Here is the 3rd and final interview we did with David Robson from Ashtanga Yoga Toronto when he was in Vancouver at Chopra Yoga to teach a weekend workshop. In this interview I asked him what he loves about teaching, what he has done to make his Mysore program so successful (it's the largest outside of Mysore) and what his plans are moving forward. Read the transcript below or watch the video to see what he said.
What do you enjoy about teaching yoga?
I love seeing the transformation in people. I love when people, whether or not they recognize it, it starts to become this tool for them. You can see that people come in every day and they do it and they kind of walk out strong. I love seeing that and I love seeing people use the practice to deal with things, or I don't know if I love it, but I really appreciate that it can help us through difficult times.
Your Mysore program is very big. How do you do things there that might be the reason?
Well, when we set it up, when I set it up I wanted to be Mysore, India. I thought I love going to Mysore and I love that practice, the room, I love the way Sharath holds it, the way Sharath teaches and so I've always tried to model it exactly on what he's doing in Mysore as close as I can. I'm basically only passing on as much as I understand of what he's doing and trying not to change things to my understanding. So it's really just dumb copy.
What gives the room in Mysore so much energy?
What do I think is sort of the key to being in Mysore and gives all that energy? It's obviously Sharath or Guruji. Yeah, I think the idea of pilgrimage too, that we're putting all of our resources into being there and it becomes our sole focus for that time. Yeah. Usually we're dealing with so much else in our lives, but when we're there that's all we're focusing on mostly and it seems to accelerate things so much.
What do things look like going forward for AYCT?
So going forward with my studio and with that community in Toronto, I would like to continue to provide the steady teaching for people and like to give what Mysore has given me, try to be that place where people can go for practice and just hold the space. I hope the community expands in the sense that I want more people to practice and I just want to do my duty, my job, which is to help people on the path as best as I can. More than that, I don't think I have to do more than that actually. I think that's enough.
Yeah. That's a lot actually. [laughs]. Yeah. I'm not going to improve on things. I'm not going to improve on the teaching. I'm not going to improve on the practice. So all I can do is hold that space. That's all I should do.