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Mike Julian - Yoga Teacher, London (2026)

09/09/2022

I didn’t know her and she didn’t even know that I existed. So I’m not going to grieve for her.

She died one of the worlds richest people, and yet received a Covid bailout in 2020 because her income dropped, then spent £12million of OUR money settling out of court for her son, a child-sex trafficker. Influenced Parliament in order to conceal her immense wealth, among other things. Held investments in the arms trade. Regularly hunted live animals for fun. Banned “coloured immigrants or foreigners” from serving in clerical roles in the royal household. Let’s not get started on Meghan.

So when I hear “she was such a lovely lady”, I have to question this. Was she? What was lovely about her, exactly?

We have a new King, a head of state who is appointed by God. Or rather, there in a position of ultimate privilege because their ancestors were incredibly violent dictators. We have unelected Lords who contribute towards making our laws, appointed because of their sycophancy. The politicians we elect in a broken system are corrupt. The billionaire-owned media is in cahoots with them. Something needs to change, and right now seems to be the best time we’ve had in a long time.

Instead we will have days of rolling coverage of this “news”. A state funeral costing billions of pounds at a time when people are scared to put their heating on because of the cost of living crisis.

Oh and if you don’t think that our current Tory government will capitalise on this while we’re all distracted, you’ve got another thing coming.

I am not celebrating her death as some will suggest. But what is death, other than part of an essential, natural cycle? Death is always sad, but let’s try to get some perspective.

Think about some real tragedy going on around the world right now. The aforementioned cost of living crisis going on in this country, right now. Zoom back a bit and take a look at the devastating floods happening in Pakistan. Climate change happening as we speak. Let’s take a moment to think about the world we are leaving for our children. We have the power to do something about this.

24/07/2022

Do you aspire to some of the more challenging asana (postures) such as crow and headstand? Attending classes regularly is highly recommended and will reap rewards, long term, but it is sometimes hard within the 1-hour class format to spend enough time on some of these asana. Attending a longer workshop style class such as this, focused solely on this type of pose can be very helpful.

“Beginning” is the first in a series of three workshops focusing on trickier poses and transitions between them. We will work on the fundamental starting point for building an arm balance & inversion practice from the ground up.

We will warm up the body so that we can practice asana such as bakasana (crow), sirsasana (headstand) & bhujapidasana (shoulder pressing pose). There will be plenty of time for each student to practice each pose with the wall or props to assist. I will be on hand to offer alignment tips that might be helpful, and you can take rest whenever needed.

If you can’t (yet) do these postures, then this workshop is right for you. If you can do them already, then the workshop will still be useful, and modifications and variations will be offered to those who have mastered the basic shapes. More advanced students are directed towards later months when we will go beyond the basics.
Saturday 10th September 2-4pm Bermondsey. £25 or available to MoreYoga subscribers via points in Perkville. Will sell out so please book early to avoid disappointment.

29/06/2022

Is consent ever implied? In certain contexts, perhaps?

When Nine Inch Nails played “Wish” at their recent gig at Brixton Academy, I joined a couple of hundred other people by pushing to the front to slam dance. I moshed & pogoed. I jumped around until I realised that it wasn’t just the bloke in front of me that was dripping with sweat. I felt more alive than I have dancing to music for a long time. I got pushed & pulled, shoved & squashed, and I’ve never been happier to have this happen to me. My consent to this assault was implied by my being there. I knew what I was getting myself into.

I’d been to a class with a yoga teacher that I respect a lot the week before, and given the expected treatment; strong physical adjustments & assists! Similarly to the gig, in my eyes, my consent to this was implied by my being there in that class. I know exactly what I’m getting when I go there, and the way I see it, if I don’t want to be touched, I don’t go to that class. I'm not sure if this is an appropriate way to act in this "new normal", but I learn a lot from my teachers; about how I want to be as a teacher, as well as how I don't want to be as a teacher.

I don’t teach that way. At least, not any more. COVID and the yoga flavoured me-too movement has made me put adjustments & assists on pause. I though for a while that I’d never go back there. To be totally honest, I’d actually been questioning the issue for the whole year before lockdown. I wasn’t sure why it felt necessary to push someone into a shape when “yoga is not (just) about the asana”, as I am wont to say.

Recently, the reticence I felt to touching my students has relaxed a bit. I started asking people, each time I felt an assist would be appropriate, if I could touch them. It felt awkward at first, but it is getting easier. It takes time & effort to ask that question, but it's an important one. It makes me consider carefully every single assist, & it stops me becoming mechanical in my teaching, which I think can be dangerous.

What do you think? Are adjustments & assists something you expect in a yoga class? Have you stopped giving them, or did you carry on as normal?

09/04/2022

“We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts.” Martin Luther King.

I’m hitting the streets again this weekend with Extinction Rebellion. I’m committed to nonviolence in thoughts, words & actions. I want the world’s governments and media to tell the truth about the s**t situation we are in. I want true democracy to become a thing.

Join us!

08/04/2022

Ten years ago, I was making music every day. I’d put out a couple of releases on netlabels. Techno, dub, ambient & experimental were the styles that influenced me most. I aspired to “do music” full-time, to put out physical releases on vinyl, tape & CD, and to play live.

Life got in the way. After moving back to UK from Asia, going through a messy breakup and subsequent divorce, I fell on black days. I didn’t have the space, physically or mentally, to make music for a long time.

I’d sold some of gear over the intervening years to fund life, but kept a bunch of Eurorack modular synth racks, a keyboard controller, a sequencer, a drum machine, audio/MIDI interfaces etc and during lockdown I got it all out again, started twiddling some k***s. I got the taste for making music again. I listened to some of my old music, and some of it is not too bad 🙂

My dear partner heard me “making bleeps” in my mancave and liked (some of) it. When they asked me to provide a soundtrack for their upcoming photography exhibition & yoga class at .studio, of course I said yes.

This is my debut playing live in public. I’ll recreate a couple of old tracks from way back when, and play around with some new sounds. I’ll be using Ableton Live & Push mostly.

What to expect? Lush ambient chords; vast soundscapes drenched in reverb; the occasional bleep; NO TECHNO (unless); all of which will accompany the second half of the class. Will do a laptop DJ set for the flow part of the class. No I don’t take requests.

07/03/2022

I attended a demonstration against the war in Ukraine on Saturday and the Stop The War / CND protest on Sunday, and I’ll say one thing; it was noisy!

I played drums (badly) in a samba band for Extinction Rebellion a couple of years ago. I’ve sung songs of freedom with Black Lives Matters, shouted until I was hoarse at animal rights rallys, and generally engaged in loud, but peaceful, non-violent civil disobedience. Protest is noisy. Isn’t that the point?

All these forms of legitimate, peaceful protest would be illegal under current proposals which need to be agreed between the House Of Commons and the Lords.

Silent protest is of course, a valid form of demonstration, but do we need Priti Patel to tell us how we should be allowed to protest?

📣 Noise levels of protesters is not the only and not even the most dangerous thing being considered.

🔒 Locking-on would be criminalised. Protesters wouldn’t be able to even join themselves together.

🚦 Certain types of protest would be made illegal (blocking roads, for example).

👮🏻‍♀️ The police would be given even more powers to stop-and-search without giving a reason (the implications for people of colour is palpable).

🧑🏻‍⚖️ Courts would be given powers to ban regular protesters from even attending protests.

So the basic message is, if you want to protest in the future, you’d better make sure that you don’t annoy anyone, because you face jail if you do.

How can MPs on the one hand praise the protests in Ukraine and Russia, and yet seriously consider these measures?

04/03/2022

I’m really pleased to announce that and I are running our second retreat later this year, between 13-17 October near Marrakech, Morocco. Our venue will be .nads.

We will run multiple yoga classes per day, a workshop, lead discussions about yoga & philosophy and take you on excursions into the town and the desert. Food will be cooked by a local chef, locally sourced, of course.

We are really looking forward to this. Spaces are limited. You can book it with a deposit, and space out the payments over time to suit you.

The link to book is in my profile. If you want more information, DM me your email address and I can send you the full blurb.

03/03/2022

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerer of death's construction
In the fields, the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh lord, yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgement day comes, yeah!

Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where their bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing, spreads his wings
Oh lord, yeah!

Black Sabbath - War Pigs

01/03/2022

Yoga starts and ends with ahimsa, which means non-violence.

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the main texts on yoga, and set on a battlefield. Krishna urges Arjuna to fight. Is this book in any way a justification for war?

No is the simple answer. War in this case is a metaphor for the war within, the dark night of the soul that Arjuna faces on the field of action, Kurukshetra. We will all face such a dark night at some point in our lives. We have a choice, to lay down and take it, or to stand up and fight for what is important.

The word ahimsa is mentioned four times. Killing can never be justified, at any time or in any place.

The book is about dharma, which means duty, and karma, meaning action. We can live in this world and act in line with our duty, and live as yogis, is the simplified message.

Please visit the link on my profile to donate to Choose Love for the fundraiser at Bermondsey I’m doing on Saturday 5th March at 12.30. Class is free to book in the usual places, donation based.

I will be marching in solidarity with Ukraine in central London afterwards. I’d love to see some of you there.

Mike Julian - Yoga Teacher

09/09/2022

24/07/2022

29/06/2022

09/04/2022

08/04/2022

07/03/2022

04/03/2022

03/03/2022

01/03/2022

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