Teachers

FLOWER

I began my yoga journey in 2006 and qualified as a teacher in 2008, specializing in the Ashtanga Vinyasa method. Thanks to Mark Darby, Joanne Darby and Shankara Darby for their generous teachings. In February 2020, I completed the Vinyasa Krama Yoga Advanced Teacher Training in Chennai, India, with Srivatsa Ramaswami, who has long been a direct student of the legendary T. Krishnamacharya.

Since I started teaching, I've gained a deep understanding of how different bodies need different guidance. In response, I've developed an acute sensitivity for adapting and tailoring practice to the individual. I believe that all our knowledge is derived from our own experiences, and teaching yoga has truly become a lifestyle for me. I realize that the vitality of the teaching continues to evolve day by day to enable progress.

The way I guide practitioners to work is to bring them into conditions where they can learn to think. That sort of thinking always leads to a new way of action. Awareness is a question of knowing what you’re doing, knowing what you are conscious of.

My teaching concept is to offer the experience methodically in a sufficiently graded manner so that the discriminating ability of the practitioners grow apace with (1) the reduced efforts of will and (2) the clear knowledge of self and ability to do that blow doubt and hesitation out of of the way.

JÉRÔME

A swimming coach for ten years, a few introductory yoga classes during my training as a performance sports coach planted the seed. I often wanted to take other paths, but each time yoga seemed to impose itself on me, to the point of finally convincing me to make it my profession. Life's misunderstandings have led me to seriously question the meaning of this path. Travel, training and practice in India and elsewhere helped me to find what would bring out both my dark and light sides and give me a better understanding of them: yoga.

All the yoga teachers I've met have helped me enormously, but it's above all the method and the assiduity of personal practice that have transformed me. And this transformation continues to this day, lifting the veil of illusion a little further. I've found meaning in life and a path to what we all aspire to: serenity. Yoga is more than a passion; I find fulfillment in teaching, in the love of transmitting, sharing and helping others.

My training is of little value without personal observation in and out of practice, every moment of life a discovery and explosion of the moment. It's not diplomas that make you intelligent, but understanding through experience and observation of life. For me, it's important to strive to develop our critical intelligence, to follow its deep source, not to fall into repetition and spiritual materialism, but to become autonomous and develop the awakening of intelligence. This is what I seek to bring to light in others, rather than postures and sequences. Many thanks to Joanne, Mark and Shankara Darby for the coherence and clarity of their teachings. I had the good fortune to study Vinyasa Krama with Srivatsa Ramaswami, who was a direct student of T. Krishnamacharya for 33 years. Krishnamacharya. There's such a reflectiveness in Vinyasa Krama as taught by T. Krishnamasharya, an intelligence I've never found in any other practice. I studied Ayurveda and Jyotish with Vaidya Atreya Smith and deepened Ayurveda with Vaidya Sunil Joshi. I am so grateful to have met such humane teachers. I continue to learn and deepen my knowledge of Yoga and Ayurveda.

Yoga and Ayurveda are therapies I use on myself and offer my services to others. They are meant to help humanity, not to be distorted by the circus of aesthetic and physical performance.