OM Yoga Magazine – April 2019

many storms and forms of chaos, yoga is my tranquillity and serenity

that assists in my understanding of how life really works and what

my purpose is as a human being.

Favourite yoga hangouts

So many! Favourite spots for yoga and meditation include (to name

a few): Alchemy Centre in Camden, London (though sadly no longer

there), Sri Aurobindo Centre, London, Regent’s Park and Cleopatra’s

Needle in Hyde Park, Padma Yoga studio Berlin, Shinto temples

in Tokyo, Ugandan Buddhist Temple, Silver Sand beach Trelawny

Jamaica, any beach outside of Stone Town, Zanzibar Tanzania, the

great lakes of western Uganda and the Rift Valley, the Niles New

Wave yoga journeys from Luxor to Aswan.

How did you get into teaching

I do not take my teaching or my practice lightly. I have experienced

near death incidents on a number of occasions since childhood,

from accidents to unprovoked attacks. After a car crash, the

paramedics told me: “Someone up there loves you.” The mechanic

later said: “You are meant to be dead; I’ve seen men dead for

less.” When my two-year-old daughter had to have an emergency

operation on her small intestine, that took my acquaintance with

death to another level. I began to hear the ancestors loud and clear.

Now I got the message. I could no longer walk away from who I am

and why I am here...my purpose. I could no longer live the same way

that I had been living with the same mental approach. I had to die

metaphorically to be reborn. These experiences made me realise

that life is precious and that purpose is essential to this earth plane.

My purpose is to teach. This was my ‘Satori’.

Key inluences in your yoga journey

The teachers are many: some I have been blessed to be in the

presence of, some who taught me from their writings, some who

inspired me from their documented lives, and some who came to

me in dreams. My major inluences are Buddhism, Suism, Rastafari,

Taoism, Hermeticism, Stoicism, music and Love. Among the many

teachers of note are: Yogi Bhajan, BKS Iyengar, Baba Kane, Sri

Aurobindo, Seti I, Ptah Hotep and Yogi Plotinus.

How would you describe your teaching style

My particular teaching style has been described as natural, user

friendly, spiritual and fun. My general focus is to assist practitioners

in body awareness, listening to the body, and breathing into a

psycho-spiritual state to come to a deeper understanding of self

and connect to the source. My yoga concentrates on balancing

emotions, detoxifying and de-stressing the bodily system, and

requires you to go deeper without the strain.

Yoga career highs so far

I have trained many Afrikan Yoga teachers through my Yoga School

and teacher training programme. This has helped spawn various yoga

styles such as Ital Yoga, Nile Valley Yoga, Hapi Valley Yoga, Smai Taui

Yoga and Smai Taui Yoga School, Soul Flow Yoga, Energy Flow Yoga,

Meta Yoga, Melanin Yoga. There’s no doubt that even though my

name is not on these forms and brands, the inluence of the system I

taught over the years is, for me, a highlight because this is the way the

ancestors, and spirit guides deem it to be. The spreading of a system

that uses both masculine and feminine energies, rhythm, movement

om body

Photo: Karina Piaro/The NIles New Wave

Photo: Moud Imhotep