Yoga of Dragons

We teach as a team most of the time. Co-teaching highlights the fantastic truth that teaching always involves learning, and every student is also a teacher. Pulling bits and pieces from various movement disciplines and our continued exploration into all things yoga, it’s interesting to see which directions either one of us might run, given the spark of an idea from the other.

Sam

I grew up practising amateur ballet, athletics and table tennis. I gradually moved on to experimenting with martial arts and other forms of dance: tae kwando, ju jitsu, kung fu, aikido, capoeira, hip hop and even dabbling a little in parkour. I was never ‘much good’ at any of these things, but in wiser moments that kind of thing didn’t matter. In not-so-wise moments being told my body type wan’t right to be professional or that I wasn’t competitive enough to win, zapped the fun out of it. Back then I thought yoga was all about funny leotards (inspired by my mum’s LP sleeve I think!) sitting, breathing and maybe doing moves I hadn’t got a hope of replicating. I’m so grateful I gave it a chance. Some of those contorting shapes and poses may still be off the cards, but that’s totally ok by me and I enjoy exploring why.

One of the things I love about acroyoga is how you can work with others to make solo poses more accessible. Through the challenges of the physical practice, like many yogi’s before me, I found a path to the philosophical, the breath and a more peaceful way of exploring not only yoga, but other practices and life in general. The journey continues with an intention for more wise moments: no judgement, non attachment, acceptance... practice is ever more joyful and interesting when we let go of comparison and fear. Now that’s a real challenge, are you up for it?!

Bongo (also known as Steve)

I’ve got a really broad idea of what yoga practice is. I feel like I have been doing it from teenage years, when I first started riding trials bikes and playing with my fears through embodied practices. People wouldn’t recognise it as yoga, but the body-mind games were afoot! I have practiced, taught and written on martial arts and parkour (my PhD was about playful skill acquisition and the way it shapes peoples reality!). These practices all feed into my yoga today.

I fell completely in love with acroyoga from the first.

Our yoga-teacher-friend, Regina went on a weekend course and soon had us doing acroyoga in her small living room. A lot of laughing, some sweating, a broken chandelier later, and I was hooked.

I was, and am, more and more enchanted by the mystery of acroyoga. Each connection made in acroyoga has qualities found only by being there. For me this new feeling of play in yoga can delight, teach and astound. Connecting with another, playing on that level, is a mutual choosing; it chooses you as you choose it. Words don’t do it justice but it is totally badass!

I love to practice and so I wont stop. I’ve been doing it most of my life and it feels like this yoga ride’s just starting. I can’t but keep pushing, refining, twisting in new directions, grasping at inspiration from elsewhere, pulling in fortunate mistakes, sharing, consciously re-inventing, and admiring the possibility horizon as it surely unfurls. There is no developed, only developing. No set and defined yoga pathway, only history and each other to guide, a mapless voyage to make… Together.