My story

My name is Ayzhan (pronounced Eye-jaan), I am originally from Astana, Kazakhstan, currently living in Perth,Western Australia.

I came to yoga at the age of 19. A lot of people get surprised at this fact, and they ask me what inspired me to start so young. First of all, the student life was a very stressful period for me.  I was feeling depressed and lost and I was looking for something that could bring me some sense of peace of mind and equanimity. Immediately after the first session, I realised that yoga was a vehicle to help me achieve this. In whatever mood I came to the lesson, I left with a calm smile on my face. It helped instill a love for life in me that was absent for sometime.

Secondly, I desperately needed some form of exercise that I would enjoy. Because of my depression and lack of movement my body was not in a great shape, it felt terrible. I've never been a sporty person, never attended a physical education class, and after having tried gym, zumba and even water aerobics classes I've decided to do yoga and found it to be quite challenging, but also very satisfying and mysterious, with deeper meaning behind all the postures. For the first couple of years I was practising hatha yoga twice a week, which was more than enough back then. After a while I've switched to a more challenging style - vinyasa yoga, became vegetarian and, needless to say, got in much better shape than before. Later Ashtanga yoga came into my life, and to my own surprise I became a very disciplined student, waking up every day at 5 o'clock (although I’ve never been a morning person),  walking to the shala under any weather conditions (where I come from it can get as cold as -40C in winter). This was a very important stage of my life, I've learnt a lot, but after a few years of practising this style every day I've started to burn out and came to the conclusion that my body can't do it anymore and I need some changes. And that's how I ended up doing my current routine, with trials and errors: I go to the gym twice a week to build strength, attend handstand classes on a regular basis and ,of course, do yoga daily. At the moment I practice Vinyasa yoga with some elements from Ashtanga and some days I do Yin yoga.

Honestly, I've never thought about becoming a yoga teacher, but once in class I helped a fellow student with their technique, my teacher saw it, and said that in the future I would definitely need to teach. I was surprised, but  nevertheless followed his advice,   having since been certified to teach in India. It was one of the best decisions of my life, and I can say with accuracy that I found myself.  Sharing your knowledge and experience, seeing the progress of students,  both physical and spiritual, inspired by this energy is priceless. I hope every year yoga practitioners will increase in number, and together we will go on this sometimes challenging path to a healthy body and spirit.