Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica Matt & Monica

OK, so January is almost over, but that doesn't mean we cannot still develop some new habits and work on those resolutions we made at the beginning of the year! Monica tells us it only takes 21 days to develop a new habit - so why not use that power to achieve something wonderful?Our idea (and we don't claim it's original!) is to encourage you to start a personal (yoga) practice. Something simple. Something sustainable. Something you will do every day, and will see and feel a benefit from. So...

How quickly and dramatically can things change? In a global pandemic, the answer is "VERY"! In the last episode Monica was looking forward to Christmas in Slovakia and her birthday (and New Year) in Sicily. However, Monica is now in splendid isolation at home after testing positive before trying to take the flight to Sicily. Matt was busy preparing for a Christmas for seven family members, but in the end it was three people and one dog - everyone else at home also having caught Covid...We con...

We decided to celebrate the end of the year by listening back to the guests we had over the last year; to share the impressions we had, the lessons we learned, the beautiful stories shared. However, we were really only half way through when time was up (a booster vaccination appointment was calling!). So this is just part 1. We will talk about everyone before the year is out... (hopefully!)What have we learned? CHANGE. Everything changes, and we are certainly not the people we were at t...

Born in the US Pacific Northwest, Michael was a bookish child, not so comfortable in his body. He grew up in a loving family, but one that had no specific religious or spiritual practice. Realising he was good at school work, he decided to be really good at school. This eventually led to a full ride scholarship to University.It was while at college that he discovered dance, and took his first yoga class. Soon he was a regular at the local Bikram studio, as well as adding dance to his degree p...

Born in South Africa, Shannon had an idyllic childhood including time at a catholic boarding school. Sensing the world was bigger than what she saw of it in her home country, she moved to London and enjoyed all the big city can offer.Along the way she became acquainted with yoga and meditation, but it wasn't until she went on a month long Buddhist meditation retreat that her life turned a corner and she set out in a different direction. Eventually she ended up working in France at a meditatio...

Tessa is half-Belgian, half-American and is a teacher at Yyoga in Brussels. Monica and Matt chat to Tessa about when and how she discovered yoga - as a student in Florida. Tessa seems to have taken a very different course through life after her introduction to yoga than the one she had envisaged when she went to the USA to complete post-graduate studies.Tessa found yoga (or yoga found Tessa) after she had already instigated a spiritual practice. Her yoga practice helps to put her in a place t...