Scott talks to Danny Paradise, one of the original Ashtanga yoga teachers and pioneers from the 1970s, about his life and practice in a vast and wide ranging conversation. 

Danny Paradise is one of the longest practicing western practitioners of Ashtanga yoga,. He began studying with David Williams and Nancy Gilgoff in 1976 and became a pioneer of the method through the late 1970s, 80s and 90s. He brings a wide ranging perspective to the practice and teachings of yoga and has developed his own unique approach to teaching the practice. Danny is deeply influenced by many other spiritual and mystical traditions.

Danny has inspired countless students and teachers over the years and was one of the first teachers to deliver Ashtanga yoga workshops in the UK in the 1980s. He continues to teach globally to this day. 

Danny lives in Hawaii and you can find more about him and his teachings here

_____________

In this incredible conversation Danny shares with Scott his journey into yoga in the 1970's and how he became the inspiring teacher we know now. The 1970's was an incredibly fruitful time for spiritual traditions and Danny shares this in a beautifully open way. He shares the little known story about how David Williams found yoga, how they all practiced together in those early years and the fascinating people who surrounded them as they learnt the practice. This conversation is such an incredible journey into another time. Danny also shares his movement into teaching yoga and the mystical traditions which are now a major part of his life. He believes in people finding their own path, that yoga is a tool for you to find your own way through life. He encourages us to become truly independent. 

This is such a rich conversation, sharing yoga history with deep teachings. It's one that you can listen to again and again....

Danny talks about:

• his way into yoga was through martial arts.
• how yoga was a dance for him.
• the amazing story about how David Williams found yoga by going to the Atlanta Rock festival and a teacher called Tom Law.
• How he first met and practiced with David Williams and Nancy Gilgoff.
• meeting Cliff Barber who was an old yogi in Maui.
• how the practice was meditation.
• how right from the beginning it was about self practice.
• how they learnt the ashtanga series very quickly.
• how he moved into teaching
• how he started teaching in Goa
• how he started to be influenced by others things that came into his practice.
• how he had deep structural change that deeply changed him.
• how Shamanism became a deep part of his practice.
• his own realisation that yoga and receiving information through indigenous spiritual knowledge.
• how he sees yoga as a devotional science.
• how he connected with Buddhism
• his connection to Egypt and why he uses egyptian movements in his classes.
• how to bring this type of awareness to cities

Teachers Mentioned

David Williams, Nancy Gilgoff, Tom Law, Cliff Barber, Ganga White, Kathy Cooper, Matthew Clark

Special mention

Ian and Josephine McDonald in Oxford

Scott interviews David Keil, a long term SYL friend and collabarator, about his life and evolution into becoming one of Stillpoint's most loved visiting teachers and a highly sought after yoga anatomy educator.

David Keil is a yoga teacher, yoga anatomy educator and entrepreneur who is changing the way we integrate with and learn yoga anatomy. He has written a yoga anatomy book, called Functional Anatomy of Yoga, created a set of highly successful yoga anatomy online courses, he facilitated a yoga research project assessing the yoga asana practice on physical health and injuryand has also just launched a groundbreaking new anatomy learning tool called 3D Muscle Lab.

David lives in Miami and travels globally teaching yoga and anatomy. You can find more about David's work here

_____________

Scott gets under the skin of David Keil, looking deeply into David's journey from starting yoga at 15 through to becoming, what Scott calls him, one of the most skilled Ashtanga yoga teachers and yoga educators teaching today. David has taught at Stillpoint Yoga London since 2010 and in this conversation shares his journey through yoga practice and teaching in a beautifully open and honest way

David's skill has always been to be able to help find people's agency in their yoga practice. This podcast get's behind why that is, how David ultimately sees practice and why we love him here at Stillpoint.

The conversation covers:

• how David got in to contemplative practice through self hypnosis/meditation.
• how David used these techniques to change his school grades.
• how David got into yoga through practicing Tai Chi.
• how David began Ashtanga yoga
• how David started his yoga anatomy workshops
• how David met John Scott.
• how David moved to studying in Mysore
• how David looks at his own practice.
• how David's practice has been a contemplative process
• what David wants to get people to understand through teaching anatomy
• how David helps people to take responsibility for their own yoga practice

_____________

Teachers Mentioned

John Scott, Ryan Spielman, Lucy Crawford, Joey Miles

Scott talks to Caroline Taylor, a long term SYL practitioner, about how she has navigated her yoga practice since the time she started in 2012. Caroline has been a practitioner of Ashtanga yoga since 2012 when she first met Scott after walking into Stillpoint Yoga London as a beginner. She joined Stillpoint at the time just after Ozge Karabiyik had passed away and has been an integral part of the community since then.

Caroline works as a highly skilled clinical psychologist, based in Brighton. You can find out more about Caroline and her deeply powerful work here.

_____________

Scott and Caroline talk candidly about their relationship as teacher and student and how both have grown as a response to meeting each other. Caroline's story is of courage as she found Ashtanga yoga incredibly difficult right from the start. But from the first words she spoke to Scott in the Stillpoint room to now Caroline has shown deep courage in the way she has moved and navigated her yoga practice and life.

Carrie also shares how how persistence allowed for her to meet and transform the way she saw her body. It transformed her in such a way that it influenced the way she practice her work too. 

Carrie's story is a wonderful take on how moving through difficult layers of practice can turn into something transformative.

The conversation covers:

• Caroline's way into contemplative practice.
• Caroline's time at Bangor University.
• How she used the Ashtanga practice to land her in her body
• How Mindfulness wasn't helping her.
• How she started at Stillpoint
• How challenging she found yoga practice
• How she transformed because of her yoga practice
• How she then found how mindfulness re-invigorated her life.
• How feedback really helped and re-inforced her
• How she connected to Ozge even though she had passed a few moths before.
• How her practice transformed the way Caroline served her clients as a clinical psychologist.
• Caroline shares ways she helps her clients using principles she has learnt from yoga.
• How practice is deeply personal.
• How John Scott helped her to not stop.

 _____________

Teachers Mentioned

Andy Gill, Lee Monk, Laura Graham-Dullaert, Maria Jose Pantoja, John Scott.

Also mentioned

Bangor University

Scott talks to his friend Ian Cheney about Ian's evolution from an Ashtanga yoga practitioner to a KPJAYI authorised teacher.

Ian runs an Ashtanga yoga Mysore programme in Melbourne, Australia. He has been friends with Scott since 2013 and taught at SYL before his move to Australia. Ian was first introduced to Ashtanga Yoga in 2002 and after many years of evolving his own practice he felt the urge to teach and began an apprenticeship with Gingi Lee at The Shala in 2012. The following year he undertook his Yoga Alliance 200hr Teacher Training qualification with his principal teacher, the world renowned John Scott.

In 2014 he travelled to Mysore to practice with Sharath Jois. He returned each year and in 2017 Sharath gave Ian his blessing to teach Astanga Yoga as an Authorised teacher.

Ian taught principally in London until 2016 when he began teaching internationally. He has taught in various countries including Germany, China, Bali, Italy and the Netherlands before settling in Melbourne.

You can find out more about Ian here.

_____________

Scott and Ian enjoy a conversation that covers Ian's yoga teaching life. Ian has worked deeply with both John Scott and Sharath Jois as teachers. Ian talks about this nuance and the evolution of his movement from a student of John's to a student of Sharath and how this helped him create a wider perspective on practice. 

The conversation covers:

• How Scott and Ian met.
• Ian talks about how he started yoga.
• Ian talks about working with Gingi Lee in the Shala both as a teacher and student.
• His first view of Mysore was negative.
• The changing nature of his personal practice.
• Yoga practice as enjoyment or a spiritual practice.
• How he has negotiated the recent controversy in Mysore regarding Pattabhi Jois.
• Broader perspectives on yoga practice

Scott talks to Liz Lark about her life. Scott and Liz have been friends and colleagues for nearly 15 years.

Liz is one of the foremost and most well loved teachers of yoga in the UK over the last 30 years. She has written 8 books on yoga and brings a sense of creativity, fun and beautiful intelligence to the teaching and sharing of yoga. She continues to teach nationally and internationally and is on the faculty of the Yoga Campus teacher training program.

 You can find out more about Liz here.

_____________

Yoga As A Creative Process

'I saw an angel in the stone and I carved until I set him free.'

Michaelangelo

Scott and Liz have a wide reaching conversation that spans her practice and teaching life. From her early practice years, where she worked with pioneers Derek Ireland and Radha Warrell to where she now mentors yoga teachers, Liz shares beautiful insights into how Ashtanga yoga evolved in London and the UK. She also shares how yoga has evolved for her and how she helps others to find their own creative process through her own ongoing discoveries.

The conversation covers:

• How Scott and Liz met.
• Liz talks about how she began yoga.
• Liz talks about working with Derek Ireland and Radha Warrell at the legendary Practice Place in Greece learning Ashtanga yoga.
• How people had to travel to find yoga when she was younger.
• How Liz started teaching yoga.
• Liz’s relationship with her teacher Derek.
• Liz’s memories of Derek’s death in 1999.
• Working with Gingi Lee at the Sangam.
• Liz’s movement away from Ashtanga yoga.
• How yoga has became a deeply creative process for Liz.
• How Liz finds herself now.

This podcast is like a little history lesson of the early UK and London ashtanga yoga scene. It also captures the evolution of a wonderful and inspiring free spirit, which Liz totally embodies.

_____________

Show notes

Teachers Mentioned

Derek Ireland

Radha Warrell

Hamish Hendry

John Scott

Gingi Lee

Godfrey Devereux

Yoga Shala’s Mentioned

Stillpoint Yoga London

The Life Centre

Gingi Lee’s The Sangam (now The Shala)

Triyoga

Special Mentions

Oxford Yoga - Ian and Josephine Macdonald

The Montiverdi Choir

Books Mentioned 

The Endorphin Effect - William Bloom

When Things Fall Apart - Pema Chodron

Scott talks to Maria Jose Pantoja who between 2009 and 2013 was one of the most consistent members and teachers at Stillpoint Yoga London. She turned from one of the most beautiful practitioners into one of our loveliest ever teachers. Maria was loved by everyone who was part of our community. She moved back to her native Mexico in 2013

-------

Remembering Precious Times

When do you get the opportunity to reminisce with someone who was there at a deeply meaningful part of your life.

Scott and Maria have a moving conversation about the early years of Stillpoint Yoga London (between 2009 and 2013) and their relationship as teacher, student and friends. These were beautiful times. A yoga space finding it’s place in it’s early phase, yoga students and teachers being part of that growth together. The conversation brings up lost but incredibly special memories for both of them.

Scott and Maria talk about:

• Maria’s evolution into Ashtanga yoga
• Her part in the early years at SYL while studying for her PHD.
• How she became a teacher under the guidance of Scott and the late Ozge Karabiyik.
• Her memories and deep friendship with Ozge.
• Her reaction to Ozge’s death in 2012.
• The impact from her moving away from the UK in 2013.
• The deep trust she has

This is a really lovely podcast. You’re perhaps left with a deep appreciation of the love and respect that Scott and Maria have for each other.

Show notes

Teachers Mentioned

Abby Hoffman

Craig Norris

John Scott

Lucy Crawford

Ozge Karabiyik

Rachel Barlow

Laura Graham-Dullaert

Scott and Laura talk deeply about how they’re relationship has evolved over 8 years. They share how they met, the shift of their relationship through teaching and Laura apprenticing at Stillpoint Yoga London, how they both navigated the death of SYL co-founder Ozge Karabiyik and then moved into becoming colleagues and dear friends who still goof around together.

Laura also talks candidly about how the practice has changed for her over the years based on a condition she has called marfan syndrome. Her practice turned into an investigation and because of it she became a deeply gifted and insightful yoga teacher. She also shares openly about the open grief she shared on social media regarding the death of her father. 

_____

Scott met Laura in 2009 when Laura stepped into a self practice class he ran near his home in Kent. She quickly recognised the power in practicing Ashtanga yoga regularly and became a integral part of Stillpoint from 2010 through to when she left in 2018.

Laura left Stillpoint in 2018 and moved to Margate. She continues to teach yoga there and in central London. Find out more about Laura here.

_____

Show notes

• Yoga Akasha
• Marfan Syndrome
• Laura’s Instagram around the death of her father

 In a beautifully revealing conversation at the Purple Valley Retreat Centre in Goa where they were both teaching, John and Scott share intimate moments of their lives.

The teacher/student relationship that has evolved between John and Scott over the years has turned into friendship. One where they deeply support each other's work, aren't afraid of having challenging conversations but they can also have a beer and laugh with each other.

John talks about developing his deeply profound Ashtanga yoga teaching with his first wife Lucy Crawford in the first decade of the millennium, how he moved through the death of two of his yoga teachers, how emigrating twice challenged him greatly and both John and Scott share how their personal relationship has evolved over the years. They also both remember the late Ozge Karabiyik, who had a deep impact on both their lives.

John Scott is a world renowned teacher of Ashtanga Yoga. He has been practicing for 30 years and travels the world sharing the method. www.johnscottyoga.com

_____

Scott met John Scott at a yoga workshop in Oxford in 2002. He left knowing he'd found his teacher. Since then Scott has traveled far to work with John, training deeply with him and Lucy Crawford in 2008/2009 on their 2 month teacher training. Stillpoint Yoga London was established in 2009 as response to the teachings Scott and Ozge Karabiyik received from John and Lucy.

Interesting fact: Stillpoint Yoga London is named after John and Lucy's 'Stillpoint' retreat in Nelson, New Zealand, which they established between 2006 and 2010.