Welcome to the Heart of Yoga Online Studio.

Just like a good local studio, the Online Studio is a warm hub for…

— not just one-way broadcasts.

The vision…

• worldwide live two-way video gatherings through Zoom where you can relax and be yourself

• focus on learning and refining your own profound and accurate home Yoga sadhana

• weekly classes with Mark Whitwell and other teachers

• connected sense of community around the globe

• special workshops with exceptional teachers from around the world

• weekly teacher mentoring and support standing in your own ground

• recorded class / practice library

• teaching and learning resources

• respect and interest in each person as an individual

We will add more features as we go. People who become supporting members at this early stage will be part of shaping the studio.

How it works:

Join the studio in one of two ways:

CURRENT WEEKLY CLASS TIMETABLE

(Below times in GMT / UTC, your local times will be shown inside the Studio)

Mondays
6.00am UTC — Class with Andrew Raba
7pm UTC — Hridayayogasutra Sangha with Vivian (Class in German)

Tuesdays
6.30am UTC — 60 minute peaceful flow with Moritz Kuebler (currently on summer holidays, will be back on August 22)
5pm UTC — 60 minute Asana-Pranayama class with Melissa Forbes (from September 5 on)
6.30pm UTC – Teachers’ Gathering / Mentoring with Mark Whitwell (90 mins)

Wednesdays
7am UTC — Informal 1hr 30 Teachers’ Gathering with Mark Whitwell
4pm UTC — Yoga Tantra Principles and Practice with Domagoj Orlić (~2hrs)

Thursdays
12am UTC — Advanced Yoga for Perfect Beginners with Rosalind Atkinson (75mins) (suitable for the US)
7am UTC — Personal practice basics class with Rosalind Atkinson (90mins)

Fridays
6.30pm UTC — Yoga for Exhausted People with Maja Dakskobler (60–75 mins, all lying down)

Saturdays
7am UTC — Class 1 with Mark Whitwell (satsang/discussion/asana/pranayama/meditation) 90–120mins
5.30pm UTC — Student Teacher Class facilitated by teachers studying in the Heart of Yoga. Each week, a different teacher is hosting the class.
7pm UTC — Guided practice with Andrew Raba

Sundays
6.30am UTC — Yoga Class with George Gustafsson currently dialing in from Morocco, so don't miss the view of the beautiful ocean.
6.30pm UTC — Class 2 with Mark Whitwell (satsang/discussion/asana/pranayama/meditation) 90–120mins

And special one-off workshops and events each month. Next up:

• Yantra and Mantra Colour Meditations with Melissa Forbes on September 15

• Monthly Sanskrit “kitchen table talk” with Sybille Schlegel (60 mins) on September 16

• Most special workshops/classes are free for supporting members; ‘free members’ can sign up/pay individually per event.

ALL CLASSES ARE AUTOMATICALLY SHOWN CONVERTED TO YOUR LOCAL TIMEZONE INSIDE THE STUDIO

What to expect:

The unexpected. Each class will have a spontaneous blend of satsang, discussion, asana, pranayama, meditation, friendship, teacher mentoring, chanting, and whatever else feels relevant. Be empowered to ask for anything in particular you feel you would like from weekly classes. Sincere and alive enquiry is welcomed and is the best way to get the most from a class. Each class is unpredictably different depending on who is there and how they are feeling.

“Yoga is not information-gathering.”

A NEW CREATION

The Studio came into being March 2021 so it is still a baby. We are inviting people to help shape this to be what we all want and need. It is our own custom software made to fit our shared need for two-way authentic human connection in yoga. Suggestions, investment, ideas are all welcomed… here are some of the things planned to add:

• resource sharing / uploads DONE - you’ll find articles and resources inside

• choose to show your location and find people close by

• app version

• easily accessible video library (for learning, not to replace personal practice)

• Sincere highbrow matchmaking service?

By becoming a supporting member, you will help us build this online resource for all!

About the Teachers’ Gathering on Tuesdays/Wednesdays:

There is a need for a regular gathering where people can drop in and find support for their teaching experiments and endeavours, and get advice and guidance from experienced teachers.

This ongoing relationship is offered to help each teacher to stand in their own ground, against the tide of “yoga as gymnastic fitness” or yoga as "spiritual ambition”. Great independence and courage is needed to keep offering the simplicity of the breath where the student may be expecting stimulation. It takes courage and support to break out of the cultural model of yoga teacher as “customer service representative” and be unswayed by real or imagined expectations. It helps to hear the stories of others.

“All I know is I am consistently flooded with a feeling of deep deep deep gratitude when I finish a practice or meet with a new student and show them some Yoga and see them melt. I’m immensely grateful for Mark in my life. Words don’t do it justice, my gratitude…

I think the really important lessons of yoga for me come in the thick and messy of life. The enquiry as such is spontaneous to each moment and I feel deep gratitude to know in those moments I have someone I can reach out to. That kind of ongoing real human listening and relationship can’t be packaged up in some kind of ‘one and done’ way in a group teacher training just like it can’t in a normal group class.

One person meeting the other person is where it all happens. I think this is the living yoga and the relationship Mark always talks to us about. But he doesn’t just give out words or a concept like ‘Yoga is relationship’. His example and action to me is the teaching.

To me this is the absolute gold - just paying attention to how he meets you and treats you and helps you find your own way. Through his actions of always being steady and meeting you where you are when you need him, tearing down any pedestals, keeping things simple, I feel this confidence in my own journey as a teacher and human.”

— Kory McAvoy, Australia

“I have learned — due to practicing the heart of yoga — that I’m a unique facette of life in life. And as this, I do my yoga, the yoga related to my unique body and being. I don’t have to fight against me. Instead I accept and work with my given circumstances. This realization leads to deep self acceptance. Therefore the constant comparing, competing with the other participants has fallen away. And as yoga is no separate thing that is practiced only on the mat but during the entire life, as life in the midst of all life – this transformation has changed the way I „see“ and „meet“ my fellow human beings. And this, of course, makes a huge difference how they respond to me in turn. The relationships are much smoother, cheerfuller and very direct, open and welcoming on a very deep level in the being.” — Kornelia Esther, Switzerland

About the Teachers

Mark Whitwell

Mark Whitwell is the founder of the Heart of Yoga and a student of T Krishnamacharya, mostly via his son Desikachar, and deeply influenced by meetings with many luminaries, including and especially his friendship with UG Krishnamurti. His guiding principle is that the yoga teacher must be an actual person, an actual friend, who actually likes and interacts with their students while working to dismantle the social dynamics of disempowerment we are all usually operating in. Follow on IG for daily writings, LinkedIn for discussion on teaching without selling out, etc.

Domagoj Orlić

Domagoj has studied Yoga with Mark in mutual friendship for the last 20 years. From Croatia, Domagoj has a background in education and martial arts before becoming a full-time Yoga educator in Zagreb. He is the author of numerous books in both Croatian and English, an artist of Yantra, and is initiated in the Tantric lineages of Sri Vidya.

Domagoj’s classes are precise, accurate, give clarity, depth of feeling, and with respect for every practitioner. You can listen to an interview with him on the Heart of Yoga podcast. He lives in Zagreb and teaches around Europe in collaboration with his partner Adisa Hajra.

Melissa Forbes

Melissa is a renowned artist, including of the light-forms known as Yantra, in the lineage of Harish Johari. There in the very first years of the Heart of Yoga together with Mark Whitwell, she went on to travel alongside the sage UG Krishnamurti for the last five years of his life.

Author of “No Teaching Yoga”, Melissa draws on a background in Mysore / Astanga yoga, softened by UG, to teach elegant flowing classes with mantra woven in. You can read more and her tribute to UG by clicking here.

Brooke Evans

Based on Bowen Island, Vancouver, Brooke’s passion is holistic addiction and mental health recovery. She has been supporting individuals and families on the path of healing for over ten years. She has a Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Victoria, is registered with the College of Social Workers of British Columbia and is a registered counsellor with the Crime Victims Assistance Program. Brooke holds training in Indigenous Cultural Safety, as well as extensive experience serving Indigenous families and communities. Her main tool in these matters is the simple healing power of presence, breath and friendship. Brooke believes strongly in the healing power of yoga and somatic therapies both professionally and personally, and created BE Counselling with the vision and passion of wanting to empower individuals to heal and live their fullest expression. She lives with her partner Galen and their three sons. https://becounselling.ca/

Frederic Ballario

Born in Champagne, France, Frederic is now a Yogi of California, living in and caring for a vineyard atop a mountain in Santa Cruz. Frederic is both a Yogi and a student and sharer of the art of Tea, offering a monthly tea ceremony within the studio for us all to sit in silence and enjoy a few bowls together… it feels strangely like yoga… He travels yearly to Taiwan to study with his teacher of the Way of Tea there.

Andrew Raba

Andy is a long-term student, teacher and author within the heart of yoga who has spent the last five years studying with world-renowned yoga master Mark Whitwell—a student of T.K.V. Desikachar and Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, also known as the ‘father of modern yoga.’

After completing his 500-hour qualification in 2020, he undertook a one year ashram residency in Fiji to deepen his practice and teaching. A published author, Andy has written extensively on the subject of yoga and meditation for many platforms, including Embodied Philosophy and Tarka Journal.

Andy specialises in working with students to develop their personal daily practice. He now lives in Auckland where he facilitates classes in a range of settings including community centres, studios, libraries, schools, spiritual retreats and online. He is currently involved in a one-on-one mentorship program for aspiring teachers.

Andy holds an MA in English literature. He is also an accomplished harpist and likes to bring his music to his teaching.

Rosalind Atkinson

Rosalind first met Mark Whitwell in 2017 after picking up his book in a second hand shop and knowing she had to come and meet him, tracking him down in Fiji. They have been together ever since, travelling and working together. Rosalind created a small independent press to bring heart-felt books on yoga and life to the world, silversnakepress.com, runs an online magazine thedirt.media, holds a Master’s degree in mystic Poetry specialising in William Blake, a B.Hons in illustration and printmaking, and is a commercially certified skipper and radio operator. Previously an direct action activist with Greenpeace, including a time crewing on the Rainbow Warrior III, she now feels that Yoga is truly her most effective form of activism, in that it enables people to resolve damaging cultural patterns within themselves, and then they can intelligently respond to the people and situations around them, including the disastrous numbing aspects of industrial modernity.

Moritz Kuebler

Moritz loves to share aspects of simplicity through Yoga, promoting a merely peaceful way of health and happiness in everyday life.

Yoga Asana and Pranayama as direct means to acceptance of self and present conditions, a wayfarer to acknowledging the causal aspects and resolution of bodily restrictions and their respective emotional anchor points.

Leading a life towards freedom, towards acceptance, compassion and unity — towards and within Love.

Moritz has been studying Yoga and Meditation in different circumstances around the world and found a home in studying and practicing the Heart of Yoga in the traditional lineage of Krishnamacharya with Mark Whitwell.

Moritz offers tailored one-on-one classes upon request and furthermore teaches individual courses and retreats including Yoga Asana Practice, Guided Meditation, Light Breathwork and Thai Yoga Massage.