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!

In conjunction with Yoga Journal and Albion Minerals, Yoga in Fiji and Daku Resort are offering a wonderful chance for one lucky reader to win one of our 7-night yoga retreats at here at Daku.

You’ve probably already seen the ad in Yoga Journal.

The promotion is running until the end of August and is open to our American readers. We’re terribly excited to be running this promotion alongside Yoga Journal and Albion, and have to say Yoga in Fiji and Daku Resort do look very stylish right there in the middle of the yoga world’s biggest magazine.

There’s plenty of time to enter. Click the link below and tell your friends. Don’t forget to like us on facebook

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The prize includes a 7-night stay at Daku Resort, meals, yoga workshops, roundtrip air from Los Angeles to Savusavu, Fiji on Air Pacific and land transfers.

*The competition is open to residents of the USA.