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