I am a 200-hour registered yoga teacher accredited by Yoga Alliance, based in Cambridge and Hong Kong. To make yoga accessible to all, I founded Yoga at Girton, an initiative that offers yoga for free at Cambridge University. Apart from teaching at studios and colleges, I am also a volunteer yoga instructor at various non-profit organisations in Hong Kong.

 

I received my professional training from a school called Andiappan Yoga originally from Chennai, India. Guruji Dr Asana Andiappan, founder of Andiappan Yoga, was famous for developing his own sequences of curative asanas based on the ancient yogic text Thirumandiram written by Thirumoolar. Andiappan Yoga is well-known in India and Hong Kong for making the benefits of yoga therapy accessible to all. My foundational training exposed me to a range of yogic concepts and practices, a basis which allows me to apply and continually discover what hatha yoga means to me. This led me to the Ashtanga Vinyasa tradition, which I practice everyday and whose method influences my teaching. I am lucky to have learnt from inspiring teachers Clayton Horton, Joey Miles and Dorothy Loh. I am a daily meditator and seated meditation has always been an integral part of my hatha yoga practice. Seated meditation and hatha yoga are not separate. They are two methods that work with the same level of consciousness. In Chan (or Zen) Buddhism, there is a name for physical exercise with a meditative focus. They call it 'dong chan' 動禪 meaning 'moving zen'. I think to call hatha yoga a moving kind of zen practice is quite right.

 

I met Jolene Ho, daughter-in-law of Master Nan Huai-jin, in her studio in Hong Kong. She exposed me to the writings of Master Nan and in her teaching gave me the verbal framework to explain the nuanced link between hatha yoga and zen. Zen is a word that gets thrown around a lot. I use it because it's an elegant compact word that the English language has borrowed from the Japanese to refer to what the yogis call Dhyana and Chinese call Chan. I think it is important to address that for me zen is not a singular concept, not a universal meaning that you can grasp and then rely on it to debate with others. If there is a tendency to debate its meaning with others, there is probably too much conflict and desire for an ambition-driven fragment, probably not enough spaciousness for zen to come in. Understanding can only come when there is a willingness to watch, to watch the quiet and the conflict, how the two merge then dissipate. Zen can be in debate if you observe it, but debating for the sake of it is often what precludes zen and any kind of genuine honest self-observation/reflection. My understanding of zen is informed by my reading of Silvia Ostertag and Master Nan, but everyone's understanding of it, of yoga, of life is different. I think that's the beauty of it.

 

I teach yoga not as a competitive sport but as a healthy and achievable lifestyle. The 8 limbs of Ashtanga yoga begins with yama (self-discipline), niyama (social discipline) and ends with samadhi, the ultimate state of equanimity and bliss. It is important not to obsess over specific asanas, which only serve as a step to liberation. My teaching also stresses the balance of yin and yang inherent in all of us. The physical practice of asana (poses) is therefore not just limited to stretching and improving flexibility, but also incorporates strengthening and balancing elements in a comprehensive sequence. Such a balance is also the namesake and goal of Hatha Yoga (which means 'sun and moon' in Sanskrit). It is the aim of this blog to continue the wisdom of balance, self-awareness, growth and compassion.