell is an intense and exhilarating mixture of philosophy, discussion and practice. Mornings stretch into lunch time as he explains and expounds the thinking behind yoga, and invites questions and responses. Not everyone agrees with everything he says; he talks around the question, offering different ways to understand what he is saying. Some of us make notes; many of us continue the discussion into the afternoon or evening as we examine what he’s said about existence, acceptance, striving and letting go, accepting and giving, setting an intention. Through it all Mark has a lovely sense of humour. Yoga may be about an entire way of life, but it’s one of joy and laughter.

We’re a wonderfully diverse group of 18 – five yoga teachers, several regular yoga practitioners, and a couple of complete beginners. We come from the US, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the UK. We’re aged from 19 to 56. We variously have yoga as a passion, a dalliance and an experiment. Mark welcomes drop-ins too, and during the week we are joined for the occasional session by the husband and son of one of the yogis, and by a Finnish couple staying at the resort. There are three families amongst us: one mother and son, one mother with her two daughters, and the family just mentioned.

The practice itself is a hatha vinyasa flow; Mark instructs it in his gentle yet authoritative way, moving amongst the class to correct and encourage, and remind us again and again of working with the breath. After the standing postures we move into some floor postures and sun salutations. The two beginners (one’s an ex-dancer and one is a rock climber) are very supple and have no trouble at all in keeping up. Mark teaches us the importance of postures and counter-postures, so the body is given a chance to reverse out any taxing stretches. One day we do shoulder stands, which to my surprise I find relatively easy. He offers those who wish to try it the opportunity of doing a headstand, although it’s not something he generally teaches much. He is averse to the showmanship that often creeps into western yoga practices, and recounts with huge chuckles the photo he saw on the front of a US magazine showing a visiting Indian yogi doing a headstand on a hard New York pavement with the headline: “Hip, hot and holy”.

And throughout it all he exhorts us day after day to do a 7 minute yoga practice at the start of the day. It’s like homework; he asks us if we’ve done it each morning as we start the workshop. A couple of the younger ones admit they slept in – and Mark laughs and says that sleep can also be yoga. Others have – and find it’s stretched into 20 minutes without a thought. 7 minutes is pretty achievable even for the busiest amongst us; it’s a nice little practice to put in our pocket and take away.

In the evenings we all come together for dinner and companionship around the dining table; Mark is a notoriously poor time keeper and one evening he wanders in to find that there’s only a small bowl of soup left for him. He’s been busy indulging his other great passion – becoming Eric Clapton. And when it’s time for the traditional leaving ceremony at the end of the week, he brings his guitar and sings a farewell that has many in tears.

The week offers lots more too – snorkelling on the reef, having a massage, picnicking at a beach down the coast, shopping in Savusavu, swimming in the pool, having a cocktail in the evening.

And at the end of it we’re all enriched enormously. For most of us, it’s been a satisfying blend of theory and practice, with some wonderfully practical tools of approach. The idea of a 7 minute practice – I love it! Working within the breath: a back-to-basics reminder that is beautifully calming and invigorating. I’m not sure that all the younger folk will necessarily keep it in their lives, but they have been offered a wonderful introduction and they’ve had fun on the way. And for at least one person there, it’s been life changing. I’ll bring you her story when she’s ready to tell it.

Photos courtesy of Deborah Bassett. Website: www.deborahbassett.com

Daku Staff and Mark Whitwell at the Closing Ceremony

Sydney Yoga Instructor, Tara Er, who led an Iyengar Yoga retreat at Daku this August entitled “Discover Yourself” shares her experience of the retreat with us below.

It was an early morning start Saturday to embark for departure on an 8:10am flight from Sydney to Nadi. At the airport I excitingly met my students as they arrived. We made our way through customs and regrouped with each other at the gate. Our journey had begun.

Tara and the view from the Yoga Shala

The flight from Sydney to Nadi went well, watching 11/2 movies ensures time passes quickly.
We arrived in Nadi to the beautiful heat of Fiji and I was in heaven. Here we had less than an hour to change planes for Savusavu. We very quickly learned the meaning of Fiji time, which is quite different to Sydney time. Our 3pm flight to Savusavu didn’t depart until around 5pm, an interesting way to be pulled out of Sydney time and introduced to Fiji time.

The plane to Savusavu was a 20 seater and the flight was only one hour. So around 6:30-7pm we arrived at Savusavu airport and then took a shuttle bus to Daku Resort, the sun was just setting and we were ready to unpack our bags, change and reconnect for dinner.

The Fijian staff welcomed us as family. We shared our week with a creative writing group and so joined them at the Dining Table. This meant dinner usually commenced at 7pm, and found us still sitting at the table chatting until 9pm. For lunch and dinner we were summoned by the kitchen drum.

Early Morning Yoga

We began the retreat with a Welcome gathering circle to introduce ourselves to each other and familiarize ourselves with the venue and how the retreat was to run. It was up to the individual of how much she/he wanted to obtain from the retreat. Classes started at 6am for a Silent sitting Meditation followed up by a 6:30-7am Pranayama class, followed up by a 7-9am active asana class, with the focus changing daily. If one arose early enough one could watch the moon setting, it was a beautiful full moon setting over the water, just magic. I had never seen anything like it. It was nature at her best.

After our morning practice we would have some time to ourselves before we reconnected over breakfast. Each day unfolded a little differently with rest or activities taking up our time. We would then gather at the Yoga Shala for our afternoon Restorative practice to recharge our batteries. There was then a short break of free time before we would again gather for dinner.

The Resort had organized some activities for us between our yoga classes and we added a few other activities onto our timetable. Throughout the week we rested, snorkeled, swam, scuba dived, hired a couple of scooters to venture around the island, received a massage, shopped, walked, watched Tapa being made, visited the local village and heard their choir sing – they sounded like Angels, had a meal in Town, checked out a waterfall. Before we knew it our week had come to an end.

It was such a wonderful week and I found myself to be a little sad to have left this exquisite island of paradise. I’ve been encouraged by the responses from the students who participated, assuring me that they will return next year.

Tara’s 2011 course will run from 6 – 13 August next year. You can read more about the retreat at Paradise Courses or Yoga in Fiji. Read more about Tara and her practice at Cronulla Yoga Centre.