“Asana is a Kriya that helps you break through the limits of the physical body and allows you to experience the subtler aspects of existence that lie beyond it. This is the reality of an asana. Any practise, no matter what you call it, if it builds and further enriches this obstacle, cannot be termed an asana within the means of yoga.”
Kripanand
Yoga with Simone
Simone began her yoga journey in 1996 and began teaching in 2005. Her primary teaching is that of traditional hatha yoga drawing her teachings from her own experience of Astanga yoga, Satyananda and more recently Shadow yoga. Also having studied a bachelor of fine arts Simone has a sensibility to the creative process. She composes sequences reflecting on the principle known as Vinyasa Krama. Krama meaning to step, nyasa meaning to place and Vi- in a special way. Sequences are put together to ensure a beginning, middle and conclusion. Within this format she chooses asana that form a progression inviting one asana to set up the body for the next. Simone will only choose postures that she herself have embodied and understood in order to prescribe to a group or to an individual. Her sequences work progressively through circular movements, fluid to static finishing in stillness. She honors the rhythms that are important in yoga considering the time of day, the seasons and the moon cycles to guide her classes. Counterposes also take significance to keep the body balanced in a state of equilibrium. Modifications will be given to individual students to meet their needs and ensure their safety. Simone encourages her students to begin slowly building a strong foundation that develops patience and persistence. Focusing awareness on feeling and activity that will encourage an open, sensitive and fluid mind that allows the bodies natural wisdom to unfold.
‘When his mind intellect and self (ahamkara) are under control , freed from restless desire, so they rest in the spirit within, a man becomes a yukta- one in communion with God. A lamp does not flicker in a place where no winds blow; so it is with a yogi who controls his mind, intellect and self is stilled through the practise of Yoga, the yogi by the grace of the spirit within himself finds fulfilment. then he knows the joy eternal which is beyond the pale of the senses which his reason cannot grasp. He abides in this reality and moves not there from. He has found the treasure above all others. There is nothing higher than this. He who has achieved it, shall not be moved by the greatest sorrow. This is the real meaning of yoga- a deliverance from contact with pain and sorrow.” Bhagavad Gita 6th chapter
“Simone is a devoted and inspiring yoga teacher, she has taught me so much about yoga philosophy, spirituality, methodology and anatomy. My personal practice has so much more depth now. Many Yoga teachers have come and gone in my life, but Simone will always be in my heart. Namaste” Karen Sutton Ward
