Guy has been teaching Ashtanga Yoga for over 30 years. He has studied extensively in India at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute, the KPJAYI and the Sadvidya Foundation in Mysore. He is one of a few students to receive advanced teaching certification from Pattabhi Jois and is author of the influential book Guruji: A Portrait of Sri K Pattabhi Jois Through the Eyes of his Students.

Having lived in New York for two and a half decades, where he was the director of the Ashtanga Yoga Shala teaching daily Mysore Style Ashtanga, he currently resides in Israel and continues to teach workshops internationally on asana, pranayama, meditation and yoga philosophy and travels annually to India to continue his studies with Dr KLS Jois (Acharya). In addition to teaching ashtanga in the tradition of KP Jois, he also teaches a gentler style of practice learned from Acharya that integrates asana, pranayama, mudra and meditation.

Why I Came to Yoga

I can trace my interest in yoga to a time in my childhood. When I was six years old, my family moved from the grey suburbs of London to the Sussex countryside. Our back garden opened onto fields, forests, lakes and rivers - and this became my playground. Over the next few years I would spend hours every day climbing trees, playing in the river or sit fishing by the lake. Being out in nature, I remember having no clear feeling of a boundary between myself and my environment - it was as if my mind merged with nature. I often experienced a profound sense of peace, happiness, heightened awareness and vitality.

Around the age of ten, as my critical thinking began to mature and I started to read my father’s newspaper, I became aware of man’s potential for evil. Up until this point I had been innocent, but now I began to read about human atrocities, murder, famine, etc. and this came as an enormous shock to my system. As if overnight, my wonderful experiences in nature vanished. I had woken up out of my dream but the reality which now began to dawn on me seemed so much less real, so much less vital - and so miserable! It was as if I had experienced the fall of Adam from the garden of Eden and I had woken up to the nature of suffering.

Looking back, I believe at times I had been experiencing a kind of samadhi: I often felt a deep sense of peace and happiness. But losing this experience was a heavy blow that caused me a great deal of pain - this prompted the beginning of my search for yoga: I wanted to re-connect with what I had experienced previously.

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During my travels in India, I had the privilege of learning from many wonderful teachers in the diverse but interconnected yogic arts of Ayurveda, Sanskrit, music, philosophy etc., but in 1993, I met the man who could satisfy all my questions and has remained an enduring guide all these years: Dr KLS Jois, "Acharya". https://sadvidyafoundation.org/the-sacred-tradition-of-yoga/

Although Pattabhi Jois gave me a foundation in yoga practice, the understanding of the true meaning and purpose of yoga came through Acharya: yoga is not something to strive for or attain, it is something intimate and internal, something that is uncovered and that happens naturally when the conditions are right.

Yoga practice returns us to the natural state in which the innate peace and happiness that is our birthright can be experienced.