Why I left it, and why I am ready to come home…..to Yoga, to me.

This may come as a surprise to some, I’m coming back to Yoga….I’m ready to teach groups again. I’ve had a break from teaching in-person groups for sometime, I’ve also been rejecting the word ‘Yoga’. To be honest I had a ‘break’ from Yoga for the last 2 years, not from moving my body nor breath work, but the ‘Yoga’ that has gone all modern and cliche. I’d really pushed up against it and didn’t want to be included in this industry’s new version. I removed the word ‘Yoga’ out of my business name last year to ‘Inspya Me’. It’s taken time to feel inspired to teach again - and I’m super excited to be hosting workshops in Feburary - click here  (especially at a very special + NEW studio Alasana Yoga in Gymea). The last few years have involved many layers of grief, loss and change in my personal life, a relief and sustainance for my empathic levels to only be teaching online and one-to-one instead of large groups during this time. I have only just now realised the releases, the resilience, the joy threaded throughout the struggles and the wonderful creations I have made possible have all been because of my Yoga. I am who I am because of Yoga.

For the last 2 or more years I even refused to call the movement I do for my body ‘Yoga’, I lost inspiration in sharing all things Yoga in my writing and teaching. I feel like the word Yoga has been overused, cliched and abused, it has come out the other side of the pandemic a completely different being….or has it? Is it just me? Not long ago I answered the question ‘What do you do?’ with ‘I’m a Yoga teacher’ (out of habit of 19 years however not feeling it as truth currently) and the person responded with “wow, but you are really normal and grounded”…..I thought ‘Great! WTF is the epitome of a Yoga teacher these days for someone to say this, and anyhow do people not know that’s exactly what Yoga is supposed to provide us with is feeling grounded and of steady mind?! Oh dear, Yoga is in trouble.’

I know what I am saying here is going to offend some Yogis, so be it. I watched my favourite Yogis and mentors use social media as a platform to splatter their opinions on vaccination, flooding social media with fear mongering (and impossible to validate) statistics and theories, calling out who is ‘awake’ and who is not, in the US even persuade who to vote for. My constant reaction was “STAY IN YOUR LANE!” When you have a following of students who look to you for guidance, stick to what your training is. To say I was disappointed and used my unfollow button a few times is an understatement ~ I know, my error in putting reveerred Yogis on pedestals in the first place and not recognising my own authority and truth as foremost. I thought the essence of stepping into the role as a Yoga Teacher was to encourage students to find calm amongst the storm, to learn about their body and breath, to discover tools for themselves so as to find their own truth and navigate the world they live in regardless if it’s the same as mine. I have no business telling them whether they should be vaccinated or not, to change their belief system, my expertise and training does not lie in politics nor medicine, and never will. No one is more awake than another, everyone’s journey is different and let’s face it Eckart Tolle just woke up one day enlightened so who’s to say that ‘unwoke’ person is not going to surpass us overnight …but wait is there even a race in the first place???!!!

I became a Teacher because my Yoga journey of the last 30 years has made a long lasting and profound impact on how I now live my life, my resilience, how I cope with challenges and change, to accept personal responsibility and love the choices I make AND the lessons learnt along the way. Yoga has given me a way to be present, to intelligently use my body in movement and find my breath …….in turn it’s provided a steadiness and comfort in both my mind and my body. I am eternally grateful for a very agile 49yo body because of a consistent Yoga practice. It gave me a way to navigate and create this life I am loving. This is why I was initially inspired to share Yoga with others. I had forgotten this when I got caught up in rejecting the whole ‘Yoga’ industry, basically I was throwing the baby out with bath water.

Currently we are being shown Yoga is a teacher showing us how awesome they do a pose so an aspiring beginner wants to do (look?) the same …..however is not taught how! For me Yoga asana are most beneficial when it’s simply about time spent blessing my body with a presence in movement to bring physical comfort which leads to a steady breath and mental comfort. Not how grand or fancy the pose looks! It’s now common place in large group classes where the teachers do not ask for or even consider an individual’s injuries or conditions nor provide cautions for them during the class. It’s normalised to be driven through a flurry of Chaturangas when a student has not even been assessed or improved upon how well formed they are on All 4’s or Plank as preparation - now the practice of Yoga is being tarnished as a cause of injury and cautioned by Physios and Chiros! It’s typical to hear ‘inhale, exhale’ and not even be taught HOW to breathe nor manipulate the breath to create an effect ~ which is essentially the ultimate conclusion of a Yoga class to settle into the breath in stillness. Instead they are encouraged to perform a handstand but never transforming their breathing patterns - yet the ‘how we breathe’ is the cause and effect on our whole body’s physiology and mental health and probably the WHY of what they are looking for by turning up to a class! Yoga teachers now purchase followers - yes going up to 25,000 in just one day just to claim recognition and validity as a ‘Yoga Teacher’ - does it really?!? Why is this even part of the industry?? The word Yoga means ‘union’….but where is this so called connection in what we are seeing as today’s Yoga?

Yoga is not about what your body looks like, how firm your butt is, whether you follow any religion (including Hindu), how many followers you have, whether you even ‘do’ Yoga poses. Yoga shows up in how we live our life, how we use movement to respect and maintain our body’s comfort and functions, how we breathe, using techniques to manipulate and establish better breathing patterns (eg Pranayama) to master our physical and mental state of being. Yoga is connection to self, finding within our own authority, it’s in our integrity, in the decisions we make, in our personal responsibility.

If you are looking to bring more Yoga into your life (it doesn’t have to be a yoga class it can be any form of movement) find yourself a teacher who can educate you how to be present and intelligently move your body, finding stability and comfort in maintaining it’s functions; how to breathe well to release or invigorate, finding stability and comfort in the comings and goings of the mind and steady the emotions. Find a teacher who doesn’t make it about them and how they do the pose but about you, what your needs are and whether you have any physical hurdles to navigate in the poses, who you are in the pose and in stillness. Find a Yoga teacher who isn’t perfect, but has integrity and IS authentic. Find a teacher who’s desire is to ‘educate’ you from the passion they have derived from their own practice.

Unfortunately we lost the in-person teachings of a lot of our amazing Yoga teachers over the last few years due the inconsistency of earnings, so many now rely on other forms of work, including myself I have a various forms of income and live a very different work week than prior to the pandemic. I actually love it, I have enjoyed the break, but just like the purpose of a holiday is to take a break so we can come back to do what we do with more passion - I am ready to come back to more sharing and teaching ~ this year looks very different indeed, there’s a lot more of ME, and I have Yoga to thank for that ;-). There’s even a return to my birthname in the works ~ Nicole Dorsch…yup back to ME. Stay tuned.

I would LOVE for you to add to comments below tag a Yoga teacher who is this - we need them! Here, I’ll start us off….

Clare Lovelace - @soultribestudio

Louise Eddie - @inmotion_yoga

Alasa Yoga Studio - Alison Morris - @alasana_yoga

InYoga - Nicole Walsh - @inyogalife