Discovering Hatha Yoga
I came across Yoga in 1984 thanks to the automation teacher I had during my technical diploma.
The first class was a revelation for me, and I understood that my path lay there.
In the first classes I received, I was lucky enough to experience a real explosion of energy that left me for several months in the strangest of states. I understood the depth of Yoga and the infinite path we can follow, and I also understood what a fantastic opportunity it is to meet the pure light of the Spirit.
Studies and training in Hatha Yoga
I then looked for real teaching, correct and precise, without half-measures, complacency or social posturing.
These demands led me to various schools to learn and become a Yoga teacher, and I obtained several diplomas and certificates:
- 1992 Ecole Pédagogique de Yoga, affiliated to the FNEY (Fédération Nationale des Enseignants de Yoga)
- 1995 Ecole Provençale de Yoga, affiliated to the FNEY.
- 1998 YTI (Association Yoga et Tradition Indienne)
Along the way I have also been fortunate to practise with extraordinary beings such as:
- His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, a very great Tibetan Lama of the Vajrayana path (the tantric path),
- Sri Sri Sri Satchidananda Yogi of Madras,
and many other less well-known people, all just as deeply committed to a tradition.
- In 2014 I met Yogi Matsyendranath Maharaj thanks to Tara Michaël, and received from him my first initiations in the Nath Sampradaya and the Shri Vidya. Yogi Matsyendranath became my master for a few years, from 2015 to 2020. The madness of Covid and YM's very radical positions forced me to step away...
Professional experience
Since the age of 25 I have organised Yoga workshops and retreats in the South of France, on average 4 workshops a year and one retreat each summer.
I taught classes with the ASPTT in La Garde, near Toulon, opened a Yoga studio in Aix-en-Provence in 1999, and have been teaching since 2000, now in MONS 34390 in the Hérault, Occitanie.
In 2005 I opened my first in-depth Yoga course leading to a Yoga Teacher diploma, and over 8 sessions it has trained more than 50 people.
Today I have a school in Paris, and I have also organised workshops in Belgium and in India (Varanasi).
I give talks on the vision of Yoga and on certain traditional texts such as the Samkhya...
The practice of Yoga has given me some ability to perceive people's energies clearly and to help people who feel unwell or sense strange energies around them.
My approach tries to stay rooted in a traditional vision of Hatha Yoga, according to the Nath Sampradaya, leaving far behind the new visions coming from India as well as the USA through so-called "modern" Yoga, and also the urge many have to be original, which often turns this deep practice into mere business or a commercial activity.
Meeting Yogi Matsyendranath Maharaj
It was in July 2015 that I met Yogi Matsyendranath Maharaj.
Trusting my path and my transmission, I was no longer expecting anyone in this life in the form of a living guru. But life decided otherwise, and meeting Yogi Matsyendranath Maharaj was a beautiful encounter...
I received from him the first initiations of the Nath Sampradaya and the Shri Vidya. These initiations confirmed my long-standing commitment to the path of Yoga, to Shaivism and to the path of shaktopaya and shambhavopaya, the way of energy and of Shiva.
The initiations I received opened beautiful new doors.
Gratitude to Yogi!
My practice continues every day, and new knowledge keeps arriving.
Transmission and teaching
I began teaching with the A.S.P.T.T. in Toulon in 1992.
Then I opened a studio in Aix-en-Provence in 1998.
I have been teaching classes since 1998, now in MONS 34390 in the Hérault, Occitanie.
I train Hatha Yoga teachers with the aim that they become true Yogis, and not just teachers of asanas, which are rather too fashionable today.
My teaching respects the tradition of Yoga.
It aims at a complete practice of the eight "steps" described by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutra, namely:
- Yama: Restraints, mastery of impulses
- NiYama: Disciplines that prepare the practitioner for spiritual progress.
Contrary to what we often see in rather superficial translations of the Yoga Sutras, Yama and NiYama do not offer a mere ethical view of life, but means that allow an individual to grow stronger and develop the right qualities for correct practice.
denis
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- Asanas: the yoga postures that make us aware of our body and its energies, while reintegrating and channelling our strengths and weaknesses.
- Pranayama: Works on the energies through breathing disciplines of retention, suspension or stopping of the breath. Pranayama is not the control of breathing but its stopping!
- Pratyâhâra: Fusion of the senses, withdrawal of the sensory faculties and turning the attention inwards.
- Dhâranâ: Concentration on one element, one point.
- Dhyâna: Deep meditation, an uninterrupted flow of consciousness on a particular object, the mind may be this object or anything else.
- Samâdhi: Absorption in the absolute, higher consciousness.
- Mudra: The practice that unites postures and pranayama to awaken our deep energies and meet the archetypes...
- Tarka: Logical reasoning that leads us to glimpse that God alone is to be known in all things.
- Puja: the most subtle practice, connected with the Gods and Goddesses, in the tradition of the Shri Vidya and the Nath Sampradaya and under the guidance of Yogi Matsyendranath...
Beyond all diplomas and other distinctions, which prove nothing, it is above all a personal, well-directed practice that has allowed me to understand and integrate a fragment of this infinity that I try to pass on, simply as the witness of a path travelled.
A traditional teaching simply gives a direction and suggests laying a few stones along it. The path made in this way leaves us only the trace that bears witness to its existence, and in time this trace too will be scattered to the four winds.
Denis Billo
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