Today we’d like to introduce you to Nathan Johnson.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Nathan. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
After years of weightlifting — and enduring the tight shoulders, back pain and machismo that resulted — I was dragged by a friend to my first yoga class while a student at Yale University. It was the most challenging thing I had ever done; yet, for the first time in my life, I experienced a sense of presence and ease. All the tension and stress that I had become so accustomed to carrying around with me my whole life was gone. I floated out of that class a new man and, since then, I tossed (or rather gently put down) the dumbbells and never looked back.
I maintained a pretty consistent practice from then on for ten years, gravitating towards teachers who taught a breath-focused, challenging, Vinyasa practice. After ten years, I felt it was time to deepen my practice and share my love of yoga with the world, so I enlisted in an RYT-200 teacher training program through Black Dog Yoga in Sherman Oaks, California. The best thing about this training was understanding the history of the yoga tradition as well as the philosophy behind the practice. While I am a rather pragmatic person and don’t ascribe to some of the more esoteric beliefs, I found a lot of practicality within the eight limbs of yoga. The basis of these teachings has led me philosophically through life, through my practice and through the classes that I teach.
Has it been a smooth road?
While yoga has helped me a lot through life, particularly the moments in my life when I was experiencing a high level of stress, it has been like any other relationship in life with its inherent ups and downs. Sometimes we’re really jiving with one another, sometimes we’re at a stalemate and sometimes we just need a break from one another. It has really helped me to acknowledge and embrace this and to practice Aparigraha which means non-attachment. I cannot become attached to my practice and what it gives me; I have to instead be open to where it is right now and accept that.
So, let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Nathan Johnson Yoga story. Tell us more about the business.
I am an individual yoga teacher with no brick-and-mortar studio, but I think what sets me apart from other yoga teachers is my energy and passion for the practice. I think students have a lot of fun in my classes, and I definitely keep them on their toes, having them move through creative sequencing. I’ve also heard that the class I teach is rather physically challenging, so I attract the kind of student who hungers for that challenge. I am so in my head, personally, that I found a challenging practice is the only thing that will get me completely out of my head and focused on what’s happening right now, so that’s the kind of class that I tend to teach. I’m also big, big, big on breath! Without a strong breath practice to support the asana, there’s room for mishap and danger. The breath will tell you when you’re pushing too hard and the breath will tell you when to move and how to move, and I stress this over and over in my classes.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Right now I’m just going with the flow and seeing where the tide takes me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nathanyoga.com/
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathasana/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NathanJohnsonYoga/
- Other: https://audibleyoga.com/teacher/nathan-johnson?tc=815
