Entrepreneurship

I was chatting with a friend of mine this week who's in the midst of considering a career change out of astronomy. For him it's the long-term job prospects and lack of opportunities that is turning him away. He's got a small kid so he really needs to think of how he can best position himself to provide for his family. Even if he did get a permanent position in a university (which I'm sure he'd easily get), then he's concerned about the prospects for further growth. There's really only one more promotion to get (professorship), and the experience of others more senior shows that you slowly and inevitably sink under the weight of admin and teaching! That's a problem if research is really your passion.

The other thing is he's quite an entrepreneur, coming up with ideas that outside the standard research box - citizen science, webapps, python widgets, etc. He's been finding his current institute very restrictive on what they'll support and what they're ok with him doing, so he's considering a move into industry.

And this got me thinking about entrepreneurship in yoga. To be a successful yoga teacher you really need to be an entrepreneur, getting out there and finding the work and the opportunities for yourself. The closest thing to a standard career path in yoga is to become a resident teacher in a big studio, but unless you own the studio it would be very hard to make a full-time income like this. What most teachers do is build up a portfolio of gym and studio classes to make up enough of an income, but even in this there's a great deal of 'getting out there' and finding those places to teach. Everyone I've spoken to about this has their own ideas of how best to do this!

Then beyond the standard gym and studio class format, there's workshops, retreats, holidays, and longer courses, and there's also kids yoga, yoga for the elderly, pre-natal/pregnancy yoga, yoga therapy for treating specific illnesses, yoga in prisons, spontaneous classes in the park, corporate yoga, professional development days in business or universities, etc, etc.

I've just been reading some excellent advice from Valerie Falkner, an American business coach for "soulful entrepreneurs" and "spirit-rich business owners". This article in particular is great "6 Traits of Successful Yoga Entrepreneurs". She starts by saying that studios and training courses are churning out yoga teachers left and right, but not all of them are a good fit to the business of teaching. Expensive marketing will overcome poor teaching for a short period of time, but to get people to come back, you must first focus on being the best at what you do. This is spot on. But this doesn't just mean having a strong yoga practice. It means developing those skills that make you a good teacher, and meeting the students' needs. Make a connection, show you care, inspire and motivate...

Only after that, she says, will the marketing efforts really pay off, and probably you'll need to do less marketing anyway (word of mouth really is the best tool in yoga).

Interestingly a google search for "yoga entrepreneur" brings up loads of blogs, consulting companies and resources based in the US, but adding "UK" to the end of the search gives a much, much sparser list. Marketing and entrepreneurship is something the Americans excel at - there's clearly a hole in the market here in the UK...!

Two years is no long stretch at ZenYoga Camberwell

This is an article I wrote about the 2nd anniversary of the ZenYoga studio. It was published by the SE5 Forum.
Here is a related article I wrote about ZenYoga which was published on the South London daily magazine belowtheriver.co.uk

On Sunday 16th June, the ZenYoga studio in Camberwell celebrated its second anniversary. The studio runs a variety of yoga classes and workshops throughout the week, and is the home of a thriving Zen meditation group led by Zen Master Julian Daizan Skinner (the first Englishman to become a Zen Master in the rigorous Rinzai school).

The ZenYoga studio. Photo credit: Hogetsu Baerndal.

The party began with a Precepts Ceremony (Jukai) led by Daizan Roshi for Michael Nathan-Pepple, inducting him into the Zen Buddhist path. Founding member Chris Owen then gave some heartfelt words of thanks, and related the story of an encounter he had four years ago with Daizan Roshi's teacher, Shinzan Roshi (who lives in Japan). After asking him to bow forwards, Shinzan beat him five times on the head with his fan and told him he must find a centre for the burgeoning zen group to practice in!

Fearing what he might be hit with next time, Chris found an ideal place through his contacts at the Butterfly Tennis Club in Camberwell. In what was (previously) a sales office for an up-market residential development on Camberwell Grove, ZenYoga (also known as the Yugagyo Dojo) has grown to become a much-needed oasis of calm just off the busy Camberwell Green, and a perfect practice space for both yoga and meditation.

Video greetings from Matt Shinkai Kane, a zen monk who has spent some time practicing with the group in the last few years, and Shinzan Roshi were projected onto the stunning Enso (circle) hung at the far end of the room. From Shinzan Roshi, now in his late-70s, came an incredible bubbly vitality and an encouragement to everyone to practice, practice, practice.

The enormous Enso was originally drawn by Shinzan Roshi himself at the opening ceremony of Zen Yoga back in 2011 with a cloth broom. The event was documented by Astrid-Hogetsu Baerndal as part of her year-long photographic study "A Portrait of Zenways", a contribution to the London Village Project organised by London Independent Photography. A selection of these photos formed a stunning backdrop to the party, capturing some of the people and events that took place in 2011-12 at Zen Yoga (published as part of a book).

Most of us who have been to a yoga class or two might have heard of styles like Ashtanga or Bikram, but not many people have heard of Zen Yoga. When I asked Daizan Roshi, himself a very experienced yoga teacher with over 5000 hours of teaching practice, he said that Zen Yoga "emphasises physical alignment, the flow of energy in the body and the student’s quality of awareness." Poses or movements are designed to "bring parts of the body into focus so that we can become aware of any tightness or restriction", and that the simple awareness of these areas can lead to them shifting and releasing. He went on, saying that "the great Zen master Hakuin taught that Buddhas (enlightened/awakened beings) are like water and ordinary people are like ice. Zen yoga practice melts away the tightness and resistance that prevents us from enjoying the flow of life."

For more information, and to see the schedule of classes at ZenYoga see www.zenyoga.org.uk.

Foundations of mindfulness

The Buddha taught that there are four foundations of mindfulness:

   * mindfulness of the body
   * mindfulness of feelings (or sensations)
   * mindfulness of the mind (or consciousness)
   * mindfulness of mental phenomena (or mental objects - basically your thoughts)

He said that directing your 100% attention and practice towards any one of those four aspects of mindfulness has the potential of leading all the way to full awakening/enlightenment. This shows the power of simple mindfulness...

Although, of course, all four of these aspects are present in Zen meditation, once your body is still and you are comfortable in your sitting position, the first two become less prominent. It's the mindfulness of your mind and thoughts that are emphasised through practices such as Zen Master Bankei's unborn or working with a koan.

Mindfulness of the body includes practices like following the breath, and mindfulness of sensations includes being aware and present with pain or discomfort. However, if Zen emphasises the mind-and-thoughts aspects, then it's (physical/hatha) yoga that emphasises the body-and-sensations side of things.

Last weekend was our last yoga sadhana weekend with Jonathan Monks (month 10 of 10), and he asked us to discuss what we've learnt, what we've gained, what has changed, what are we unsure of, and what do we need to do next. In answering the first two questions it became very clear to me that over the last almost-year (261 days of practice - minus one or two that I missed!) Jonathan had very skilfully encouraged us to explore these aspects of mindfulness of the body and sensations.

Physical yoga work is indeed only one "limb" of the eight described in the classical texts (internal and external moral codes of conduct, physical movement, energy work/pranayama, withdrawal of senses, concentration, meditation and union/oneness/emptiness), so you might expect it to lead towards deeper understanding, insights, awakening. But to be quite honest, I've not always had the clearest understanding of how moving and stretching the body can lead to insights into our true nature.

And maybe most yoga that you get out there doesn't lead towards knowing your true nature. And that's what sets Jonathan apart. Movements that leave you with a quiet mind, sequences that lead to "ahh, oh my god! - what happened there?!"; no contraction, no isolation, the body moving in union - that's the YogaMonks method. It's a wonderful balance to the Zen practice. Open the physical body and the mental/emotional bodies open - open the mental/emotional bodies and the physical body opens.

My courses in mindfulness cover all four of the aspects of mindfulness, introducing practical ways to work with them and exploring what effects they have. But if you don't want to wait until the next course starts, come to one of my yoga classes and practice mindfulness of your body and sensations (and the mind and thoughts, but sshhh, that's a secret!).

Sadhana practice with Jonathan Monks. New courses starting next year.

scientists in a castle (no ivory towers though)

I'm shocked! My website got 398 pageviews in the first 30 days! Remember, classes in Camberwell Wed morning and Thurs evening (this week covered by the lovely Jo Barclay and Alison Matthews).

That's because this week I'm back in Germany, at an astronomy conference down in southern Bavaria at a beautiful old castle called Ringberg. The castle (built only in the 20s) was donated to the Max Plank Society (one of the main German research foundations) a few decades ago for use as a conference centre, and I must say, it's a great venue!

This conference is the last thing for me in my astronomy career (thanks to ESO and MPE for giving me the funds). My talk was on the first day, and I mentioned at the end of it that I'm leaving astronomy to become a yoga teacher. Unsurprisingly that generated lots of questions about why I'm leaving - and why yoga?! I guess choosing to leave voluntarily before I'm forced out by circumstances is fairly unusual. It's funny, as soon as you say you've decided to leave, you hear from a lot of others (granted, roughly at the same stage of their career) saying they've also been thinking of leaving. The lack of social and scientific interaction, difficulties with having to move around a lot, job insecurity, and the lack of positive feedback are the common gripes.

Anyway, I think people's reaction to my choice to teach yoga has ranged from (mostly) incomprehension to (at best) interest!! Some people, though, have asked if I'd do a class sometime during the conference…!

I can understand why. Many people have taken long flights to get here, which involves a lot of sitting. And in the conference we sit for 10-12 hrs a day: in the talks, during the meals, and in the evening. Personally I find this tough on the body - I get aches in my back and bum. It's no wonder many people have bad posture. I look round the room and see rounded shoulders, collapsed chests, stoops, tense lifted shoulders, and many of the more senior people are overweight. I can feel my own shoulders are getting tense, I'm slouching, certainly overeating, and I find myself choosing a danish pastry over a banana! Yes, yes, it's ok, it's only one week! - True, but with all the travel in academia you might have weeks and weeks of this in a given year. I have (now, had) one collaborator who has gout as a result of his sedentary, 10 trans-atlantic flights a year lifestyle!

From my own experience, I think being a scientist encourages you to disconnect from your body. It trains you to develop your reason, the logical side of your mind. This would be fine, of course, if it wasn't to the exclusion (I think) of your more intuitive, emotional, creative side. And this seems to include the body-mind connection. All the travel and moving from country-to-country certainly uproots you and maybe further encourages this disconnect. After all, your body is only something that brings your brain to your computer, right...?!

On the more social side, I always find it very difficult at a conference like this to get to actually meet people on a human-to-human level - even if we are all just brains on legs! There's a feeling that you're only expected to talk science, but if you're not then somehow you go down in people's opinion. Of course, you throw 40 astronomers together with a common interest and conversations about science is what you'd expect. But I always sense a massive resistance to people letting their actual personality through - including myself. Socialising is generally very group-oriented, with posturing, name-dropping and ego-boosting comments, and if you can't operate in that environment, then you sink.

That said, there are some lovely people here; and funnily enough, talking about why I'm leaving has had the effect of getting us to open up!