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.

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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In this conversation, he talks about the work he does as an osteopath, allowing each individual body to find connection again and create place and space for self-healing.

We discuss how people's view of the body is narrowing despite the volume of information out there and how that might be affecting how they think about their own bodies. We touch on pain and chronic pain cycles, and Gareth talks about the powerful concept of framing pain as protection.

And we talk about yoga - his take on yoga and what it's doing for us, how and why yoga is such an inclusive practice and why it's important for yoga teachers to have an understanding of the workings of the body. He says, “It's a moving miracle and we're living and breathing and feeling the anatomy”.

When we finish this conversation, we're definitely just hitting the pause button!

I hope you enjoy listening in.

Our next 200 hour yoga teacher training programme is live and in person here at Merchant City Yoga. The course starts this September and runs for one weekend a month for 12 months. If you're interested in finding out more, the syllabus and course dates are here on the website and I'm inviting potential applicants to come along to one of our teacher training weekends to meet up for an informal chat.

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This is Ema's third time on The Chai Sessions! I think that makes her a regular guest now. I'm thrilled she was able to join me again for a chat and a cuppa on the sofa.

Ema offers courses rooted in the classical texts associated with the yoga tradition. Her courses are designed to help us understand these texts a little better and challenge us to put some of what we learn into practice.

In this episode we discuss the Bhagavad Gita ahead of Ema's upcoming course in May 2024. I ask Ema...

What is the Bhagavad Gita?

Why is it relevant today in the modern world?

How can we approach the text and work with it?

Where has studying the Gita been helpful for you?

Ema explains we find the verses of the Gita in the middle of an epic story, a drama full of characters and circumstances. In the telling of the story, what it means to be human, what it means to be in this world is revealed. Like any good story we can recognise some of ourselves and our relationships in it. This can help us make sense of things.

Also in our conversation Ema talks about how much she loves the lively discussion that happens in a space where people are talking and sharing about their lives. This is reflected in her approach to teaching the Bhagavad Gita. She says, “It all comes down to life, we’re humans living.”

I hope you enjoy listening in.

Ema's course, The Bhagavad Gita: Living in the World will be live and in-person here at Merchant City Yoga. The course starts Sunday 5th May 2024 and runs for four weeks. Even if you can't commit to all four weeks, you can join each session individually. If you're interested in finding out more or joining her, all the details and booking are HERE

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This second bonus bit explores yoga and religion...

Enjoy!

James will be here at Merchant City Yoga Friday 22 to Sunday 24 March. Join us for more exploration, unification, for more bringing it all together, more conversation and for loads of questions.

There'll be five sessions across the weekend. Find all the details and book your place HERE.

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This first bonus bit explores one of the yamas, bramacharya...

Enjoy!

James will be here at Merchant City Yoga Friday 22 to Sunday 24 March. Join us for more exploration, unification, for more bringing it all together, more conversation and for loads of questions.

There'll be five sessions across the weekend. Find all the details and book your place HERE.

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For anyone who hasn't met James yet, he has been teaching yoga for over 20 years. I first met him in 2011 in Mysore, South India. He was not only sharing the teachings of yoga back then, he was also studying for an MA in Sanskrit! 

James brings a holistic approach to his practise and teaching and works in direct relationship with the original Sanskrit texts. Since meeting and studying with James in Mysore, he has been a very regular visitor here at Merchant City Yoga and also teaches on our 200hr Yoga Teacher Training programme.

Ahead of his visit this spring, where he'll be guiding an exploration of the 8 limbs, I thought it would be helpful to ask James why they are so important to us as modern yoga practitioners.

We could've talked for hours! I hope you enjoy listening in.

James will be here at Merchant City Yoga Friday 22 to Sunday 24 March. Join us for more exploration, unification, for more bringing it all together, more conversation and for loads of questions.

There'll be five sessions across the weekend. Find all the details and book your place HERE.

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This is Scott's third time on The Chai Sessions! I think at this point he needs no introduction but for anyone who hasn't had the pleasure, Scott is the director and co-founder of Stillpoint Yoga London. He is invited to teach yoga all around the world and has his own podcast, Stillpoints.

I'm delighted to welcome him back to MCY again in February for what will be his sixth time teaching here in Glasgow at the studio!

We begin our chat by considering what it is to practise Ashtanga yoga with mindful awareness. Developing a quality of noticing and being aware of what you're doing rather than pushing through the practice.

Scott will be sharing THREE Morning Mysore Sessions and THREE Weekend Workshops during his intensive weekend in February. Find out more about his visit and book your place to join us HERE.

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Yogability is a local Glasgow-based charity who offer yoga to children and adults with special needs, their families and carers. We raise funds for them each Christmas here at MCY through our 108 Sun Salutations event.

Debbie's son Cameron, now a trustee of Yogability (AMAZING news!), and her friend and colleague Jane join her to update us on what's been going on at Yogability this past year.

You can get involved in this year’s 108 Sun Salutations event on Saturday 16th December. Sign up now, take on the challenge and help us raise much needed funds for this incredible charity.

Or make a donation on the GoFundMe page.

If a lot of us give a little, we can help Yogability provide a whole lot.

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This chat is full of inspirational nuggets I know you'll love. We even get into chatting about teaching the practice, the role of the yoga teacher is to empower, and what it is to be Ashtanga practitioners as women.

Being present in time, to be with ease, practice with a sense of your wholeness...

I hope you enjoy listening in.

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If you haven't met Laura, she's a qualified child development officer and has worked in the education sector for many years. She's one of our CYS Glasgow yoga teacher training graduates too!

Laura will be bringing her knowledge and experience of both fields, yoga and education, together to offer a very special workshop here at MCY on November 11th introducing you to teaching yoga to children. Learn more and book here.

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If you haven’t heard yet, her late summer session on Friday 29th September (7-8.30pm) is now open for booking!

I think deep conscious relaxation is hugely underrated. I wonder if it might even be getting a bit lost in the modern yoga scene. That’s why I'm so excited to have the opportunity to geek out on the topic with Lucie.

I hope you enjoy listening in.

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In this, my twenty-second Chai Session, Ranjana discusses her early experiences with yoga and how she was introduced to Advaitya Vedanta from a young age. We get into what Advaitya Vedanta is – understanding the universal Self within us, in all life and matter. Vedanta's knowledge is valuable when done as yoga, helping us engage with the divisions in our modern world.

Ranjana's 6 hour course, An Introduction to Self-Knowledge According to Advaitya Vedanta, begins on Tuesday 19th September, 7.30pm - 9pm. The course is really about collective enquiry. Everyone can bring their own experience to the conversation. Learn more and book HERE

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Dan is offering a brand new weekly class, Movement & Yoga Nidra, here at MCY on Tuesdays 6-7.15pm. I thought it would be lovely to sit down for a chat and a cuppa to get to know him a little better.

Dan begins by sharing what got him started with yoga. Referencing one of my favourite movies, The Karate Kid, as he shares his journey up till now. He talks about freedom through discipline and choice, choosing your limitations to achieve more.

We get into the benefits of yoga. How these tools and practices have helped Dan navigate life and be of service in the world.

Book your place for Movement & Yoga Nidra with Dan HERE

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Yama-niyama are a living, breathing, moving, real life practice. Our understanding of them changes depending on where we’re at. Each can offer a fresh perspective at different times in our life.

If you’d like to explore further, Ema’s Yama-Niyama course is coming up here at the studio in June! It runs over 3 consecutive Sundays from 11th June, 3-5pm. BOOK NOW

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nadiagilani.co.uk

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Tony explains just what we're talking about when we say energetic or subtle body. He says, "it's a lot more down-to-earth and practical than you might think." This knowledge, this framework can be used to explore and understand our human experience. This is a fascinating chat you won’t want to miss.

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