Well, we are coming back to earth after our first event with Simon Borg-Olivier on the Ancient Secrets of the Breath! Everything went really well and I want to thank everyone who came along. I also want to thank all the people who sent letters of support in response to my “Should I quit” email. The response has been very heartening! Thank you.
What I am really excited about is our video series on the Future of Yoga in Australia. The response has been incredible! Comments have flowed in from all over Australia. We have had over 500 people watch Part 1 of the series. The number of viewers of all three videos has been steadily climbing since we first started getting the word out! Thank you to everyone who has forwarded the link on to their friends and students. I think it is a really important record of the thoughts of some of our senior Yoga teachers on their view of the Future of Yoga in Australia.
I would love to make Part IV at some stage and I have a couple of people in mind who I would like to interview. In the meantime, I would like to share with you a message that Leigh Blashki, one of our senior Yoga therapists, sent to me -
Dear Trina
Namaste,
It was interesting to view the 3 podcasts on the future of Yoga (in Australia).
While not a surprise to me, I was struck by the frequent reference to Yoga therapy, as one of the directions for Yoga in the future.
As you may know, Yoga therapy is also part of the past and present in Australia (most widely since the early 1990s) and is certainly experiencing a natural and organic growth in interest and practice.
Given Yoga therapy's place in the future of Yoga in Australia, it would be informative for the public to see interviews with those who have been leaders in this area for many years and who are at the vanguard of growth of Yoga therapy into the future.
The Australian community of Yoga therapists are in fact world leaders in relation to the professionalisation of this sub-set of Yoga, with our association the Aust Assoc of Yoga Therapists being one of the first in the world to have endorsed standards for the practice of Yoga therapy and a register of practitioners who meet the standards. The AAYT was also the first to promote a code of practice for Yoga therapists and is supported by a council of advisors, who are national and international leaders in Yoga Cikitsa and integrative medicine.
The future of Yoga therapy internationally is being ably guided by the International Association of Yoga Therapists, who are in the process of developing standards. (I have the honour of being on the committee developing the standards and on the IAYT council of advisors).
If you would like to have qualified, accurate and up-to-date information relating to the practice of Yoga therapy and Yoga therapy training in Australia, we would be happy to provide it as part of a future podcasts or other forms of interview.
Subhamastu
Leigh Blashki
I was really interested to read Leigh’s comments on Yoga therapy and I thought I would share them with you. I have had a long interest in Yoga as a therapy myself. In fact, it was my interest in Yoga therapy and the evidence-based, scientific research into Yoga that led me to do my teacher training with the Vivekananda Yoga Education Research and Therapy Institute.
I have also received a number of emails from various senior Yoga teachers offering me the opportunity to interview them for a future video. If you have any comments on the Future of Yoga video series that you would like to share, please let me know. And if you have any suggestions for another series of interviews please let me know too! I am open to suggestions.
Trina Bawden-Smith