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1. When and where did you first start practising yoga?
I started in November 2011 at Live and Breathe Yoga.
2. Why were you interested in the first place?
My day job is running an aircraft engineering maintenance organisation, which is demanding in terms of responsibility and time. The demands of the position often mean that I have phone calls or work most evenings and weekends. The engineering aspects are great, but the stress really comes from dealing with people, both customers and employees. The result is that I tend to put work before anything else. My wife has a friend in WA who is very much into meditation and suggested yoga would put balance into my world. It just took a further 2 years and a move to Townsville to act on that advice.
3. What is it that got you hooked?
I enjoy the quietness of the sessions and being able to be absorbed into the yoga. Ashtanga yoga has also filled my need for doing exercise. I love climbing and mountaineering, things I haven’t done since moving to Australia, and somehow, Ashtanga yoga has replaced that.
4. What do you love about Live and Breathe yoga?
I love the Wednesday and Saturday morning Mysore classes; that could be the chai! I think the atmosphere in the studio is terrific – it’s friendly, peaceful and supportive and the Instructors are pretty good too. I look forward to going to a class and really don’t like missing one.
5. What benefits have you felt since practising yoga?
My posture has got much better and I don’t feel so tense. Importantly, I don’t ‘beat myself up’ as much over things at work – I have a good tendency to shoulder all the load, so when things go astray, I tend to accept responsibility for my Team. Yoga has made my work-life balance much better, and having the routine of going to class is sorting that.
6. How often do you practice in a week?
Normally three times a week at the studio, but I’m trying to get into a practice routine at home another couple of days a week.
7. What’s your favourite thing about Ashtanga Yoga?
The peacefulness I feel, yet also having a challenge – the movement and flow. And recently, more about the meditation that seems to occur through the moves and through reading some good yoga books.
8. What would you say to someone who is thinking of trying yoga?
Do it. Don’t worry about thinking you’ll be the oldest one there or the only male or I’m the wrong shape – I don’t think anyone else at the class worries about it and the yoga is just great.
