The Teacher Who Changed Everything

When I look back at the teachers who shaped the beginning of my yoga journey, I can still feel each of them living somewhere within the way I practise and teach today. My early teachers played an enormously important role in my life, arriving at a time when I needed direction, discipline and something strong enough to meet the restless energy of a man in his mid-twenties who had not yet learned how to properly guide himself.

They all seemed to possess a particular kind of character. They were disciplined, authoritative and uncompromising. There was a definite “take no prisoners” quality to their teaching. You turned up, you listened, you held the posture and you stayed when your body and mind began telling you to leave. There was structure, repetition and expectation. Nobody seemed particularly interested in whether I was enjoying myself.

And, honestly, I needed that.

Those teachers taught me how to show up when I did not feel like showing up. They taught me that discomfort was not always a sign that something had gone wrong, and that there was often something valuable waiting on the other side of resistance. Through the discipline of the body, they gave me a way to begin organising my mind and my life.

For a long time, I assumed that this was simply what yoga was.

Then a friend invited me to attend a talk and workshop with an Indian guru who was touring the UK. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity. A real-life Indian guru was coming to town. How could I possibly say no? Before I arrived, I had already constructed a complete image of who he would be. I imagined someone deeply serious and otherworldly, dressed in flowing robes, speaking slowly and softly about enlightenment. I expected long silences, mysterious teachings and perhaps a blessing if I was fortunate enough to get close to him. In my imagination, he would be calm, distant and almost impossibly serene, as though he had transcended ordinary human behaviour altogether.

The man I met was nothing like that.

His version of yoga began with us jumping up and down until our hearts were pounding. We clapped our hands, sang loudly and moved around the room with very little concern for dignity or composure. At one point, we held hands with complete strangers and ran around a vast exhibition hall like a group of overexcited children. Then he would suddenly shout, “Stop!” We would freeze, breathless and confused, and he would look around the room and ask, “Are you not happy to be here? Why are you not smiling?” He would tell a joke, laugh at his own joke, and then off we would go again. Jump. Clap. Sing. Run. Stop. Laugh. There were no alignment cues. Nobody told me where to position my front knee or how to rotate my shoulders. There was no serious spiritual pilgrimage through increasingly complicated postures. There was no sense that we were trying to impress anyone with how flexible, disciplined or spiritually advanced we were.

He was offering us something entirely different. At first, it might have looked like chaos. It might even have looked a little ridiculous. But it was not madness for the sake of madness, and it was not simply entertainment. There was purpose beneath the playfulness. There was intention within the apparent disorder. He was inviting us to loosen our grip on the version of ourselves we had walked into the room carrying. As adults, we become incredibly skilled at holding ourselves together. We learn how to appear appropriate, composed and in control. We learn which parts of ourselves are acceptable in public and which should be carefully hidden. Even in yoga, where we speak so often about freedom and authenticity, it is easy to create another identity to perform. We try to look like good students. We attempt to move correctly, breathe correctly and sit silently enough to appear peaceful. But it is difficult to maintain that performance while jumping up and down, laughing with strangers and running around a room holding someone else’s hand.

Something had to be dropped.

What struck me most deeply was the way he related to the people in the room. He seemed completely on our level, fully human and completely available, yet at the same time there was an unmistakable depth to him. It felt as though he could have placed himself on a pedestal, but was actively choosing not to. He worked hard to remove the barrier between student and guru rather than strengthen it. I loved that. He was not asking us to look up at him. There were meditations too, along with moments of profound stillness and silence, but they seemed to arise organically rather than being forced. The silence did not feel like a technique we had to master or a destination we were attempting to reach. It appeared naturally after the movement, the laughter and the surrender of self-consciousness. One moment we were running around like children, and the next we were sitting together in complete stillness. The quiet felt alive. There was humility in him, but there was also humour. There was humanity, warmth and a freedom that I had not experienced in yoga before. His presence did not make me want to become more impressive. It allowed me to stop trying to impress altogether.

For me, the experience was profound.

I remember thinking, “Is this what yoga could be?” I felt alive and vulnerable in the best possible way. I was not attempting to perform a posture, achieve a spiritual state or prove that I belonged in the room. For a few hours, the usual armour had loosened. I was simply participating, connecting and allowing myself to be moved by the experience.

That evening, I went home with a much wider understanding of yoga.

Yoga was not found only in the formal shape of a posture. It could be discovered within the seemingly insignificant moments of connection between a friend, a teacher or a stranger. It could be found in holding someone’s hand and running across a room. It could be found in laughter, spontaneity and the willingness to look a little foolish. It could be found in letting go and moving like a child. And it could still be found in silence. Perhaps the movement and the stillness were never opposites. Perhaps both were doorways into the same experience: a moment in which the performance of who we think we should be becomes quiet enough for something more honest to emerge. To this day, I can recognise all of my early teachers within me. The structure and discipline they taught remain at the heart of my personal practice and my teaching. Showing up matters. Learning to stay present when something becomes difficult matters. Building strength, steadiness and resilience through the body matters.

I will always be grateful for those lessons.

But anyone who has practised with me will probably recognise another influence too. You may have been asked to jump around the room, shake your whole body, make a strange sound, hug someone, offer a high five or take part in some other form of what might politely be described as hippie madness. And then, maybe without much warning, I will invite you to become completely still.

That is him. That is Swami G teaching through my body. He did not erase the lessons of my earlier teachers. He completed them. They taught me the importance of discipline, and he taught me not to become imprisoned by it. They showed me how to hold steady, and he showed me how to let go. They taught me to meet the difficult moments, and he reminded me that joy, playfulness and human connection could be every bit as transformative. He changed my understanding of what a yoga teacher could be. More importantly, he changed my understanding of where yoga could be found. Sometimes yoga is in the posture. Sometimes it is in the silence after the posture. And sometimes it is running around a room, holding hands with a stranger, laughing so freely that for one brief and beautiful moment, you forget who you thought you were supposed to be.

Thanks for being here.

Stuart