The Chai Sessions - Merchant City Yoga

In this episode of the Chai Sessions I’m talking to good friend and yoga philosophy maestro, James Boag. He’s a regular guest with me here on the podcast.Because we’re chatting ahead of James’s next visit to MCY when he’ll be taking us on a deep dive into the Bhagavad Gita I wanted to talk more about the Gita and what it might have for us as we live today.The Bhagavad Gita goes right back to the beginning of the time I’ve spent with James - the very first thing I wrote in my notebook from my first session with James in Mysore, South India references the Gita!So I start by asking James, what is the Bhagavad Gita? And why does he believe it’s still so relevant for us as modern yoga teachers and practitioners? No small question!He says: “And so why is the Gita relevant? Because it is set here and now in the reality of our experience.”I never run out of things to talk to James about, and this time is no exception! I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.---------------James will be here at Merchant City Yoga on Friday 28th to Sunday 30th March 2025! He’ll be taking us on a deep dive into the Bhagavad Gita and showing how it’s really about each of us, and gives us a manual for being human. Booking is open for our weekend with James now!

In this episode of The Chai Sessions I’m talking to friend and fellow Ashtanga teacher Scott Johnson. This is our fourth conversation so I feel we can now say he’s a regular here on the podcast!For many of you he needs no introduction, but for those of you who haven’t met Scott yet he’s been practising yoga since 1998, and teaching Ashtanga yoga since 2004. He’s been the director and senior teacher at Stillpoint Yoga London since it was founded in 2009.Scott’s teaching integrates the practice of yoga and embodied mindfulness. He teaches this mindful approach to Ashtanga yoga nationally and internationally, and he’s been visiting us here at MCY since way back in 2018.I start our conversation by asking Scott about a recent Instagram reel he posted that went off the charts in terms of response. It led with the bold words “This is how Ashtanga works”.Scott says, “…this is how Ashtanga yoga works, for me at that moment was to say, it helps you over time to become still. And it's true. That's the heart of yoga, the heart of it all. Yoga wants us to be able to find something within us that's still, away from all the stuff that turns.”I don’t think I needed to worry about running out of conversation with Scott! I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.---------Scott and I spoke here ahead of his next visit to Merchant City Yoga, 7-9 March 2025. He’s sharing three mornings of Mysore style assisted self practice, workshops exploring mindful patterns in Ashtanga yoga on Saturday & Sunday afternoon and a very special workshop for teachers on the Friday - The Art of Mindful Yoga Adjustments: Empowering Teachers Through Safe & Effective Hands-on Assists.You’ll find all the details and booking for Scott’s visit to MCY in March HERE Would love to have you join us!

This episode is the fifth and last (at least for now!) in my short series, Ashtanga Love Notes, where I talk with friends who like me still practise and teach Ashtanga. And still love it too!My guest and I spoke for the first time on the Chai Sessions way back in the depths of lock down and I’m really excited to have persuaded her to join me again. It is of course my good friend and fellow teacher Rose Ann McKean!Rose Ann’s been practising Ashtanga yoga since 2005. As she talks about here, she first came to yoga through her original passion, teaching exercise to music, and that led her eventually to try yoga classes at the same gym. As her love for Ashtanga yoga grew she started travelling into Glasgow for morning Mysore Style classes with previous Love Note guest Cathy Moran. And that’s where I first met her!We’ve both come a long way since then and in this conversation we talk about our yoga practice and experience over the years, and the things we’ve learned along the way.There’s only one Rose Ann and here she is. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we did.--------------Rose Ann is dedicated to teaching Ashtanga yoga and loves sharing her knowledge and experience with anyone who wants to learn. Her classes offer a really approachable and down to earth setting with the emphasis very much on enjoying yoga while never losing the teachings passed down from teacher to student.You’ll find her here supporting our MCY Ashtanga community every Wednesday morning and two Saturday mornings a month (usually the 1st and 3rd weekends). She also runs regular mysore intensives which offer the opportunity to dive deeper, and the next one runs week beginning 17 March. You’ll find all the dates and details HERE.

This episode is the fourth in my short series, Ashtanga Love Notes, where I talk with friends who like me still practise and teach Ashtanga. And still love it too!My guest on this episode is good friend and very favourite Australian Allison Dearling. Allison’s the founder and principle of Live & Breath Yoga in Townsville, North Queensland. We met on our teacher training programme here in Glasgow back in 2005. Since then we’ve done a lot of yoga together, drank a lot of tea, laughed loads and shared so many adventures that I can’t even begin to count.In this conversation we talk about what brought Allison to Ashtanga yoga, the challenges as well as the rewards of practise, what keeps us coming back and how it all helps us navigate the world beyond our yoga mat. I couldn't even think about doing a podcast series called Ashtanga Love Notes without talking to Allison. I honestly don’t think I’d be where I am today if we hadn’t met. I still miss having her here, so I’m really excited to share our friendship and this conversation with you!

This episode is the third in my short series, Ashtanga Love Notes. I feel Ashtanga has fallen a bit out of fashion and gets a bad rep for being too difficult, rigid, and well, old fashioned but we’ll talk about what we love, what keeps us coming back and what challenges and highlights it’s brought us along the way. Imagine these love notes handwritten and close to my heart... And so to my guest on this episode, friend and fellow Glasgow teacher, Cathy Moran.Cathy is the owner of Ashtanga Yoga Glasgow. I hadn’t seen her for ages so was really excited when she agreed to join me in person for a chat!In this episode Cathy shares her journey into Ashtanga Yoga and how she got to a place in her physical practice where she was able to do things she never thought possible. She talks about how she’s no longer able to do some of those things now, and also has chosen to stop doing some of them although she still can, because she doesn’t feel the need to. As she says, things change and it’s about doing the thing that benefits your body rather than the end picture.This love note was so much fun to record, and chatting with Cathy really took me back. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did!

This episode is the second in my short podcast series, Ashtanga Love Notes.My guest on this episode is Emma Isokivi. She is a devoted Ashtanga practitioner and teacher and is the owner of Ashtanga Yoga Edinburgh. I was really excited when Emma not only agreed to join me on the podcast but came through to Glasgow so we could chat in-person.I start by asking Emma about her Ashtanga story. She talks about the 'shopping phase' of her yoga practice, how her experience in a Sivananda ashram in India shaped what she was looking for and how she found her people. We talk about the old days and explore how her practice and teaching has changed over the years. We also share our thoughts about the notion that Ashtanga with its sequences is boring. How these days people have access to so much more information about all of it than we did when we started. And about being confronted with the things you don't think you can do.When we talk about what keeps Emma coming back, she says…"There's this moment that is just pure gold for me and it strikes me every single time when I step on the front of the mat. There's always something that illuminates and cuts through and gives me some hope."This love note could have been a whole lot longer. It was so much fun to record and chatting in person with Emma brought me joy. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we clearly did.

This episode is the first in a short series I’m sharing called Ashtanga Love Notes.I feel Ashtanga has fallen a bit out of fashion and often gets a bad rep for being too difficult, rigid, and well, old school! So I want to talk with friends who like me still practise and teach Ashtanga. And still love it too!We’ll talk about what we love, what keeps us coming back and what challenges and highlights it’s brought us along the way. Imagine these love notes hand written and close to my heart…And so to my first guest on the series, Lucy Crawford!I just loved this conversation and I hope you do too.Lucy returns to Merchant City Yoga Friday 1st - Sunday 3rd November 2024. Her years of experience in holistic bodywork and Ashtanga Yoga define Lucy’s gentle and profound energy when teaching. You’ll find all the details and booking for our November weekend with Lucy HERE

In this episode of the Chai Sessions, I'm talking to good friend, podcast regular and yoga philosophy maestro James Boag.We explore the relationship between two of the best known yoga texts, the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. We talk about how each is presented in a different form and how there’s a different purpose for each these texts too.The Yoga Sutras is ultra distilled. It concisely defines and encodes the foundation principles of yoga.Whereas the Bhagavad Gita is presented as a poem. It’s considered to be a distillation of all the teachings of the Upanishads so it's got a much broader scope and is more elaborate.James tells me they also have a lot in common. They're both considered key foundation texts in the yoga-shastra. They're tried and tested over time. They tell us about the reality of what it means to be a human and they both remind us that there's something more.James's perspective in terms of basic yoga method is, it's the same yoga. He says:“It's not about believing anything. It's giving us a framework to put things to the test, to follow the path laid out and see what happens."I start by asking James to talk about the timeline of the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. And of course, his answer is rich in the teachings of the Indic tradition, where ideas about time and authorship are very different from those that we might have.I really enjoyed this conversation, and as always, there was so much more we could have talked about. I hope you enjoy it too.

In this episode of the Chai Sessions I'm talking to clinical research and health professional Heather Gwyneth Bird. I first met Heather way back in 2015 when she joined our Yoga Teacher Training programme here at MCY. We explore the concept of well-being and the intersection of self-improvement, self-acceptance and personal development from a yoga perspective. We talk about some of the significant challenges people are facing with their wellbeing just now and what role yoga might be able to play.Heather mentions a recent study showing the effectiveness of yoga for depression and another for fatigue management following cancer treatment. There's a lot more work to do to integrate these findings into communities and health care settings, but it's really exciting. I so enjoyed our conversation and feel there was much more we could have covered. I hope you enjoy it too.Heather's Yoga & Personal Development Workshop is here at Merchant City Yoga on Saturday 22nd June. This one day workshop blends together yoga, psychological resources and practices with a focus on improving your overall health, helping you better understand yourself and helping you make more beneficial decisions.