Yoga Teachers

Mick Barnes stumbled across yoga in Sydney Australia some 20 years ago. He was not looking for yoga, it found him. In chronic pain due to a life-time of living on the edge, at 42 his body had seized up. After a chance meeting with a remedial masseuse, Mick entered into a hand-shake agreement with the therapist to attend yoga three times a week. In return the masseuse would work on his injuries twice a week for free.

At first, Mick did not like yoga at all. It hurt! He wasn’t flexible and felt he was very, very bad at it. But he persevered, making painstakingly slow progress and feeling like a fish out of water. But then, at around the 12-month mark, everything changed. He suddenly grasped the true concept of yoga and realised that it would not only fix his body, but would also help him understand how to live life better and cease to be a slave to his thoughts and emotions. He threw himself into the practice. “You have to! You can’t flirt with yoga. It’s indescribable to say what yoga has given me but suffice to say I am grateful.”

Mick soon realised that he had found his life’s purpose: to share this wonderful ancient path to modern day truth seekers. Following the lineage of 8 Limb Yoga, Mick then studied with many great teachers including Sharon Gannon, David Life, Jivamukti yoga, Greger Maehle, David Garrigues, Anja Kuehnel. And in doing over 1000 hours of training he worked out how to fuse the traditional practices with the modern day to make the practice inclusive and safe for all.

For the last 18 years, Mick has owned and run a yoga school in Sydney Australia (The Yoga Factory) offering classes as well as training many teachers.

At Ulpotha Mick will share his deep knowledge of the body as well as his insightful understanding of yogic wisdom and practice in his inclusive and down to earth style. Mick’s yoga is always accessible to all ages, levels of experience and physical ability.

Morning classes will be building foundations and bringing awareness to the importance of bandha, drishti, and breath. From these fundamentals, you will progress over the weeks to new challenges with variations to suit all. Afternoon classes will include some asana work and kriyas, pranayama, and meditation.

You will leave Ulpotha rested, relaxed, strong, and with a vastly deeper knowledge of yoga.

"Mick is the best yoga teacher I have had in 40 years" Igor Dandik, BSports Med

After a vocational ballet school training from age twelve and twenty-five years of studying and teaching dance at universities and ballet companies all over the UK, Philippa randomly walked into an Ashtanga yoga class in London. It was a life-changing incident, that made complete sense.

From the late 1990s, she began learning/practising the Ashtanga yoga system, daily before work (in the media, film, and music industries). For over twenty years she has studied for several months each year at KPJAYI (now called Sharath Yoga Centre) in Mysore and on tour, practising under the guidance of guru Pattabhi Jois and his grandson Sharath Jois.

In 2006, Philippa established and ran Triyoga Soho’s Ashtanga self-practice programme in London. She taught there for five years before relocating to South India, to build her own shala (on a coffee estate in the Western Ghats).

As well as teaching Mysore-style Ashtanga guided self-practice, led classes and workshops at ASHTANGA NIRVRTA, Philippa also leads workshops and self-practice residencies at studios in London, Europe, Middle East and on retreats worldwide. When not in the studio, she teaches Online One-to-Ones and Sanskrit Counted Primary, Intermediate and Advanced A Series classes and pranayama.

Her approach to sharing yoga asana (from beginners to more seasoned practitioners) is serious, yet light-hearted and joyful. Her emphasis is on good technique, safe alignment, the synchronisation of vinyasa (Sanskrit-counted, coordinated moving/breathing sequences) with tristhana (alignment of breath, gaze points and movement), passing on the exact method as taught by Pattabhi Jois from the late 1990s and embracing the essence of Patanjali’s sutras on yoga and asana.

Philippa’s dedicated passion for Ashtanga yoga, background as a trained dancer and experience as a qualified teacher (Post Graduate Certificate in the Education of Adults), gives her an intuitive and sound understanding of bodies, yoga asanas, people and how they learn. For more information, please visit www.ashtangaphilippa.com

In Ulpotha for this retreat, Philippa will be offering:

• Daily Ashtanga guided self-practice
• Sanskrit-Counted Primary Series
• Afternoon workshops on asana technique, concepts of the method, body opening, pranayama, meditation, philosophy, Q&A etc
• New to Advanced B Series Ashtanga yoga practitioners welcome

Her classes in Ulpotha will include active morning classes ensuring correct alignment within the pose, leaving you feeling energised and not strained, which is the hallmark of the Iyengar style. The evening classes will have a more restorative focus and giving a chance to focus on any individual issues you'd like addressed. Pranayama will also be included during the retreat.

While deeply understanding that the depth of yoga comes with focusing the mind and learning the art of self observation and reflection, she manages to teach the asanas with joy and humour. She teaches both beginner and general levels. She has three children and practiced yoga through all pregnancies.

In this special retreat we will practice daily yoga moving with the Elements and, on every other afternoon, we will use free ecstatic dance practices to embody the philosophy of yoga in a free and dynamic way. Using great world music to support you to let go and find your own groove. You will be amazed by how much this supports your yoga practice and deepens your ability to meditate.

Malaika incorporates her work as a dancer, Spiritual Healer, and more than 12 years as a bodyworker to help her students find flow, grace and healing to injuries. She fully embodies the deeper philosophy of yoga as a marriage between mind, body and spirit and teaches both in the yoga shala and in natural environments.

She brings a wealth of earth wisdom for personal and planetary awakening having walked the shamanic path for a lifetime. She is dedicated to creating sacred space in ritual and ceremony to help restore balance to our distorted civilized culture. A qualified ISHTA yoga teacher, Water Dance practitioner, African dance performer and teacher, creatrix of 5Elements Dance Activation™ a shamanic dynamic meditation dance journey embodying the five cardinal elements, earth water fire air and spirit. She is also the founder of Journey to the Heart, and Elemental Embodiment™, 5-day transformational retreats for men and women. She has been facilitating groups for more than 25 years in India, Australia, Africa, China, USA, Costa Rica, Europe and Egypt. She offers a spirituality that is rooted in the body to access higher realms of consciousness. She is currently teaching Elemental Yoga and Yin Yoga at the Barn in Bali.

At Ulpotha, Malaika will be offering her Elemental ISHTA (Integrated Science of Hatha, Tantra, and Ayurveda) Yoga classes which provide a blend of ancient and contemporary teachings to cater to your individual needs. Focusing on flow, alignment, body awareness and expansion to cultivate grace, she will encourage you to respect and listen to your own body using a holistic approach to yoga as a way of being.

What to expect:

• Pranayama and visualisation to purify and quiet the mind
• Daily yoga and asana to stretch, strengthen and balance the body (firstly Hatha flow yoga based on the elements and, in the second week, focussing on the connection of Yoga to the Chakra system)
• Daily dance to reconnect mind, body and spirit and celebrate the gift of life using 5Elements Dance Activation™ and Ecstatic Dance
• Meditation to expand your awareness and cultivate loving compassion for yourself and others

Her teachings are suitable for beginners and intermediate levels and dance is a crucial part of this workshop.

For the last 30 years, Alex’s passion has been to master the teachings of BKS Iyengar under the guidance of Faeq Biria in Paris. It was Faiq and Corine Biria who first encouraged and inspired him to begin teaching 18 years ago.

Alex since grew a large following in a some of Paris’ top yoga studios, in addition to teaching privately and in the business sector. He was a regular assistant to Iyengar instructor Corine Biria during her therapeutic classes at the Iyengar Centre in Paris. He now only teaches privately.

His profound knowledge and advanced practice of yoga (asana and pranayama), coupled with a precise yet relaxed teaching style, have led him to become a favourite amongst all levels of students — from beginners to the more advanced.

Expect morning classes to be detailed asana practice and evening classes to be more restorative. The first week of this retreat will cover foundation practices and lead to more advanced work during week two.

Claire Saunders is a dedicated student of the traditional Ashtanga Yoga method. She has travelled to India almost yearly since 1999 to study yoga, Indian music (with a focus on the bansuri – the Indian bamboo flute), Ayurveda, mantra, meditation, and Vedic philosophy. Claire was a direct student of Pattabhi Jois and now continues to study with his grandson Sharath Jois. She practices Primary, Intermediate and Advanced A series Ashtanga Yoga asanas and has the blessing of the KPJAYI to teach both the Primary and full Intermediate Series. While in Mysore, Claire has also been an apprentice to Sharath with both his morning Western classes and his afternoon Indian classes. In addition to her Ashtanga yoga studies, Claire has spent many years under the direct guidance of Swami Niranjanananda and his teachers learning Bhakti yoga (Yoga from the heart).

As well as teaching Mysore-style Ashtanga guided self-practice, led classes and workshops, Claire also leads guest workshops and retreats at studios throughout Europe, India, and Australia. Her approach to sharing yoga asana (from beginners to more seasoned practitioners), is one that contains a balance of both strength and gentleness. She has a deep awareness of the biological function of the asana (yoga postures) and at the same time she can relate the physical to the emotional, mental, and devotional elements of this rich yoga practice.

Claire is Australian born, and established the Ashtanga Yoga Shala Provence in the south of France in 2012 where she teaches in both French and English to a mix of local students and international visitors.
She balances her passion for Ashtanga Yoga to being a mum to her young daughter Ananda. Claire holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations, a master’s degree in Linguistics from the University of Sydney, Australia, and a Post Graduate qualification in English Language Teaching from Cambridge University, England. She also worked for over a decade as a University Professor. With such a solid foundation as an adult educator, Claire excels at meeting her students (of both yoga and linguistics) at where they are and extending them comfortably beyond where they can take themselves.

While at Ulpotha, Claire will be teaching a morning asana class (ashtanga based – but open to all levels of students – from complete beginners to more seasoned practitioners. Claire will guide each student individually according to their unique level and needs). Afternoon sessions will be dedicated to rest, relaxation and rejuvenation with a mix of pranayama (breathing techniques), sound healing (Sanskrit singing and bansuri playing), philosophy discussions and storytelling from the great epics of the Mahabharat and the Ramayana and their relevance to a modern, western lifestyle.

Lisa’s first experience of yoga was in early childhood, and as such, she does not recall much from those classes except smiling and just feeling really happy in them. Later on in adolescence, yoga taught her how using her breath she could dissolve the pains of cramping while running. In her early adulthood, she recognized its benefits in helping with insomnia, headaches, and an improved feeling of a balanced state of health and wellness when added to her exercise regime.

When Lisa fully immersed herself in training to be a yoga instructor in 2001, she learned that this was just the tip of the iceberg of the myriad of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits of yoga. Her training and background is eclectic with a strong emphasis on Iyengar (alignment) and Vinyasa (flow) yoga. Additionally, her approach is influenced by her studies of meditation, massage, Pilates, and personal training. She believes the practice of yoga and mindfulness can help people to be more comfortable in their own skin, more aware of what is going on within themselves, in addition to helping them to be stronger, more mobile, and more focused in their specific intentions in this world.

Lisa’s classes emphasize mindfulness, and depending on the time of day and needs of the students, will incorporate flowing postures, static postures, and detailed alignment instructions. Her classes are suitable for all levels and alternatives and modifications will be given as needed. Students will be encouraged to listen to their bodies and to adjust their practice based on experience, injuries, energy levels, and psychological needs. The morning class at Ulpotha will be more dynamic while the afternoon class will be a playful mix of restorative yoga, pranayama and meditation.

Gingi began studying and teaching martial arts in the 1980s with his father, Sensei Richard Taibong Lee. During an early trip to India, Gingi came into contact with yoga and spent many years returning to India to study and devote himself to the discipline. For two years he apprenticed with the late Derek Ireland, completing a final training course in Goa. He then went to Mysore to continue his studies with Sri Pattabhi Jois and then completed a two-year teacher training course with Graeme Northfield of Australia.

Gingi has hosted many yoga holidays and workshops in the UK and abroad, including combined retreats with John and Lucy Scott, and Kristina Ireland. He continues to run regular workshops and retreats, which often include elements of pranayama, meditation and tai chi. He is a well-respected teacher who has remained at the forefront of the ashtanga yoga community. He has taught, trained and inspired many British ashtanga yoga teachers and has played a key role in popularizing ashtanga yoga in the UK. His teaching is characterised by sensitivity, warmth and a deep commitment to the practice.