If you live in Muizenberg, love the sea, and work for yourself, you are, kind of, in heaven. “Kind of”, as the wind blows here, a lot, but that is another story. If you also happen to be a yoga teacher, the perfection is more complete, as the yoga studio space doubles up as retreat from the often harsh elements, and a place to train for better weather days. Summer Season 2015/6 yoga classes at African Soul Surfer.

Do yoga and surf better

Yoga is renowned for developing flexibility, strength and balance. Such combination of qualities improve performance in any sport or activity. As such it is useful, even vital, for surfers. And the vibe of surfing, particularly if you are of the philosophical kind, is just a great compliment to yoga. A simple, brief routine of yoga poses practiced effectively also provides protection from injuries, and speeds up recovery time after exertion. And yoga will help one surf well into old age, with much greater ease.

“Yoga for Surfers” has become massively popular the world over. And not only for the competitive edge or other advantages it offers. “Surf Yoga” retreats and holidays are on offer in all the major paradise destinations, from Bali to Ecuador, Mozambique to… not so much yet in  Cape Town. Surf tourists to Muizenberg can do well to change that, and many indeed do drop in on a yoga class or 10 when visiting.

Why top surfers do yoga

Yoga and surfing share similar skill sets. And yoga can cultivate exactly what the surfer needs to surf better, more and for a longer time. Top surfers around the world (and top rock climbers, golfers, cricketers, golfer’s etc.) now all look to yoga for superior results. If you’re serious about surfing competitively, see why Greg Long, Tom Curren and Kelly Slater, among others, all brought yoga into their lives. To this day, these ageing surfers remain among the most fit, supple and youthful adherents of the sport. Gerry Lopez as been doing yoga for over 2 decades. Surfing has much in common with yoga – see Gerry’s observations: Save your surfing.

The necessity of doing yoga, on any level, for all levels of surfing should not be underestimated. Basic hatha yoga, simple all rounder yoga practice is excellent for everyday surfing and casual surfers. This article includes an inspiring paragraph on S.A. free style diver Hanli Prinsloo and yogic breathing.  For reference, check out The new wave for surfers.

Yoga for Surfers at Muizenberg

I made the poster below in 2014, to promote a “Yoga for Surfers” class at my studio. A few surfers did show up, but I never managed to successfully promote the dedicated session amongst the surfer community. Of course the time slot, on a Saturday morning, is right in the middle or beginning of most weekend surf outing. The original surf class is now, like my other classes. a mixed level, mixed demographic class. Fortunately any properly executed stretch and breathing routine is of benefit to the surfer, so there is no need for surfers to attend a surf yoga specific class. In fact most slightly older, casual surfers that I know, or have worked with, are actually too tight or stiff to easily do basic yoga, let alone manage the higher performance yoga that surfers like Kelly and Tom Curren is doing. But that too, is another story for another time

About my “Surf better, do yoga” practice

Learn yoga at my Muizenberg studio, on Beach Road near Surfer’s Corner. Yoga training helps surfers improve current performance levels and maintain the level in years to come. Develop a greater understanding of how to warm up the body, be more flexible, and breathe more effectively. A quality best described as “agile”. Boost your strength and endurance. After acquiring yoga skills only a few minutes of a regular at home or on the beach yoga routine will make a massive difference to body and mind. Yoga – just one discipline, includes all body mind requirements:

●   Develop core strength, flexibility, breathing techniques and warm-up practices
●   Prevent injuries
●   Yoga assists with healing of chronic injuries
●   Add endurance for longer sessions
●   Keep on surfing for decades to come
●   Yoga also helps speedy recovery from fatigue.
●   Remain calm and focussed under duress

The Sun Salute yoga sequence in video (learn it here) below devlops agility: flexibility and strength. I filmed it on Muizenberg beach in front of the studio.

Stream my Yoga Music Album Bliss with featured track “Eastern Sun” from the video 

Join a regular class (class times for 24 Beach Road here and yoga classes at Surfer’s Corner)
or
book your own individual or group session
●   Daytime, weekend (Saturday and Sunday) options available

Contact Yoga Muizenberg

Don’t look for excuses, just do it!

●   No yoga experience required
●   All ages welcome
●   Your inflexibility is the best reason to begin with yoga, and not an excuse to avoid it
●   A single session will give you an edge

Yoga, Surf, Sea & me

The sea and stretch, the ocean air and breathing deep, moving in yoga and meditation, at once quietens, and excites, my heart.

For me the greatest benefit of my seaside yoga studio is that I can often manage a swim, or occasional surf right before yoga class. Oceanic energy, liquid prana, the salt sea water; swimming in the sea cleanses the aura, forces one into the present, and the cold water here stimulates release of the inner mechanisms of metabolic warmth generation. An incredible, indescribable sense of
wholeness and energy fills me when I swim or surf, especially at sunrise. Following through with teaching a yoga class is simply awesome.

Johann,
Johann Kotze Music & Yoga,
Muizenberg, Cape Town
February 2015

No mind is a state of being, and only appears when the thinking mind stops. Then infinite self appears. This aspect of you is whole, it contains all that is, that has ever been, and that will ever be. It is free of fear, or happiness. It just is. As the Bhagavat Gita says, we are everything, and nothing.

Ego-mind doe snot like to be no thing; it tries to convince its owner (the limited you) that that limitlessness is non-sense. An effort to reduce the unfathonable, infinite you/eternal self, to a sizeable, controllable concept. It is a massive, powerful lie. One on which the entire workings of this planet is based on. It wrecks havoc on every level – literally keeps us in the dark.

Buddha meditated until he attained enlightenment – he saw the light of no mind. In this light he understood the power of the limited self over infinite self, and started to teach that all suffering comes identification with limited self. Desire springs from duality, it causes all the “have” and “have-not’s”. That desire does not end when we have the thing or things we covet, and does not go away when we merely stop craving, be it material, spiritual or concepts. Non-desire only happens when limited self realises stop identifying with the thinking self, transcending ego to attain consciousness, embracing infinite self.

This is why certain meditation, breath and self-enquiry practices are generally recommended as a lifetime adventure to penetrate and explore the infinite space that is everything, and nothing – infinite self. The quest for no mind sure is a bit of a rabbit hole exploration. And it may be tempting to just live with a mind filled with thoughts and ordinary breathing, without awareness and self-enquiry into the reality of self, in the ordinary world. Yet freedom, or liberation, of the infinite self, is the only way to end the tyranny of the thinking mind. Extreme dedication to be free from this bondage may lead to the light the Buddha experienced. At the very least you may unmask the flat, fake one dimensionality and illusionary reality we accept as real, to help us over-identifying with conflicting states of the surface veneer of duality.

Whatever the choice, the choice is yours. All human beings are born into into this bondage to ego. Ego rules us, a mental super-power that dominates ordinary dualistic reality. Here we are forever trapped in never ending cycles of ups and downs, of agony and ecstasy, fear and freedom. Apart from the ongoing personal drama such living, embedded in unchecked duality, or ignorance, is outright dangerous. It not only invite trouble, it is trouble. Big trouble.

Duality produces the mental constructs that divide our world. All the opinions and “us and them” and fear and love and agony and ecstasy, desires and judgment and fragmentation, perpetually feeds war and consumerism and religion and illness. In this way, like when we may feel miserable or discontent when we want something and can’t have it, we easily become irritated when we don’t like someone or a situation, we can readily justify that a country should be bombed or condone genocide. Polarity or duality results in constant inner and outer conflict. This imbalance is a accident evermore waiting to happen, guaranteed to manifest as illness, or war. This suffering won’t drop by any means other than entering into no mind. Stillness.

Stillness restores inner peace, and harmony surfaces. No action is required, and there is no doing. It is like a waking sleep. Consciousness. Self becomes aware of its infinite nature. Ordinary reality drops away. This self is everywhere, and resides within us.  It does not depend on things, people and events for its existence. Self just is – independent and contains everything all that is. When we connect with it we experience inner peace.

Read more: Yoga and the whole duality.

I wrote this blog on a flight from Varanasi to Delhi, India. A great place to contemplate great things!
11 November 2014

Swami Sivananda: Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize (or know God). This is a process of surrender to God, or receive the Grace of God.

Anyway, move on, or rot and stink, the statement says. Be in the moment, in the present, let go, of past programming, fear, hatred, gripes, envies, the list goes on. Just let go. Our bodies remember these energies, just like we store them in the minds. Together they form an unhealthy allegiance polluting our being with unhealthy emotions and thoughts. When unchecked the unwholesome energy stays with us, locks our bodies into the un-well energy field, causing disease.

Chronic stress tightens our bodies, resulting in a severe bodymind state that has severe consequences for our nervous system, digestion, sleep, everything, A stiff, tight body is an unhappy place to be. And if we don’t transform theses energies the stress becomes imprinted on us. Release of stress, habitual, chronic stress, helps bring healing and a greater sense of well-being. As they say, “let go, let god”. Don’t worry.  Swami Venkatesananda also said “Turning away from God is disease, he who turns to God is at perfect ease within”.

Yoga helps us, much, to let go. We also, more often than we realize, require help in letting go of our mental, physical and emotional stress. So we sometimes require treatments that are holistic, works on many levels, addressing the physical, spiritual and emotional release. Always search out a therapist that is experienced, holistically minded, that is prepared to give you the time of day you deserve, that is happy to refer you on if required, have a kind heart, and someone you resonate with. In my opinion the therapy has to help the body unlock whatever trauma holds it “closed” – treatments may be gentle, or firm, but should not be severe.

Check out this interview with Dr John Upledger (inventor of CranioSacral Therapy) on crania work and bodywork.

The list I provide here is by no means exhaustive, and view it as a starting point to find a person to help your bodymind help itself. I prefer to suggest rather than recommend a therapy or therapists, every person has unique expectations and needs and so on. I do always recommend my clients to have either regular treatments, i.e. once a few weeks, like a haircut regular, and or 3 or more sessions in a series once a year. This is quite an essential practice, a lifestyle investment, not a luxury. I remind you that you have one body, and you everything you do, your entire life, in it.

This list is in no particular order of importance. The therapists I list are holistic, healing practitioners in areas of Stellenbosch and Muizenburg (where I teach), some work from both.

Natasha Wrightford
Neurosoma Myotherapist
Muizenburg & Stellenbosch
0823033150

Sandra Smit
Cranio Sacral
Muizenburg & Stellenbosch
084700690

Candice Jones
Holistic Massage
Energy Work
Stellenbosch
0848000448

Cecelia Britz
Reflexology
Stellenbosch
021 8864710

Dale Simpson
Body Stress Release
Muizenburg
0832617498

Robyn Lewis
Shaitsu
021 7881101

Tony Edwards
Shaitsu
Stellenbosch
0725850483

Anna Scheltema
Cranio Sacral
Stellenbosch
021 8866819

Dr. Chris Muller
Chiropractic
Stellenbosch
021 8874488

Enjoy your bodymind work!
Blessings,
Johann,
8 July 2014

Body awareness imbues us with mindfulness, something that happens when we take what we learn from our practice on the mat, and apply it to our daily lives. A very useful skill to help us deal with

●  anxiety
●  fear
●  emotional turmoil
●  over thinking
●  insomnia
●  lack of focus
●  too much detrimental focus or business

Listen to my mindfulness audio (3 minutes 25 sec)

Yoga shows us that the body and mind is interconnected, interdependent. Whatever happens in the one impact on the other. When the body-mind aspects function optimally, as a whole, we may be capable of, literally, anything. When there is disharmony or a disconnect between the two, we may become severely incapacitated or ill.

We usually step into yoga class with our ordinary bodies and ordinary thoughts, from the ordinary world, and then slowly dissolve into another aspect of reality, the yoga zone. Our focus shifts from the thinking mind, and emotions, away from the world of things, people and places, to engage in an extraordinary fullness of being. When we disengage from our surface personality and persona, and perceptions of the world of events, we feel our inner magnificence.

Sensations are felt, not judged or analysed

Yoga suggests we use this awareness of the breath and the body as the basis of meditation. Yoga helps us meditate, not by controlling the mind, rather by focusing our minds on other things than thoughts and emotions. With focus on the body, and the breath, for a sustained period of time, such as in a session, we may begin to feel much lighter after each yoga class or session.

Yoga is at once practical and it let’s us feel awesome

Such focus is useful develop asana and pranayama that actually helps us to develop good posture, and greater mobility, with flexible, strong body minds, and crucially, more comfortable to-be-in bodymind. Which is vital, as we live, and experience everything in this physical reality, in the bodies. When we apply these insights to our daily lives this awareness yoga becomes integrated with life “off the mat”.

This is how yoga helps us find peace and happiness inside ourselves, in harmony with our surroundings. Inner peace is exactly that, an inner awareness of tranquility connected to a focus at once soft, encompassing, and, in our center. Which is why a joyful and expansive experience of life really begins within ourselves, in our body-minds.

See you on the mat!
Johann,
10 June 2014.

Read part 2

 I took the photographs around 2005 for my book Essentials of Effective Yoga. I was evidently going for the vegetarian yogi look at that time but the images were actually meant to demonstrate the vast life force of unspoilt nature

The basics of the Five Keys to Well-being. Essentials of Effective Yoga are pretty much the basics found in my classes. I have been teaching in much the same way over the years: there are the obvious physical aspects, also hidden, labeled esoteric. Mindfulness is an objective practice, meditation according to yoga contains this as basis, but in traditional yoga adds the element of self-realisation, and not in the Western competitive self-help sense.  

A combination of the two aspects completes the whole, i.e. the “holistic”. Mindfulness and hatha yoga is about not leaving anything out, including body and mind and environment, always starting with posture and breath, the inspiration and the technique of mindfulness. 

When investigating well-being practice starting with posture (or breath) it reveals that breath and posture is interdependent. With this in mind it also becomes obvious that mobility is improved in the process, and body-mind stress released, which makes effective meditation – and more effective mindfulness practice – possible. All the “keys” are all mixed up into a holistic, mindfulness lifestyle orientation.

I cannot place great enough emphasis on these basic essentials for any yoga beginners, or beginner mindfulness practitioners. 

Wishing you many, rich blessings!
– Johann