I never set out to teach Iyengar yoga but when the closest teacher was 1600km away and I was booked into Pune for the following year, it seemed the obvious solution at the time! Little did I know what commitment this would entail or the obstacles that I would encounter?
Alice Springs is a complex place. It is generally dry and dusty, with long, hot summers and frosty winters. The surrounding landscape is stunning, vast and ancient with local indigenous landowners still performing ceremony for country. The township maintains a frontier mentality and black/white politics are often played out on the streets. It is a grief stricken and dysfunctional community as well as a vibrant and creative one, not the easiest place to have a yoga school but very much needed.
I moved to Alice Springs in 1995 after four years in Darwin. Emmanuelle Decoust, another friend and I, were doing yoga wherever we could – local parks and small flats until Emmanuelle started giving classes in a studio. However by then I found myself heading to Alice, still enthusiast and inspired but needing direction. I found two other students practicing Iyengar yoga in Alice and one day we decided to teach (you would never do that now in a pink fit, but one of the advantages of being in the middle of nowhere is that you can get away with a lot, there is no one to wave their finger at you.) We started teaching in a funny, clapped out tin shed. The other two left Alice, others came briefly. For a time Sarah Burns taught, travelling for an hour and a half into Alice from out bush to take classes. It was good to have a proper teacher around but she too left and in the end it was only me still there teaching.
My yoga was consolidating, I was gaining teaching experience but I had no training or qualifications. I felt committed enough to do some teacher training but not many teachers take on external students who live remotely. I started training with Alan Goode in the Blue Mountains. Alan was very accommodating to remote students but it still took a bit of logistics and finances to get there. I had to fly to Sydney, leave my young daughter with her grandparents, then catch a train up to the Blue Mountains, find a place to stay and then attend a week long intense session of teacher training. I was a sponge absorbing everything and by the end of the week totally overloaded but it felt like such a privilege to be in a studio and be part of a yoga school.
Back in Alice I had my practice and a group of students who became my teachers. The students were constantly challenging me and often I would take on situations and issues that were beyond my qualifications. I had no back up. Each year I would try to organize a teacher to come to Alice for a weekend workshop. These workshops inspired my students and I. It also gave the senior teacher a glimpse of the issues of teaching outside the major urban centres.
Training was long and drawn out, the distances, the expense and a young family made it really difficult to get to sessions. Some years I was unable to make the 20 hours teacher training time that is required by the association.
So although the obstacle of remoteness was huge and I would envy those who had a school around the corner, teachers they could go to each week for classes and an abundance of workshops and intensives, I have developed self-reliance on my own experiences. Self-discipline and constancy have become my firm friends. I am always grateful for the opportunity to learn from another teacher. Conventions and trips to India connect me back into the yoga community.
This year I have been living in Hobart and it has been a joy to go each week to an early morning practice with fellow yoga practitioners, I appreciate it so much after years without it.
P.S. The images are not yoga images but my artwork, inspired by the landscape of Central Australia.
Alice Springs
Sally Mumford
I never set out to teach Iyengar yoga but when the closest teacher was 1600km away and I was booked into Pune for the following year, it seemed the obvious solution at the time! Little did I know what commitment this would entail or the obstacles that I would encounter?
Alice Springs is a complex place. It is generally dry and dusty, with long, hot summers and frosty winters. The surrounding landscape is stunning, vast and ancient with local indigenous landowners still performing ceremony for country. The township maintains a frontier mentality and black/white politics are often played out on the streets. It is a grief stricken and dysfunctional community as well as a vibrant and creative one, not the easiest place to have a yoga school but very much needed.
I moved to Alice Springs in 1995 after four years in Darwin. Emmanuelle Decoust, another friend and I, were doing yoga wherever we could – local parks and small flats until Emmanuelle started giving classes in a studio. However by then I found myself heading to Alice, still enthusiast and inspired but needing direction. I found two other students practicing Iyengar yoga in Alice and one day we decided to teach (you would never do that now in a pink fit, but one of the advantages of being in the middle of nowhere is that you can get away with a lot, there is no one to wave their finger at you.) We started teaching in a funny, clapped out tin shed. The other two left Alice, others came briefly. For a time Sarah Burns taught, travelling for an hour and a half into Alice from out bush to take classes. It was good to have a proper teacher around but she too left and in the end it was only me still there teaching.
My yoga was consolidating, I was gaining teaching experience but I had no training or qualifications. I felt committed enough to do some teacher training but not many teachers take on external students who live remotely. I started training with Alan Goode in the Blue Mountains. Alan was very accommodating to remote students but it still took a bit of logistics and finances to get there. I had to fly to Sydney, leave my young daughter with her grandparents, then catch a train up to the Blue Mountains, find a place to stay and then attend a week long intense session of teacher training. I was a sponge absorbing everything and by the end of the week totally overloaded but it felt like such a privilege to be in a studio and be part of a yoga school.
Back in Alice I had my practice and a group of students who became my teachers. The students were constantly challenging me and often I would take on situations and issues that were beyond my qualifications. I had no back up. Each year I would try to organize a teacher to come to Alice for a weekend workshop. These workshops inspired my students and I. It also gave the senior teacher a glimpse of the issues of teaching outside the major urban centres.
Training was long and drawn out, the distances, the expense and a young family made it really difficult to get to sessions. Some years I was unable to make the 20 hours teacher training time that is required by the association.
So although the obstacle of remoteness was huge and I would envy those who had a school around the corner, teachers they could go to each week for classes and an abundance of workshops and intensives, I have developed self-reliance on my own experiences. Self-discipline and constancy have become my firm friends. I am always grateful for the opportunity to learn from another teacher. Conventions and trips to India connect me back into the yoga community.
This year I have been living in Hobart and it has been a joy to go each week to an early morning practice with fellow yoga practitioners, I appreciate it so much after years without it.
P.S. The images are not yoga images but my artwork, inspired by the landscape of Central Australia.