Meet Asia
My name is Asia Jokiel
I teach yoga asana, pranayama and meditation since 2017 and I've given over the years more than 3000 hours of yoga classes and workshops. I'm based currently in the Netherlands in the beautiful old town called Amersfoort.
I've followed many accredited yoga trainings and courses, the most important being Yoga Teacher Training Course at famous Arhanta Yoga Ashrams where I graduated as an Advanced Yoga teacher with 500 hours of study in asana, pranayama, Yogic and Vedic philosophy and teaching skills. Now I teach several yoga forms like Hatha, Vinyasa, Yin and Nidra, but my practice of choice already for many years has been Hatha Yoga based on the famous Sivananda Sequence, because of its calming and grounding effects. In Sivananda practice movement, breath and relaxation come together to make the experience deep and wholesome. My meditation practice of choice is Vipassana. I followed 10-days silent meditation course in the tradition of S.N. Goenka and been practicing daily since than.
Every year I try to travel to Nepal, India and my favourite parts of South-East Asia where I join local yoga classes. It's my favorite way to understand and learn more about different yoga styles and methods of teaching that I can use later to the benefit of my own students.
In 2016 in Pokhara (Nepal) I've studied classical Hatha Yoga and meditation with Swami Prem Pukhar. After several months of daily practice he suggested that I might try to teach yoga myself. Encouraged by him I've changed direction of my life and dedicated my time and efforts towards spreading the yoga method around, making it simple to understand and accessible to anyone who might need it.
I love travelling and enjoy the most remote locations. I like to feel the true presence of the nature, still unspoiled by the human hands. High mountains are my favourite landscape and that is probably why I think of Nepal as my natural habitat. I guess it's funny that I live in the Netherlands :)
Yoga is not about touching your toes, it is about what you learn on the way down.
Jigar Gor
How did I start to practice Yoga?
Since I can remember, even as a child, I was intuitively searching for activities that would allow me to turn off my mind for a moment, stop thinking and just be. Not knowing or understanding what I needed, I moved through many different practices and trainings that were allowing me to turn my awareness inside. I tried roots theater, traditional theater, ethnic singing, choirs, physical practices such as kalaripayattu or tai chi, many forms of fitness and even creative writing. Each of these experiences gave me something valuable but it wasn't what I needed.
My life-long adventure with yoga started during my master's studies in Cultural Anthropology. Through research about India I became more and more interested in Indian philosophies and suddenly that abstract idea of peacefulness that I was searching for started to take shape. When I joined my first yoga class I could feel instantly the calming and relaxing effects that quiet, conscious movement and breath had on my body and the state of my mind.
In a short time I became dedicated to my daily yoga practice. Slowly I started to understand that yoga is not just a simple gymnastics, it is rather a way of bringing thoughts, senses and emotions under control. Free from those reality filters we can see what is real and what is unreal.
Through yoga I've learned how to be patient and kind to myself, accept what is given and to recognize what is really important and what is just a distraction.
Before I got into the daily practice of the classical Hatha Yoga (based on the famous Rishikesh sequence of Swami Sivananda) I've tried many other yoga styles like Ashtanga or Vinyasa and discovered that Hatha Yoga suits me best, because I like simplicity and stillness. It is a quiet, meditative practice that requires deep concentration and creates enough space to simply enjoy every step, every breath and every movement.
