Stillpoints: A Podcast with Scott Johnson – Details, episodes & analysis

In this wide ranging conversation Scott Johnson talks to Dr Mark Williams, professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford and director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, about mindfulness meditation and its ability to treat and prevent depression. Mark was raised in a devout Christian household, and at a young age believed his calling was with the ministry. His path changed while studying clinical psychology at university, where he was drawn to the field of treating adult mental health.

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We’d like to invite you to join our growing monthly Stillpoint Online Yoga community. For just £20 per month you can support the podcast and every Monday evening join The Still Space, our live stream yoga philosophy, mindfulness, pranayama and discussion sessions hosted by Scott Johnson. You can also gain access to our growing Stillpoint Online library of helpful yoga and mindfulness content.

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In this conversation, Mark explains how cognitive therapy and mindfulness can be used to reduce the risk of relapse in people who have experienced depression. Mindfulness, unlike antidepressants and cognitive therapy, is uniquely effective as a preventative measure against poor mental health. By engaging in mindfulness even when we are not depressed, we can lower the risk of it affecting us in the first place. Among many rich and inspiring stories Mark shares how he developed MBCT after working with Jon Kabat Zinn, the founder of modern day mindfulness practices.

Mark shares:

• How he developed MBCT with his colleagues and working directly with Jon Kabat Zinn
• How he experienced the transformational power of mindfulness meditation only after having abandoned it.
• How mindfulness and his Christian faith work in tandem, with surprising similarities between Buddhist awareness meditation and the Gospel of St John.
• How, within the Christian contemplative tradition, God can be understood as the ‘loving heart’ at the centre of the universe.
• How effective the combination of cognitive therapy and mindfulness is at reducing the risk of relapse.
• The limitations and contraindications of mindfulness.
• How liberation is to be found in the present moment, and that each moment is a possible moment of freedom.

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Mark Williams is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford, having held posts at the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge and the University of Wales, Bangor. He co-developed Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy and founded the University of Oxford’s Mindfulness Centre that works to prevent depression and enhance human potential through the therapeutic use of mindfulness across the lifespan. His books include The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (with John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn) and Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World (with Danny Penman). His most recent work focuses on how to sustain and deepen mindfulness through a programme that explores feeling tone (vedanā) 'frame by frame', as explained in Deeper Mindfulness (2023).

You can find more about Mark here:

• Oxford Mindfulness Foundation
• Wikipedia
• Books

"This conversation with Dr Mark Williams gives a beautiful insight into one of the foremost leaders in the field of mindfulness over the past 40 years. Mark shares not only his involvement in the growth of mindfulness based interventions but also about his own journey with mindfulness. It is one of my favourite conversations yet...."

Scott Johnson - September 2023

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If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Pamela Weiss, Peter Levitt and Martin Aylward.

In this deep and rewarding conversation Scott Johnson talks to author, yoga teacher and mystic Gregor Maehle on his life as a seeker in the contemplative and spiritual traditions. Gregor shares how his childhood created the bedrock for a life of spiritual discovery, the outcome being a life embedded within the mystical limbs of yoga and contemplative practice.

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We’d like to invite you to join our growing monthly Stillpoint Online Yoga community. For just £20 per month you can support the podcast and every Monday evening join The Still Space, our live stream yoga philosophy, mindfulness, pranayama and discussion sessions hosted by Scott Johnson. You can also gain access to our growing Stillpoint Online library of helpful yoga and mindfulness content.

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Scott and Gregor talk openly about Gregor’s life as a yoga practitioner and mystic. Gregor shares:

• How he grew up in a catholic upbringing.
• How he had a mystical experience aged 6.
• How his parents saw something deep in him from an early age.
• How he read mystical books from a very young age.
• How he took psychedelics in his late teens but the integration as a spiritual experience didn’t work.
• How in his twenties he did the guru trail in India.
• How he decided to spend his life doing personal sadhana.
• Why mystical experiences are not spontaneous.
• Why you should work with hypotheses rather than belief.
• Why the mystical state is your birth right.
• How in his forties he developed a relationship with Jesus.
• How the ego gets in the way of the mystical experience and is known in many traditions with different names.
• How we need to be in the service of all beings.
• Why yoga is the most powerful tool for transformation.
• What the inspiration is that he uses to write his books.
• How we can all find our life’s purpose.
• How we can stay connected to nature.
• What the most important thing is that he has discovered through his practice.

Gregor Maehle began his yogic practices 45 years ago. In the mid-1980s he commenced annual travels to India, where he studied with various yogic and tantric masters, traditional Indian sadhus and ascetics. He spent fourteen months in Mysore, and in 1997 was authorised to teach Ashtanga Yoga by K. Pattabhi Jois. Since then he has branched out into researching the anatomical alignment of postures and the higher limbs of yoga. 

In India Gregor also received eight months of mostly one-on-one instruction in scripture and the higher limbs of Yoga through B.N.S. Iyengar, a student of T. Krishnamacharya, and he studied Sanskrit under Professor Narayanachar and Dr Chandrasekhar. Gregor’s internationally acclaimed textbook series consisting of Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy, Ashtanga Yoga: The Intermediate Series, Pranayama: The Breath of Yoga, Yoga Meditation: Through Mantra, Chakras and Kundalini to Spiritual Freedom, Samadhi The Great Freedom, How to Find Your Life’s Divine Purpose, Chakras, Drugs & Evolution and Mudras: Seals of Yoga – have sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into eight foreign languages. Additional volumes currently prepared are Tantric Meditation and Bhakti: Yoga of Love. Gregor has been invited to many countries to teach and has contributed to and been interviewed by numerous yoga magazines. On Gregor’s blog page chintamaniyoga.com/blog/ you will find over 300 articles, videos and podcasts on all aspects of yoga, which Gregor has authored together with his wife Monica.

Today Gregor teaches an anatomically sophisticated interpretation of traditional vinyasa yoga, integrated into the practice of the higher limbs in the spirit of Patanjali and T. Krishnamacharya. His zany sense of humour, his manifold personal experiences, and his vast and deep knowledge of scripture, Indian philosophies and yogic techniques combine to make his teachings applicable, relevant and easily accessible to all his students. 

You can find more about Gregor here:

• Website
• Blog
• Books

In this deep and rewarding conversation Scott Johnson talks to author, yoga teacher and mystic Gregor Maehle on his life as a seeker in the contemplative and spiritual traditions. Gregor shares how his childhood created the bedrock for a life of spiritual discovery, the outcome being a life embedded within the mystical limbs of yoga and contemplative practice.

We’d like to invite you to join our growing monthly Stillpoint Online Yoga community. For just £20 per month you can support the podcast and every Monday evening join The Still Space, our live stream yoga philosophy, mindfulness, pranayama and discussion sessions hosted by Scott Johnson. You can also gain access to our growing Stillpoint Online library of helpful yoga and mindfulness content.

Scott and Gregor talk openly about Gregor’s life as a yoga practitioner and mystic. Gregor shares:

• How he grew up in a catholic upbringing.
• How he had a mystical experience aged 6.
• How his parents saw something deep in him from an early age.
• How he read mystical books from a very young age.
• How he took psychedelics in his late teens but the integration as a spiritual experience didn’t work.
• How in his twenties he did the guru trail in India.
• How he decided to spend his life doing personal sadhana.
• Why mystical experiences are not spontaneous.
• Why you should work with hypotheses rather than belief.
• Why the mystical state is your birth right.
• How in his forties he developed a relationship with Jesus.
• How the ego gets in the way of the mystical experience and is known in many traditions with different names.
• How we need to be in the service of all beings.
• Why yoga is the most powerful tool for transformation.
• What the inspiration is that he uses to write his books.
• How we can all find our life’s purpose.
• How we can stay connected to nature.
• What the most important thing is that he has discovered through his practice.

Gregor Maehle began his yogic practices 45 years ago. In the mid-1980s he commenced annual travels to India, where he studied with various yogic and tantric masters, traditional Indian sadhus and ascetics. He spent fourteen months in Mysore, and in 1997 was authorised to teach Ashtanga Yoga by K. Pattabhi Jois. Since then he has branched out into researching the anatomical alignment of postures and the higher limbs of yoga. 

In India Gregor also received eight months of mostly one-on-one instruction in scripture and the higher limbs of Yoga through B.N.S. Iyengar, a student of T. Krishnamacharya, and he studied Sanskrit under Professor Narayanachar and Dr Chandrasekhar. Gregor’s internationally acclaimed textbook series consisting of Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy, Ashtanga Yoga: The Intermediate Series, Pranayama: The Breath of Yoga, Yoga Meditation: Through Mantra, Chakras and Kundalini to Spiritual Freedom, Samadhi The Great Freedom, How to Find Your Life’s Divine Purpose, Chakras, Drugs & Evolution and Mudras: Seals of Yoga – have sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into eight foreign languages. Additional volumes currently prepared are Tantric Meditation and Bhakti: Yoga of Love. Gregor has been invited to many countries to teach and has contributed to and been interviewed by numerous yoga magazines. On Gregor’s blog page chintamaniyoga.com/blog/ you will find over 300 articles, videos and podcasts on all aspects of yoga, which Gregor has authored together with his wife Monica.

Today Gregor teaches an anatomically sophisticated interpretation of traditional vinyasa yoga, integrated into the practice of the higher limbs in the spirit of Patanjali and T. Krishnamacharya. His zany sense of humour, his manifold personal experiences, and his vast and deep knowledge of scripture, Indian philosophies and yogic techniques combine to make his teachings applicable, relevant and easily accessible to all his students. 

You can find more about Gregor here:

• Website
• Blog
• Books

“This conversation with Gregor is grounded in deep insight. Gregor has lives such a rich life of study and practice that his teachings are a visceral outcome of personal committed study. Gregor shares life experiences that are at the same time teachings. We all can find a deeper way to interact  with ourselves and the world. Gregor is a testament to that… “

Scott Johnson – April 2023

If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Ty Landrum, Simon Borg Olivier and Frank Jude Boccio.

In this deep and rewarding conversation Scott Johnson talks to author, yoga teacher and mystic Gregor Maehle on his life as a seeker in the contemplative and spiritual traditions. Gregor shares how his childhood created the bedrock for a life of spiritual discovery, the outcome being a life embedded within the mystical limbs of yoga and contemplative practice.

We’d like to invite you to join our growing monthly Stillpoint Online Yoga community. For just £20 per month you can support the podcast and every Monday evening join The Still Space, our live stream yoga philosophy, mindfulness, pranayama and discussion sessions hosted by Scott Johnson. You can also gain access to our growing Stillpoint Online library of helpful yoga and mindfulness content.

Scott and Gregor talk openly about Gregor’s life as a yoga practitioner and mystic. Gregor shares:

• How he grew up in a catholic upbringing.
• How he had a mystical experience aged 6.
• How his parents saw something deep in him from an early age.
• How he read mystical books from a very young age.
• How he took psychedelics in his late teens but the integration as a spiritual experience didn’t work.
• How in his twenties he did the guru trail in India.
• How he decided to spend his life doing personal sadhana.
• Why mystical experiences are not spontaneous.
• Why you should work with hypotheses rather than belief.
• Why the mystical state is your birth right.
• How in his forties he developed a relationship with Jesus.
• How the ego gets in the way of the mystical experience and is known in many traditions with different names.
• How we need to be in the service of all beings.
• Why yoga is the most powerful tool for transformation.
• What the inspiration is that he uses to write his books.
• How we can all find our life’s purpose.
• How we can stay connected to nature.
• What the most important thing is that he has discovered through his practice.

Gregor Maehle began his yogic practices 45 years ago. In the mid-1980s he commenced annual travels to India, where he studied with various yogic and tantric masters, traditional Indian sadhus and ascetics. He spent fourteen months in Mysore, and in 1997 was authorised to teach Ashtanga Yoga by K. Pattabhi Jois. Since then he has branched out into researching the anatomical alignment of postures and the higher limbs of yoga. 

In India Gregor also received eight months of mostly one-on-one instruction in scripture and the higher limbs of Yoga through B.N.S. Iyengar, a student of T. Krishnamacharya, and he studied Sanskrit under Professor Narayanachar and Dr Chandrasekhar. Gregor’s internationally acclaimed textbook series consisting of Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy, Ashtanga Yoga: The Intermediate Series, Pranayama: The Breath of Yoga, Yoga Meditation: Through Mantra, Chakras and Kundalini to Spiritual Freedom, Samadhi The Great Freedom, How to Find Your Life’s Divine Purpose, Chakras, Drugs & Evolution and Mudras: Seals of Yoga – have sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into eight foreign languages. Additional volumes currently prepared are Tantric Meditation and Bhakti: Yoga of Love. Gregor has been invited to many countries to teach and has contributed to and been interviewed by numerous yoga magazines. On Gregor’s blog page chintamaniyoga.com/blog/ you will find over 300 articles, videos and podcasts on all aspects of yoga, which Gregor has authored together with his wife Monica.

Today Gregor teaches an anatomically sophisticated interpretation of traditional vinyasa yoga, integrated into the practice of the higher limbs in the spirit of Patanjali and T. Krishnamacharya. His zany sense of humour, his manifold personal experiences, and his vast and deep knowledge of scripture, Indian philosophies and yogic techniques combine to make his teachings applicable, relevant and easily accessible to all his students. 

You can find more about Gregor here:

• Website
• Blog
• Books

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“This conversation with Gregor is grounded in deep insight. Gregor has lives such a rich life of study and practice that his teachings are a visceral outcome of personal committed study. Gregor shares life experiences that are at the same time teachings. We all can find a deeper way to interact  with ourselves and the world. Gregor is a testament to that… “

Scott Johnson – April 2023

If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Ty Landrum, Simon Borg Olivier and Frank Jude Boccio.

“This conversation with Gregor is grounded in deep insight. Gregor has lives such a rich life of study and practice that his teachings are a visceral outcome of personal committed study. Gregor shares life experiences that are at the same time teachings. We all can find a deeper way to interact  with ourselves and the world. Gregor is a testament to that… “

Scott Johnson – April 2023

If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Ty Landrum, Simon Borg Olivier and Frank Jude Boccio.

In this deeply honest conversation Scott Johnson talks to Ty Powers, co-founder of the Insight Yoga Institute. They have a moving conversation on Ty's life of contemplative practice and his teaching of mindfulness meditation for over 25 years.

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We’d like to invite you to join our growing monthly Stillpoint Yoga community. We teach in-person in London Bridge and live stream online Ashtanga Yoga assisted self practice and guided classes, with weekly yoga clinics and philosophy sessions guided by Scott Johnson and the Stillpoint teaching faculty. We also have a growing library of on-demand content. It’s a beautiful way to navigate these times…

Also, consider joining our Patreon community. We share these podcasts every 2 weeks and would love your feedback, input and support. You can even join a monthly live call to share your thoughts.

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Ty Powers co-founded the Insight Yoga Institute with his wife Sarah Powers. He has been leading Yoga and Buddha Dharma/mindfulness meditation retreats throughout the world for over 25 years. Ty completed the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader training program in 2003 and has led daylong retreats on cultural diversity. He offers one on one sessions in Internal Family Systems, and as a Change and Transition Strategist and Certified Integral Coach. Ty also sits on the board of Studio BE and serves as it’s Senior Ethics Advisor.

Ty shares how contemplative practice was not only a way to find oneness and a deeper connection to life, but also a way to navigate being African American in a world that sees you differently. He subsequently talks about the impact this has had on his life. As a response, Ty shares how we can all learn to see differently using the tools of mediation.

You can find out more about Ty’s work here.

"For me this conversation with Ty Powers is deeply profound and important. Ty is a highly skilled and experienced Buddha Dharma and mindfulness teacher who has to deal with everyday racism. His openess in this conversation is stunning, giving a deep insight into what it means to be African American in a world that sees you differently. This conversation is an important listen for those of us who have privilege"

Scott Johnson - April 2022 

If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Sarah Powers, Wambui Njuguna-Räisänen, Laruga Glaser and Martin Aylward.

Scott Johnson talks to Sarah Powers, a long term teacher of yoga and Buddha Dharma, about her life of contemplative practice and its culmination in her new book 'Lit From Within'.

We’d like to invite you to join our growing monthly Stillpoint Yoga community. We teach in-person in London Bridge and live stream online Ashtanga Yoga assisted self practice and guided classes, with weekly yoga clinics and philosophy sessions guided by Scott Johnson and the Stillpoint teaching faculty. We also have a growing library of on-demand content. It’s a beautiful way to navigate these times…

Also, consider joining our Patreon community. We share these podcasts every 2 weeks and would love your feedback, input and support. You can even join a monthly live call to share your thoughts.

Sarah Powers is an author, therapist and co-founder of Insight Yoga Institute. Her work is led by a desire for healing, and over the past 35 years Sarah has explored a number of healing modalities. Her yoga practise began with Ashtanga in the company of Chuck Miller, Maty Ezraty, Tim Miller, and Richard Freeman. There she found a daily ritual, an invitation to explore what changes on the inside, when on the surface things might look the same.

In this rich and generous conversation, Sarah shares how a profound experience she had while on retreat with Jack Kornfield deeply impacted her life. She’d been a yoga practitioner for over a decade at that point, but this was the time that it first truly made sense to her. Her previous practise served as a preparation for the Buddhist teachings she encountered. She studied both Theravada and Dzogchen, and saw comparisons with her previous studies in Advaita Vedanta. Sarah believes that underlying the multiplicity of teachers and traditions, they would all agree on the fundamental nature of freedom.

Over time, Sarah moved away from teaching Ashtanga yoga and towards a more Yin based approach, but the essence of inquiry that she first found in Ashtanga remains. Now, she combines yoga with mindfulness meditation in her classes, integrating yoga and Buddha Dharma with the intention of introducing beginners to meditation.

She is the author of Insight Yoga and her most recent book Lit from Within takes a holistic approach to healing our five experiential centres: the physical, energetic, mental, emotional, and interpersonal realms.

You can find out more about Sarah’s work here.

"This conversation with Sarah is so, so rich. I had wanted to speak to Sarah for a while, for her to expand on her beautiful view and experience on how the Buddha Dharma and yoga traditions blend together. I got so much and more. Sarah's wonderful and insightful way of seeing these practices and then sharing them is visceral and compelling. This conversation will leave you feeling like you've stepped right into the middle of Sarah's world. Full, inviting and so, so rich..."

Scott Johnson - January 2022 

If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with  Kia Naddermier, Martin Aylward and Ann Weston

Scott talks to Ashtanga yoga teacher Ty Landrum about yoga and how it ‘ruined his life’ in the best possible way.

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We’d like to invite you to join our growing monthly Stillpoint Yoga community. We teach in-person in London Bridge and live stream online Ashtanga Yoga assisted self practice and guided classes, with weekly yoga clinics and philosophy sessions guided by Scott Johnson and the Stillpoint teaching faculty. We also have a growing library of on-demand content. It’s a beautiful way to navigate these times…

Also, consider joining our Patreon community. We share these podcasts every 2 weeks and would love your feedback, input and support. You can even join a monthly live call to share your thoughts.

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Ty is renowned for his understanding of philosophy and academic knowledge. He never liked school, but after being awarded a wrestling scholarship Ty decided he’d go to college. While there, he found himself wrestling with the problem of the general disorientation he experienced within his day-to-day life. Philosophy seemed to offer clues to the answers he was searching for, and so he continued to study, and now holds a PhD in the subject.

He attended his first yoga class while he was at college. He was experiencing depression, and his friend encouraged him to go to a class with Jennifer Eliot. Ty experienced something immediate and visceral in that yoga class, something he’d been grasping for in his studies but newer fully realised. It changed his way of relating to philosophy, and it equipped him with the tools he needed to process the deep grief he had been carrying following the loss of two important people in his life.

In this sensitive and intelligent conversation, Ty shares about the clumsiness of academics, the wisdom of the body, and the primacy of human touch. He talks about the revelation of meeting Richard Freeman with his syncretic approach to philosophy. He discusses different wisdom traditions that, despite superficial differences, are united in their overall goal of spreading compassion. For Ty, yoga has been a path to intimacy, communion and relationship with all aspects of his life.

You can find out more about Ty’s work here.

‘Ty is one of the most intelligent and wise Ashtanga teachers in the field of yoga at the moment. The way he weaves yoga asana and philosophy together through stories, wisdom and language is beautiful and I wanted to capture how he got there. This conversation actually weaves like its own story, capturing the real spirit of how yoga has evolved in Ty's life. Bring a note book. There is so much to notice...'

Scott Johnson - January 2022 

If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Petri Räisänen,  Kia Naddermier and Dr Matthew Clark

Scott talks to yoga teacher, writer and renowned podcast host J.Brown 

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We’d like to invite you to join our growing monthly Stillpoint Yoga community. We teach in-person in London Bridge and live stream online Ashtanga Yoga assisted self practice and guided classes, with weekly yoga clinics and philosophy sessions guided by Scott Johnson and the Stillpoint teaching faculty. We also have a growing library of on-demand content. It’s a beautiful way to navigate these times…

Also, consider joining our Patreon community. We share these podcasts every 2 weeks and would love your feedback, input and support. You can even join a monthly live call to share your thoughts. 

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J.Brown has been practising yoga for nearly thirty years, and teaching for almost twenty. In that time he taught at studios in New York, managed his own studio, and has been an early adopter of teaching yoga online. His ‘Yoga Talks’ is one of the most widely listened to yoga podcasts - you can listen to his episode with Scott Johnson here.  

J came to yoga after his mum died at a young age. Yoga made him feel better, even in moments when he thought feeling better wasn’t possible. Yoga helped J. to process his grief, and over time his practise evolved from a physically intense asana practise to something more gentle. J. went on to develop his own personal teaching style of ‘gentle is the new advanced’. 

In this wide-ranging conversation, J. shares about the challenges of establishing himself as a ‘gentle’ yoga teacher when power yoga was at its peak.  J. talks about how his podcast developed, as well as the push-back he has received as a result of his decision to publish certain podcast episodes.

Throughout the conversation, J. keeps coming back to how yoga is a practise of praise. Where once he might have distanced himself from it, now he embraces his spirituality and the mystical wonder of life. 

You can find out more about J.’s work here.

‘J hosts one of the leading yoga podcasts of the past five years and has spoken to hundreds of people. He was also a great help in setting the Stillpoints Podcast up. In speaking to J I wanted to get underneath what is meaningful for him. This conversation is at one point informative and another so tender. I so appreciated J allowing me to go on a journey with him...'

Scott Johnson - December 2021 

If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Frank Jude Boccio, Zephyr Wildman, Lucille Meyer and Dr Matthew Clark 

Scott talks to Ashtanga yoga teacher and co-founder of the Miami Life Centre Tim Feldmann about the past, present and future of teaching Ashtanga yoga. In this nuanced and meaningful conversation, Tim and Scott discuss dancing as a spiritual practise, movement as a healing modality, and the teacher’s role as a vessel for knowledge.

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We’d like to invite you to join our growing monthly Stillpoint Yoga community. We teach in-person in London Bridge and live stream online Ashtanga Yoga assisted self practice and guided classes, with weekly yoga clinics and philosophy sessions guided by Scott Johnson and the Stillpoint teaching faculty. We also have a growing library of on-demand content. It’s a beautiful way to navigate these times…

Also, consider joining our Patreon community. We share these podcasts every 2 weeks and would love your feedback, input and support. You can even join a monthly live call to share your thoughts. 

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Tim found his way to yoga after a catastrophic accident in Venezuela in 1992 interrupted his professional dancing career. He encountered Lino Miele in the late 1990’s, who set Tim on the path to practising with Pattabhi Jois in Mysore. There he met his wife, Kino MacGregor, and in 2006 they founded the Miami Life Centre, where they continue to teach together to this day. 

Tim shares openly about the fear he felt before practising with Jois, who even then had a reputation for fearsome physical adjustments. When Tim finally felt ready to practise with him (after completing Advanced A), he recalls feeling gratitude for the assists he received. 

Since Karen Rain’s revelations of sexual assault at the hands of Jois, Tim has had to come to terms with how his experience was at odds with that of the women Jois abused. He asks himself how he failed to notice, talking to Scott about how ‘crazy and amazing’ those days in Mysore were, concluding that sometimes people ‘surrendered’ at the expense of the safety of themselves and those around them. 

Since opening the Miami Life Centre in 2006, Tim has moved his own teaching away from a hierarchical model and towards one that prioritises safety and inclusiveness. Having been confronted with the somewhat blasé attitude towards anatomy in the early days, he’s relieved to see a more detailed and logical approach developing in recent years.

He talks about the value and limitations of lineage and hierarchy - that structure can create clarity, but space to explore is essential. He talks about the ‘lineage holders’ of Ashtanga yoga, and the nature of how knowledge is passed down.

And finally, reflecting on the past couple of years, Tim concludes with how nothing is more important in life than being there for other people. 

Tim is the co-founder and captain of the world-wide recognized Miami Life Center and of the newly opened Miami Yoga Garage - a new ambitious Shala and cultural house in Miami's fun Wynwood district. He has practiced yoga since 1994 and Ashtanga Since 1999. Authorized to teach by Pattabhi Jois and Sharath Jois he explores core concepts and modern boundaries of Patanjali’s yoga teachings alike. A practitioner of Ashtanga Yoga’s Advanced A Series Tim finds Ashtanga’s traditional method an exceptional path towards healing, wisdom and self-realisation. Drawing upon his past as an internationally successful dancer and acclaimed choreographer, anatomy, alignment and technique is his second nature. Tim has been pursuing in-depth studies of Patanjali, Sankhya and Vedanta over the past 7 years with Vidwan Nagaraja Rao, Jayashree & Narasimha and other exceptional scholars in South India. Cherished worldwide for his fun, disciplined and detailed pursuit of authentic yoga and his compassionately effective touch, Tim travels to yoga shalas around the globe with the inclusive message of how study, steadiness and devotion is the means to powerful transformation both inside and outside of us.

You can find out more about Tim’s work here.

‘This conversation with Tim Feldmann was so good. For quite a while I’ve wanted to talk to someone like Tim, who is one of the most recognisable of the current generation of Ashtanga teachers, about where the sharing of Ashtanga Yoga  finds itself. Tim was so open and honest about his own process,  where we are currently and what’s possible in the future. I was left feeling like I had found a new friend to ge deep with. This conversation is essential if you care about sharing the practice of Ashtanga yoga to others…’

Scott Johnson – November 2021 

Scott talks to Ashtanga yoga teacher Ellen Johannesen. A professional dancer at the time, Ellen travelled to the Lakshmipuram Institute (the ‘old old’ Shala) in 1997 where she spent three months studying with Pattabhi Jois. 

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You can become part of our Stillpoints Podcast Patreon Community and get weekly updates on the podcast, plus a monthly Stillpoints Podcast Live Stream Chat where you can talk to Scott about the conversations past, present and future. We'll also get some of the previous guests involved too. 

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Since then, Ellen’s sadhana has seen her live in a Buddhist monastery alongside five-thousand monks, learning Tibetan in Kathmandu, and studying Buddhism with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. 

A devoted student, Ellen shares about finally feeling ready to take on the role of ‘teacher’, the value of learning the language of a spiritual tradition, the power of intention, and how contemplative practises can offer us all a different way of being in the world.

You can find out more about Ellen’s work here.

'Ellen is a deeply committed practitioner who has devoted her life to the study of yoga and Buddhism since the turn of the century. This conversation really gets to the heart of what it means to study both Ashtanga and Buddhism and how it can become a deep part of your life .'

Scott Johnson - November 2021

Scott talks to Yoga and Dharma teacher Frank Jude Boccio. Frank took refuge in the Dharma after a period of practising with Thich Nhat Hanh in the 1990’s. In 2000, he began to study with Korean master Samu Sunim, who ordained Frank as a Dharma Teacher in 2007.

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You can support The Stillpoints Podcast through our Patreon page and help us to continue to share inspiring and meaningful conversations. 

You can also join our monthly in-person on online Ashtanga Yoga and philosophy memberships here. 

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In this warm and insightful conversation Frank shares about his experiences of ‘not-self’, how Buddhism helped him to process grief and loss, the importance of honouring the differences as well as the similarities between yoga and Buddhism, and the lively philosophical debates that Buddha could have had with Patanjali.

Frank is the author of ‘Mindfulness Yoga: The Awakened Union of Breath, Body, and Mind’as well as a national and international dharma/yoga teacher and lecturer. You can find out more about Frank’s work here and also join Franks Empty Mountain Sangha Online Facebook page here.

'Frank Jude Boccio has been a deeply impactful part of my life since I discovered his work. His teachings on how to relate mindfulness to yoga asana and life has been profound for me. This conversation allowed me to lean in to the way he sees practice and life and there is so much here. Yoga, Zen Buddhism, Grief, Nirvana... This conversation is so, so lovely. I hope you enjoy it...'

Scott Johnson - October 2021

Scott talks to Lucille Meyer about her powerful work as an activist, yoga teacher and CEO of Chrysalis academy. Chrysalis is one of the largest and most prestigious youth service organisations in South Africa. Lucille has overseen the transformation of thousands of young men and women, using the techniques of yoga and mindfulness and other modalities.

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We’d like to invite you to join our growing Stillpoint Online Ashtanga Yoga and Mindfulness community. We live stream beginner classes, Ashtanga Yoga assisted self practice and guided classes with evening mindfulness sessions over 6 days with Scott Johnson and the Stillpoint teaching faculty. It’s a beautiful way to navigate these times…

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In this inspiring conversation Lucille and Scott talk about Lucille’s introduction to yoga whilst in solitary confinement. Lucille was detained in a South African prison in the early 90’s. In this conversation Lucille’s shares how this early activism shaped her and then how yoga changed her life. Lucille shares about her powerful work as a CEO and educator at Chrysalis Academy and how the young people are really changed through the tools of yoga, mindfulness, service and compassion.

You can find out more about Lucille’s and the work of the Chrysalis Academy here.

"Lucille Meyer is one of the most inspiring women I’ve met. She has such a powerful conviction to service using yoga and meditation. Her work at Chrysalis Academy, where she has helped to changed the life of thousands of young people, shows a dedication and profound sense os yoga as service. Her voice is powerful and this is one of my favourite conversations on the podcast. Enjoy Lucille’s powerful sharing and insights."

Scott Johnson – July 2021