gregor maehle
Gregor has studied History, Philosophy, Indology and Comparative Science of Religion. He also holds a German Health Practitioner license. He began practicing meditation in 1980, yoga in 1985 and Ashtanga Yoga in 1996. He lived in India for several years during the 1980's and 90's where he studied the many branches of yoga under various masters.
In 2006 Gregor published the comprehensive textbook 'Ashtanga Yoga, Practice and Philosophy', which has since been republished in the USA, India, Finland, Japan and is currently being translated into Russian and Czech. Gregor's much anticipated follow-up volume 'Ashtanga Yoga, The Intermediate Series' was publish to wide acclaim in 2009.
Gregor is currently not teaching general classes but works in technical and scriptural yoga research and trains the 8 Limbs teachers in philosophy, pranayama, mudra, meditation and Sanskrit chanting. He currenly offers the following services through the medium of the internet, which are particularly suitable for those who don't have a senior teacher available locally:
1. Half hour consult $119 (Australian Dollars)
Ideal for general and simple questions about your practice and yoga or general problems of limited scope. You send me your questions or problems in writing and I may ask you specific questions. You will then obtain a written report. These questions or problems may be related to any aspects of your yoga practice not just asana. If your question is beyond my scope I will refund your money.
2. One hour consult $199 (Australian Dollars)
Ideal for those who need technical support with a specific problem in their yoga practice, i.e. knee injuries, low back problems, shoulder problems etc. or obstacles that prevent them from developing their practice further. This will typically mean that you send me a series of photographs of you and your practice with questions pertaining to the problem at hand. You will obtain a written report containing an analysis of your problem, potential causes and contributing factors, your problem in a yogic context as well as yoga therapy options, injury rehabilitation and solutions.
3. Initial video consult of your entire practice $499 (Australian Dollars)
You send me a video recording of your entire practice. I will analyse it step by step, vinyasa for vinyasa and asana for asana. I will prepare a detailed written report with suggestions for change or improvement. I will analyse pace, alignment, precision and will also scan for structural weaknesses and how they might be improved, for example shifting more emphasis towards backbending, forward bending or arm-balances. You are likely to get much more feedback in this session than from attending many yoga classes.
4. Follow-up video consult of your entire practice $399 (Australian Dollars)
Once you are confident that you have implemented a significant part of my suggestions you may book a follow-up consult. I will then analyse whether you need to go further into the direction previously suggested or whether a secondary layer of issues has surfaced that now needs your attention.
Please note the following advantages to this teaching method:
1. You will obtain a written report that you can study over and over again until you are sure that you have implemented all of my suggestions. During general yoga classes the students are often too preoccupied with their existing practice to be really open for change and suggestions and there is only a certain number of suggestions that you will be able to retain. Similarly the teacher has limited time at their disposal as other students are waiting for adjustments.
2. Consider the amount of time and money spent on either you or me travelling around the world so that I may teach you in person. Most of this time would be spent in planes, airports, taxis and hotels with the associated costs. Comparatively little time is spent in the actual transmitting of information.
3. Consider that if I would travel to your country to teach your community I would have to teach a large group to cover the costs of travelling. Due to the likely size of the group you would get little or none of my undivided attention.
4. Consider the amount of greenhouse emission created by such travelling. Apart from travelling into space, intercontinental air travel is the most energy intense and least sustainable human activity.
5. Far too much energy in transmitting yoga is spent with students and teachers figuring out whether they do like each other and then to process the outcome of these findings. This process in psychology is called ‘projection’. Yoga takes the backseat in all of this as all too often the personage of the teacher draws the attention while the actual teaching languishes. There is a long tradition in India for teachers to be silent either entirely or for long phases in their lifes and to teach mainly through the written word to avoid the above-mentioned projection.
