The Road Ahead

My journey to yoga has been a relatively recent affair. I have always been an active person and enjoyed sports that gave me an adrenaline rush. When I was young, I was a very active swimmer, I would get up early in the morning and dedicate myself to my sport which made me physically fit and I wasquite mentally strong. As I grew older, however, my interest’s hobbies and social interactions changed – I got married settle down and had two children.

After several years of raising children, doing slightly less exercise and eating and drinking very liberally, I was not entirely happy with my physical and mental shape. When the children were small I became a swimming instructor which meant I could focus on a sport that I loved and combine this with passing on the knowledge which I attained studying to be a swimming instructor. Even then I found that’s my usual state was one of tension both physically and mentally and I was always tired and irritable. With hindsight the most interesting thing about being in this state is that you don’t really appreciate what is going on until you hit a roadblock and create a desire to change.

The passing of my father was that roadblock and it allowed me to reflect on my relationships, my physical state as well as my mental health. It is difficult to pinpoint sometimes when you are unhappy with something. I still would not reflect on that moment and think I was depressed or particularly a little overweight but I do know that once I started to get some sort of semblance of where I was, then I knew that I could achieve a balance which would involve a change in lifestyle which was primarily driven by what I put into my body and what I did with my body.

This is not any easy balance to achieve when you reach a certain age, when you are used to a certain lifestyle and when you spend a large part of your life between homes and family around the world. However now that my children have grown up, I needed a vocation that would enable me firstly to do my physical exercise virtually anywhere I was in the world and secondly that would complement a more balanced diet. What’s this journey started slowly and was really driven by hours ofvideos on YouTube and a few Yoga classes. During the last 18 months of lockdowns, it was no substitute for professional classes with good social interaction. Now having a more balanced outlook, I decided that I would combine what I had recently come to love in yoga with the love to teach especially to children and young adults. I am looking forward to the road ahead.