As soon as I was able to walk I was kicking a football around the house driving my mother mad and making my father proud – especially at the age of 3 when I opted for a City kit for my birthday when my grandmother offered me the option of either a spaceman outfit or the football kit. The dream of becoming a footballer stopped when I discovered music around the age of 13. During the footballing years I’d managed to captain both the mighty Junior Blues and Manchester Boys – no mean feat considering I was about a foot smaller than everyone else, but I heard David Bowie’s Hunky Dory and that was it, the football dream was over. I hung up the boots and strapped on the guitar – rock stardom was my next dream.
After a modicum of success playing in and around Manchester in local bands in the mid-eighties suddenly the house music scene was sweeping the nation and it swept me along too – exchanging the guitar for technics decks to become Matt Ryan DJ . Although I can add DJ at the Hacienda to my life’s CV , the djing career was short lived and I’ve written about the inner chaos that followed here.
But as the saying goes that every cloud has a silver lining my particular silver lining was in the discovery of yoga, and the beginning of a life long journey that has got me where I am today – healthy and happy. When I started teaching yoga my life suddenly started to make sense, and as it has turned out became the most important day of my life – footballer, rockstar, DJ were all red herrings!
Along the way I’ve set up Yoga Manchester – which has established itself as one of the leading Yoga centres in the North-West – it’s sister studio Yoga Express and also the unique yoga prop ‘The Nee-ji – the knee guru’ – the safe knee support for Yoga and Meditation. I’ve been busy!
Throughout my Yoga teaching career I’ve always been asked about teacher training and would I consider setting something up – in the past 5 years or so this request for teacher training came more frequently so I decided to do something about it.
Yoga Manchester Teacher Training (YMTT) has been 5 years or so in the making – not because I’ve been lazy more so as it’s taken me this long to get all the pieces of the jigsaw in place. And also more importantly I didn’t want to knock out some sub-standard training programme – it seems there’s already plenty of these around. I truly believe the YMTT to be one of the best teacher training programmes in the UK today – I wouldn’t have set it up if I didn’t feel that way.
The YMTT will feature some of Europe’s leading yoga practitioners and academics – including yours truly and Yoga Manchester’s Marie Harris & Charlene McAuley. I’ve even secured the skills of the brilliant Yoga Academic Matthew Remski who will be teaching the philosophy module. The course involves in depth study of yoga asana, pranayama, meditation, yoga philosophy, yoga anatomy and also the skills needed to launch a career as a yoga teacher. It’s pretty full on – we’ve thought of everything. There’s also the added bonus of trainees passing the course to come and teach classes for Yoga Manchester.
And I know not everyone wants to become a yoga teacher and this is the beauty of our course as it allows students to deepen into their own practice and understanding of yoga, providing you with all the necessary tools to become an ever-evolving student too.
Click here for more info on YMTT.
* Note to the wife. Obviously the most important day of my life was when I met you my dear, but I’m referencing my working life here not my personal one – hashtag smiley face.