An interview with Anna Ashby

It's been five years since I first met and interviewed Anna Ashby for the Yogamatters blog at the Triyoga studio in Camden. It's amazing how much our lives - and indeed the world - has changed since then! In conversation: With Anna Ashby (LINK - https://blog.yogamatters.com/anna-ashby/) presented Anna as a dancer, yogi, teacher, person and voice and made you want more -

"We need to talk to Anna again. We need to go deeper. It feels like there is so much more to discover about Anna Ashby. This amazing woman lives and breathes her yoga in a strikingly authentic way. She has a fascinating integrity. She is on a lifelong journey - an honest, real, soulful journey. And we would like to know more."

While I had the opportunity to meet with her the following year, it is with great pleasure to have been invited again after five years to interview Anna about where she is now in her lifelong journey, including her new book scheduled for release in March 2022 and the new chapter of her life now begins.

We effortlessly picked up where we left off with the ongoing relationship between yoga and dance in Anna's practice. Even though the physicality of Anna's dance background was so strong, yoga has always been much more than just a physical practice, as she explains: "For me, the practice of yoga has always been a means of turning inward and feeling and connecting and trying to understand being alive, who and what I am. I see myself as a dancer underneath it all, in terms of the energy of who I am. The yoga is the investigation. I feel like I'm becoming one now come back full circle and my movement pattern in postural practice has become much more fluid, a fluidity that comes from the deep feeling of what is happening within me and the expression that comes from a place of fullness.”

Now Anna is over 50 and as she says: “This is a big time of change for women”. Last but not least, the body itself changes over time. She is at a crossroads where she wants to live a life that aligns with her values ​​at this stage of her life. And so her yoga practice has changed in some ways and yet fundamentally not - "Yoga has and always will be an investigation into who and what I am - an investigation rather than a certainty."

When I ask Anna what else is going on in the yoga world, she looks a little confused. She admits that there is a style of yoga that she doesn't really understand, which is loud, fast and takes its cue from social media with crazy poses. This is alien to the experience of silence, stillness and space that she values, and it all feels too much like entertainment. Is that yoga? "I'm not saying it's wrong," she replies, "it's just not for me. For some, this may be the path to a deeper understanding."

Coming from a disciplined background of learning postural practices through the teachings of the great Indian teachers such as BKS Iyengar and their tradition that suits her method of learning, Anna notes with some sadness that there seems to be a real lack of study and immersion in the history of yoga and its tradition which then gives the teacher a basis for innovation. Her deepest desire is “to see greater respect for tradition so that we innovate on a basis of understanding, knowledge and respect.”

It is this passion for study and understanding that Anna incorporates into her teacher training at Triyoga, in both the Foundation and Advanced programs. Therefore, from the beginning we try to encourage people to think and question, and sow seeds to invite people to think for themselves, to research, to research, to study, to explore, to feel for themselves. This is a big change that is happening right now.” There is also a shift in the way a teacher interacts with their students away from the 20's^thecentury vertical path of the guru/disciple relationship to a more horizontal relationship in the 21st century.^stCentury, where the exchange of knowledge is two-way and the teacher can no longer say "I know more than you." Anna's teaching approach is: "Every person who comes into a class is a valued member of humanity who possesses knowledge of the truth that is the teaching. Every being is an expression of divinity."

Anna has also embraced a more somatic awareness of yoga, which she describes as the anatomical aspect of yoga that the West has contributed to the tradition and practice. When working within one's own experience and felt sense, alignment can be viewed as a transition to a state of coherence. This leads our conversation to Restorative Yoga, the subject of her new bookRestorative Yoga: A Guide for Yoga Teachers and Studentswill be published in March 2022.

In February 2020, just before any of us realized the devastating impact of the pandemic, Anna Ashby woke up one morning and there was this very strong feeling of 'Write a book on restorative yoga' - 'I don't have that kind of yoga' Things happen normally. It was just such a strong impulse.” And then the lockdown happened and she suddenly had the time to write it and she needed a thorough restorative practice herself due to her extreme anxiety about the situation. In addition, she was caring for her partner who had been ill with COVID for a long time. She literally lived every word of this book as she wrote it.

Anna was clear from the start in her goal to write a book about restorative yoga aimed at teachers who don't really know what restorative yoga is. She points out to me that restorative and yin yoga are very different practices, from different branches of the yoga tree, although they are often conflated together. The use of props is a distinctive feature of restorative yoga, which Anna attributes to Mr. Iyengar, as it orbits and connects with tradition.

Restorative yoga slows things down. Anna finds this incredibly exciting. You can see that in their eyes. Creating the space to recognize when we are out of balance and doing what we need to do to restore that balance sets the stage for a deep exploration of the nature of selfhood. This is an alchemical process like no other, a necessary part of being humanBe. It is an amazing way to empower people to train themselves and understand how the nervous system works. There is also a discipline involved that taps into the source of deep exploration and learning, assimilation and enlightenment as the nervous system downshifts and taps into the essence.

As Anna continues to explain how restorative yoga is designed primarily for nervous system health, I ask, "How important is it to understand the science of the nervous system when practicing restorative yoga?" Science is not my thing. Anna's answer reassures me - This is an emerging science that is constantly unfolding. You don't have to be an expert. But it should be taught to everyone – nervous system 101. Everyone is different and responds to stress differently. Just understand the basics and apply them to subjective experience.”

And then, right there, she guides me through a simple alignment, adjusting through the base of the skull to create space - "You can feel the difference right away - do it now...feel the difference in the tone of it...". She's right. I can.

For Anna, it's really quite simple - "There are postures that bring you back to the now, and you breathe. That's it. Sometimes that's all you need to reset, to return to a grounded and centered state, and then be able to go out and be what you need in your world."

This is what the world needs right now, given the intensity of the times we live in. I have a feeling Anna's book will become an invaluable handbook for yoga teachers of various schools and traditions as we navigate this ever-changing world.

As Anna looks to the future, she knows that the pandemic has led to a shift in yoga teaching as the focus is no longer on a yoga studio and teachers are exploring online platforms for their classes. Although Anna recognizes that this has been difficult for many yoga teachers and studio owners, she also finds it an exciting time, saying, "We are on the verge of something new emerging. We are seeing the collapse of the way things were, we are in chaos and we could be in it for a while, and then a new structure emerges, a new order that is yet to be known."

Personally, this certainly applies to Anna Ashby. After living a very complex and chaotic life between Leicestershire and London for 15 years, Anna is retiring from weekly teaching in London to create more space in her life and more headspace to feel what needs to come next. She sums it up this way: "I don't want to overfill. I want to take a step back and look for new possibilities. I feel very creative and I want to explore that creativity."

The good news for all of us is that Anna will be teaching the last Yogamatters Online Community Class of the year on Tuesday December 21st with her student, friend and model for her book Yvonne O’Garro. The connection between them is strong and Anna describes Yvonne as "very clear and calm, the most positive person I have ever met. I feel very honored that she asked me."

I'll be there. Just from talking to Anna Ashby, she inspired me to explore restorative yoga more deeply for myself. I can't wait to read her book!