YJ: How did Power Living start?
DP: I was working in the corporate
world and teaching at Surf clubs.
Everyone wanted to know how I could
do handstands so well. An opportunity
came up to purchase a studio that had
gone into receivership. The guy that had
charge over the property suggested that I
buy it. I didn’t really have a vision to have
a studio. I was really happy at my job so
I turned down the offer. The guy asked if
I’d run it for three months and then maybe
we could talk about buying it. So I gave it a
go. Within three months we were
showing the signs of being the most
successful. So I bought it. And
within a year we were the busiest
studio in Australia.YJ: So what do you attribute
your success to?
DP: Humbly, I’d have to say it had
to do with timing in the market.
And I had the capacity for it. I was
very different in the yoga market. No one
had done the styles we see in mainstream
today. I was one of the fi rst to pioneer
the contemporary power yoga. I think
the market was just ready for it. And
someone like myself – a bigger guy, with
tatts – I don’t think there were many guys
in Australia like that. I don’t think anyone
could do what I did, now. So I do attribute
it to timing. Also I had a business head
as well as a yogi head. And I was able
to bring it all together.YJ: So what does yoga do for you,
personally? DP: For me, yoga is the science of the
mind. It’s not so much a physical thing,
I love the physical side; it’s sort a doorway
to understand the mental patterns and
the repetitive mind chatter that cause
me suffering. Being aware of it, being able
to disassemble the attachment I have to
it, and that identity I have to it. I can be
at peace and have more love for myself
and fi nd a more balanced way for me to
achieve my goals and go about my life.YJ: I read you’d
experienced grief
early on in life and that yoga
had helped. Can you elaborate on that? DP: By the time I was 18 I had carried
my fi ve best friends' coffi ns to the
crematorium. A few died in car accidents,
a couple committed suicide. One of them
I lost was the son of the stepfather who
taught me yoga. He taught me meditation
and how to accept what had happened
rather than resisting it. I can’t say I did
that well for many years – I was a pretty
angry, troubled youth – but it defi nitely
helped me make some sense of the world.YJ: What has teaching taught you? DP: I learnt that very often people don’t
understand the capacity of what they can
achieve if they’re in a very balanced state.
I’ve also learnt that many people train
and push themselves from a sense of
lacking, rather than being in the power
of who they are. I’ve also learnt humility
through being a teacher. There is no real
difference. Teacher and student, together,
create the learning. Being a teacher,
people can get put up on pedestals and
those are pretty easy to get knocked
out from beneath you, when you start
thinking you’re the one responsible for
the transformation. When really there’s
a bigger energy working through us;
somebody has taught us, and we are
sort of passing on a message.YJ: How has the business grown?
DP: The business has grown because I’ve
trained people to a point that they want
to make a career out of yoga, and if I don’t
expand the business and give them a piece of
the pie, they would become my competitor.
A lot of them are really close friends and
we’ve grown, organically, as opposed to
having a goal of X-number of studios
and pushing it from a business level.YJ: How does that work?DP: It’s more when one person is ready to
start a studio and we’re ready to expand.
It’s driven by quality and sincerity. Not
greed. The studios are co-owned, with us
owning 51 per cent or more, depending upon
how much the teacher can afford. A lot of
the success of Power Living is timing, but
it’s also the business model. Everyone is good
friends and they have an investment in it,
as opposed to if I owned the whole thing
and tried to franchise it. We’ve had to grow
to keep the family together.“ There’s a bigger energy
working through us... we
are passing on a message”Top: Duncan and friends at
this year's Wanderlust Festival
at Cockatoo Island, Sydney49
may/june 2015yogajournal.com.auyj43_48-50_FEA duncan peak.indd 49 31/03/2015 4:21 pm