Having worked with a global network for over 20 years I value synergy and can see how it benefits both the practitioners/teachers as well as the students. Over the past four years, I have had the pleasure of working with yoga teachers, Suzanne and Ken Morgan at Yoga Space working independently as well as jointly. We have run the Back Health workshops together as well as organised Open Days and other joint yoga sessions. We continue to support each other in our yogic journey and will be organising several collaborative events in the near future.

I’ve been delighted to partner with Sara Winge, a Kundalini yoga teacher, to run the Expanding Your Heart workshop as well as a Gong-Inner Dance Immersion, and also organised Chakra Dance and Inner Dance sessions with Katie Holland and Ciara Shimara from the Inner Dance global circle.

In addition, I support and occasionally host traveling teachers and healers. Tristen Churn, a crystal visionary, high priest and yoga teacher, is a regular visiting practitioner to Penang.  A teacher I host almost annually is my own yoga master, David Goulet, so that more students can benefit from his Chakra Yoga teachings in Penang. I await with eager anticipation the upcoming visit of Pi Villaraza, founder of Inner Dance.

Yoga & Free-Flow Dance

Yoga and dance seem to have a natural synergy. It is more common these days to find yoga teachers who are also dancers or vice versa. I therefore keep my creative space and juices open to dance teachers who are willing to combine their movements with yogic movements and breath often synergising into some creative flowing workshops. So far I have organised two Chakra Dance sessions, the first with Katie Holland and more recently with Krisztina Mercozi. More such synergies may be on their way.

Partnering on Inner Journeys, Shamanic & Goddess work

I have forged a great link with Joanne Johnston, a psychologist and shamanic practitioner now residing in Penang. We have partnered doing a couple of workshops in 2016, the most well known being ROMANCING THE SELF. Using both shamanic techniques and other meditations to link to the inner goddesses, this workshop will be offered again in the near future. Our upcoming workshop includes ROMANCING THE SHADOW and probably a full day retreat that combines elements of ROMANCING THE SELF & THE SHADOW.

Other collaborative activities are in the works.

Every year I choose a charitable cause to support or work with a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) department for a worthy cause. I welcome organisations or businesses interested to partner in such charitable karma yoga events to contact me and look at possibilities for joint events to synergise our resources for the greater good of the community.

In 2013, funds raised from months of Chakra Yoga classes went to support typhoon victims in the Philippines through a local organisation in Pahlawan called Bahay Kalipay which hosts Inner Dance, Yoga  and Raw Food.

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In 2014, again my one charity class per week contributions for the year went to support single mothers with HIV aids. In the same year, a two day workshop was organised with the CSR department of the Rasa Sayang hotel to support Shan Children’s Home. Here my regular yoga students worked with me to teach over 20 children not just yoga, but ways to communicate and express themselves through yoga.

In 2015, many of my classes were dedicated to raising funds for earthquake victims in Nepal. In addition, significant contributions came from Chakra Yoga students and friends once they knew I was channeling funds through reliable sources in Nepal working through a Buddhist monastery to ensure that those most in need of help and supplies received the cash contributions.

In 2016, a charity yoga day was organised at the Gandhi Ashram in Penang to raise funds for the Rohingya (Burmese refugees) in Penang state. The funds went to the children’s Good Start Learning Centre.  The event also helped raise awareness of the plight of Rohingya refugeees.

In 2017, an early project was organised to support the Batu Grace Children’s Home (an orphanage with 83 children) in Kulim, Malaysia. Contributions from classes, cash and goods from chakra yoga students and friends helped tremendously allowing us to purchase 20 mattresses, food stuff, school stationery, towels, blankets and more. This effort was made in partnership with the Lions Club of Butterworth. To ensure some continuity of support, I continue to be a link person for collection of contributions, cash and children’s good quality second hand clothes, toys, shoes and stationery that can be shared with the 83 orphans from three to over 20 years of age at Batu Grace.

I offer tailor-made yoga sessions and workshops to organisations, non-profits and companies keen to incorporate yoga, health and well-being to their staff during retreats or conferences. Let me know your needs and I can design an appropriate session. Often an outdoor session such as by the beach or in nature can be very healing and rejuvenating.

Clients can also choose to hold a BACK HEALTH workshop for their staff or members or empowering sessions like the RELEASE THE WOMAN WITHIN workshop if your organisation has predominantly female members.

Special Yoga Outings & Meditations

On 1 Jan 2016 I took a group of 18 participants up the Thaipusam temple for a mini yogic pilgrimage with pranayama, asana practice and ended with a special meditation to welcome the New Year. Mini pilgrimages at sacred sites in Penang is something I may be offering more of in the near future.

In addition, I lead holiday outdoor classes when there is sufficient student interests or if a group wishes to have such a class.

This section is being developed to refer you to useful references and links about Chakra Yoga, Inner Dance, Energy & Sound Healing work as well as BODY-MIND connections and several science related talks and studies that show how much of our healing and transformation happens at the energetic level beyond what is understandable by conventional science and medicine.

BODY-MIND CONNECTIONS

Retraining the MIND to believe in the body’s own healing power and inner intelligence to self-regulate, rejuvenate and heal itself is a major aspect of Chakra Yoga. While other forms of authentic yoga also work on mind training and concentration techniques, the Chakra Yoga tradition of my teacher is very much science base as well and draws on recent scientific research that demonstrates the strong link between the way we think and feel affects our physical and emotional states. 

These research come from doctors and scientists such as Bruce Lipton, Joe Dispenza, Candace Pert, Greg Bradon, Deepak Chopra and other committed scientific minds, that strengthen the grounds for what yoga has known and taught for thousands of years. Science and ancient wisdom are meeting, and the new Science/knowledge about an Intelligent Field around us, matches the yogic understanding of the Akasha – the field of Consciousness that is in everything and everyone, and certainly within our body even at the most microscopic level. This is the field that one’s Mind can communicate with to magnetise our healing desires.

In the field of Biology, leading scientist Bruce Lipton, who studies genetic behaviour and interaction with the environment (Epigenetics), and who has written extensively on the BIOLOGY OF BELIEF and the BIOLOGY OF PERCEPTION, talks about how our perception or belief influences our genes and thus our body. The conventional belief is that our genes control our lives and thus determines our state of health, that our genes are more powerful than our mind. This has led many people into the rather hopeless conclusion that if they have bad genes from their parents, nothing much can be done.

However, the new scientific research shows a very different story: Genes do not inevitably express inherent tendencies such as cancer in cells (in the case of a ‘cancer cell’}. Instead, cells, more specifically their membranes, respond to their environmental signals and what those signals are determines how the cells respond. Among other things, our cellular bio-chemical environment is affected by our thoughts and beliefs. Thus, and the point here is this, our minds can affect our well being, our wellness.

The old science believes that traits like anxiety, obesity, personality are predominantly
influenced by our genes. More recent cellular research, however, showed that even when the cell nucleus (containing the genes) was removed, the cells continue to function normally without the genes. It was a revelation that a cell’s responsive intelligence did not lie with the genes or the nucleus but with the membrane’s receptor capacity that engaged with its environment.

Of course the cell with its nucleus removed dies off but it does so only because without the nucleus the cell does not have the ‘blueprints’ for generating new parts of the cell that have worn out. But the important point here is we are not victims of genetic predetermination – our cells have the ability to respond accordingly to the signals from its environment and we can have control over that environment.

See full video by Bruce Lipton on the BIOLOGY OF PERCEPTION

In the area of neuroplasticity, neuro-science and chiropractic doctor, Dr. Joe Dispenza, shows how by changing our minds, we can retrain our brain to make new neural pathways that are positive and healing replacing negative thought patterns with positive ones. Old thought patterns or rather old default programmes (located in the subconscious mind) control our lives and we feel we don’t have control. But when we learn new things, new ways of thinking, doing and acting, we make new neural pathways, new circuits in our brains. However, to maintain these new neural pathways and new thinking and behavioural patterns, we need on-going practice until they become the new programme. This is also what we do in yoga, by repeating the new thought patterns via affirmations, concentration and other techniques, then adding these to our physical movement and breath practice. Combining the mind, the body’s action with the breath becomes a powerful way to transform “psychosomatic” and other patterns that are destructive.

Dr Dispenza healed himself from a spinal injury due to a truck accident in his twenties within 10 weeks when 4 doctors were urging him to do a surgery for his back. Using his own knowledge of the body’s healing power and the power of the mind, Dr. Dispenza not only healed himself but is healing thousands of others directly and indirectly through his teachings. By teaching our body new sensory experiences and reprogramming our minds with repeated positive thoughts and the corresponding actions enough times we will develop new default programmes that will lead to vibrant health and vitality!

1. Joe Dispenza – Science of Changing your Mind on neuroplasticity (changing the hardware and software of our brain)

2. Joe Dispenza – Healing Power of Body-Mind Connection 

3. Joe Dispenza – How to Rewire & Evolve Your Brain to Experience a New Reality

BRUCE LIPTON VIDEO – “BRING HEALTH AND HAPPINESS INTO YOUR LIFE”

In addition to changing our Belief System, we also need to shift our EMOTIONAL states in alignment with our new beliefs. In other words, if we want to heal or stay healthy, then our emotions must also reflect the state of optimum health and wellness. What we think and what we say and how we feel all have to be aligned to attain our desired state of wellness. Even the words we say need to be aligned with our beliefs, thoughts and desired emotions.