Antonio Albagli

Son to a kinesiologist and an entrepeneur/marathon runner, I was familiarized from an early age with the physical, psychological and emotional effects of career-related stress and physically taxing sports.

I have also, always been driven by a relentless fascination for the ways in which subjective experiences can be communicated, and so, devotedly explored music, the fine arts, and film.

Yet, the pull towards Yoga was stronger. Twelve years from my first class as a student, the practice of Yoga has had a deep impact in how I view life in general, answering many pressing questions, and always in the most practical fashion.

For as in any art-form, it is in its practice that we are transformed, connecting with a more subtle and powerful form of intelligence, inherent to our every cell, beyond what we commonly understand as thought.

With our own bodies as the sole instrument, we experiment with the laws of physics, to find that these are neither external nor internal, but both, relative and absolute, and even when describable by means of language, ultimately to be experienced, with a quiet mind and an open heart.

Still, I find the use of verbal imagery, sound, color, and texture, to be very powerful when it comes to eliciting responses to the practice of Asana. Along the cinematic principle of sequencing, or its yogic parallel, Vinyasa, a yoga class can truly be a kinematic experience.

Threaded by breath, as the projector is by film, the continuous transition from one pose to another, carries an uninterrupted imprint of our emotional and psychic responses, closely related to the ongoing process of sensing and imagining the body from a myriad of angles, in constant navigation, permeating the skin and tissues, from inside to outside, and vice versa.

Following a quite intuitive combination of Vinyasa Flow, Iyengar, and Yin, I have been able to find a practice both challenging and therapeutic, which develops more subtle distinctions within what is really a very wide range of intensities and qualities between discomfort, pain and relief, thus switching the focus away from the excessive physical demands we sometimes inflict upon ourselves.

It has also been equally important for my students, to discover how, as the breath deepens and the mind sharpens, apparently “static” or “passive” asanas can turn into enriching voyages through the nervous fabric which envelops the more dense, structural, and perhaps “obvious” relationship between muscle and skeleton.

Yet nothing is obvious without a context of assumptions. And so, in this quest, when the habitual perceptions of objects and ideas shift, a progressive disintegration of features takes place, into the fountain from which a new form may be brought into life: our inner void. Yes! We all have one! As dense and mysterious as our own bodies and fears. Plunge into IT, and you will experience internal landscapes mutating into a variety of scales, reference points, dimensions, intensities and durations, melting away the practical contraptions upon which we base our everyday delusions of ego.

And so, please note, Yoga is FOR LIFE, which means it should promote health and well-being. No use in being a Jedi!

Time, study, and practice, have given me a new sense of balance, overcoming the consequences of accidents and surgeries, finding strength and peace. My motivation is to help others along the same path, which being similar or different, is certainly unique and unrepeatable.

I can only be grateful for life’s twists and turns, into chances like teaching at Ubud Yoga Centre, and to be given health, to spread for as many years to come.

Looking forward to seeing you in class!