Our Philosophy
What we believe, and why we believe it
1. Functional Yoga as Therapy
It all begins with functional yoga as therapy. We believe yoga needs to return to its original purpose. When your yoga practice is focused on feeling instead of form, function instead of aesthetics, it can then enter the realm of the 'therapeutic'.
The practice of yoga as therapy does not seek to fix you; for you are not broken. What yoga as therapy can do, however, is greatly enhance your capacity to know yourself fully, to reveal aspects that need integration, and to transform the most important relationship you will ever have: the relationship with yourself.
2. Person-Centred Teaching = Individually Tailored Practice
Functional Yoga is inherently person-centred because it honours our own very individual and unique biologies and biographies. By tracing Paul Grilley’s more contemporary presentation of ‘functional teaching’ with the origins of yoga therapy and Krishnamacharya, at ISFYT we “teach only what is appropriate for each individual".
Everyone's body is different; irrespective of the style of yoga practised, an individually-tailored practice to feeling is the foundation. A physical foundation in our uniqueness and variation provides the cornerstones for person-centred practice and teaching.
3. Feeling Over Form: Meet Your Edge
Yoga is the practice of feeling your sensations; are you ready to discover what it means to get better at feeling, rather than feeling better?
Present-moment connection is fostered first and foremost through sensation in the body. Interoception is enhanced and the psychosomatic layer of yoga: meeting your edge, befriending your discomfort, and cultivating curiosity and discernment, is revealed. This is also the premise for an energetic connection to your practice through breath & qi flow.
4. Self-Inquiry for Insight
To gain self-knowledge and self-awareness, you need to be still. At ISFYT, we master stillness first: Learn to be, then learn to do whilst being.
It takes introspection and self-inquiry for yoga as therapy to be unveiled: we can only promote healing and integration of imbalances & dysfunctions, when we learn to come home to our body and stay there long enough for them to be revealed.
Stillness speaks, and at ISFYT, we learn to listen.
5. Integration over Elevation
Our work is not to chase the light, but to reveal the truth. We are not lightworkers, but more integrated reality-dwellers. Replace "positive vibes only" with "feeling the impermanence of all vibes" and we are maybe closer to the truth of things. Shadowwork before embarking on becoming more trauma-aware, because that's the only order of integrity. Trauma is not to be fixed or 'got over', but an experience to be integrated. And when we as persons first and teachers second, engage in self-inquiry, healing and integration, can we then consider holding a container for another to do the same.
ISFYT is walking the path of the teacher over talking the path of the preacher. We can only ever guide another as far as we have gone ourselves.
6. Depth of Presence
When the core conditions of functional practice, self-awareness, and feeling our experience are present, what emerges is greater than the sum of its parts. This is the transformative nature of the person-centred practice which leads directly to soul growth. It is somewhat magical, hard to describe, and many have tried and failed before, but it is this soul connection which lies at the heart of functional yoga as therapy. And once we can touch it, we learn to trust it and listen to it.
7. Teaching is an Art
At ISFYT, it’s the inner teacher we learn to trust. It’s the truth of our lived experience which we learn to teach from. Combined with our knowledge (the content - the what), and our skills (the teaching toolkit - the how), we use our lived experience to help develop clarity around our identity and integrity as teachers. Last not but no means least, we continually fine-tune our language, and master the art of space-holding so we can facilitate embodied learning and self-discovery experiences for all those we teach.
