Buzz with Dan - Dr Miuru

Mar 30 2022.

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Today on the Buzz I speak to Dr. Miuru who I have known for many years from our days on TV always an all-rounder and full of life. Today she is making waves in Yoga and has been a part of many becoming a better version of themselves. She is an experienced and internationally qualified yoga teacher. She is an Internationally Certified and Registered Yoga Instructor (YTT 500) from International Yoga Alliance (USA) and a Certified 45hrs. from Knoff Yoga School Australia. She is also a certified Medical Yoga Teacher specialising in Yoga for Lifestyle diseases from Gnosis Medical Yoga Institute Pune India and certified by Yoga Teach Institute Pune India for Yoga for Female Health & Ayurveda Food & Nutrition. Dr. Jayaweera is also a certified meditation practitioner and teacher from the International Association for Professional Coaches, Counsellors, and Therapists. She has clocked in more than 1500 hours of Yoga teaching and continues her Advanced Yoga education from the International Yoga Alliance (USA). 

Dr. Jayaweera’s Yoga practice (Myrus Yoga) combines the physical with the inner emotional and spiritual journey supported by a combination of Buddhist teachings and Iyengar and Krishnamacharya schools or systems of Yoga. She teaches 3 different styles of Yoga – Vinyasa, Hatha, Yin all with specific benefits to body and mind with Yogic and Buddhist meditation and mindfulness practices, a unique mix.
Today I speak more about her passion. 

Q What made you take up yoga full time? 
Yoga teaching is very satisfying especially when my students come and tell me how they achieved things in their lives after starting yoga, how they developed their spirituality how they healed or are healing their bodies and their minds from different lifestyle diseases they have been having for years, it’s a very deeply satisfying task to be able to do yoga as a practitioner myself and to teach what I know to heal and to make other people happy. Nothing of what I used to do in the corporate world or as an entrepreneur before I started being a full-time yoga teacher ever gave me that satisfaction.

Q What would you say is the biggest reward of teaching yoga? 
The biggest reward in teaching yoga is to see how people transform in front of your eyes over months or for some people over years. They just transform into completely different people and that is the most rewarding thing that I ever achieved as a human being in this life. I have never seen people having negative effects in starting the journey it’s always been positive. The deeply transformative experience that my students experience is my experience as the most rewarding as a teacher.

Q Should one be thin to start yoga? 
Definitely not. You should not label or stereotype. Yoga is for every body and everybody so even if you are obese, there are different styles of yoga and different types and different lineages and different paths of yoga that you can take. The misconception of yoga is that yoga is all about physical activity and you need to be thin and you need to be agile and flexible and strong to be able to do yoga. Yoga asanas are the physical aspect of yoga. And that’s only one 8th of what true and wholesome yoga is all about. Only one eighth. There are 7 more limbs of yoga that people can do if they can’t do asanas. The Yoga postures that you see on social media are only one component. If you take yoga as an umbrella as a whole, there are 8 components to it. I will give you the Sanskrit names

  1. Yama
  2. Niyama
  3. Asana
  4. Pranayama
  5. Prathyahara
  6. Dharana
  7. Dhyana
  8. Samadhi

So if you repeat that you will see the asana or the physical postures is only the third limb. There are 7 more things you can do when it comes to yoga that people don’t really know and they completely misunderstand what yoga is all about. Yoga is not being a gymnast or being an acrobat it’s about connecting your breath to your movement to your mind and yolking all those aspects into the present moment that’s why yoga is spiritual that’s why yoga is meditation. That’s why yoga transforms people yoga is for every body. Even if you are thin, fat even if you are sick you can still do different types of yoga. And you don’t need to worry about your religion or your faith. I have a multicultural, multi-religious base of students from all over the world. Yoga connects you to the universe. That’s all.

Q There are so many different types of yoga, and different levels of learning, give me a breakdown?
Yes, you are correct. There are way too many types that can confuse a newbie. I will give the base paths first. fundamentally yoga has 4 paths. 

  1. Bakthi yoga
  2. Gnana yoga
  3. Karma yoga
  4. Raja yoga

The 4th one is what the world mostly practices today. Raja Yoga. And this too has numerous styles

  1. Hatha (Swami Swatmarama and other Rishis and Scholars)
  2. Vinyasa ( by guru T. Krishnamacharya)
  3. Kundalini (by guru Ram Das, Yogi Bajan and others)
  4. Ashtanga - Vinyasa Series ( by guru Patthabi Jois)
  5. Iyengar Yoga (by guru B K S Iyengar)
  6. Bikram Yoga 

These types can be followed as an absolute beginner progressing towards advanced practitioners.

Q Who has been your biggest inspiration? 
I don’t have one person as a role model. I get inspired by everyday people mostly by my students and my teachers and my friends. I see them and their commitment and I get inspired by them every day. Sometimes people don’t even know they inspire me.  but I am by them

Q What would you say is your biggest challenge? 
As a practicing Buddhist and a Yogi my biggest challenge is to stay sane abiding by the precepts and observances. In yoga, these are called Yama & Niyama. It's challenging to keep a yogi mind in a commercialized materialistic world to which I myself can be inevitably be drawn to.

Q You have a place for us to come and experience it, give me the thinking behind it and how has it been making it? 
Myrus Colombo Centre is located in Thimbirigasyay Road Colombo 5. For a long time me and my business partner Coach Sripali Weerakkody who is a former international cricketer who represented Sri Lanka in international cricket wanted a central place to establish a Yoga studio cum a Fitness Facility. We finally launched MCC (Myrus Colombo Centre ) in January this year.  Pay us a visit and see how you can transport between two different worlds from Fitness to Yoga and vice versa ϑ

Q Can you remember your first yoga session? How did you decide to go? Why should somebody consider trying yoga at all?
Yasara Abeynayake, one of my best friends, dragged me to Sensei Nanada Siriwardena’s class in Kohuwela over a decade ago. I didn’t have yoga clothes so we stopped at a clothes store, wore inside the fit-on room, and left for that very first class. That was the beginning. Yasara thank you so much! Try Yoga under a good teacher once and see how it can change you. You need to just do it and see.

Q How often should I practice to have the best results?
You need to be committed and consistent for at least 6 months to reap the best results from yoga, be in Asana or the other 6 limbs I mentioned above.

Q Is there something that annoys you about the fact that yoga became so popular in the West?
No. It’s a good thing. This is the age of the Aquarius where people seek rather than blindly believe. It’s a good thing and westerners are very adaptable and knowledgeable. Yoga is for every body. Let it go beyond the boundaries of the east.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Danu Innasithamby

Danu is a Jaffna Boy with a Marketing qualification (only because he needed to study, and not because he wanted it). He has been a part of the team for seven years and is the face behind Buzz with Danu, and WTF.


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