Closing

Foreword

This post has been far longer in the making than intended. Even though I arguably have more time on my hands right now, I still find it hard to sit down and get thoughts down on paper. This has also been a challenging one to pen as I typically write in the abstract, about ideas or in third person terms. Writing personally about my life events seems overly self-indulgent and not particularly interesting. That said, sometimes the benefit of hindsight can be beneficial and it's often clearer looking at events through the rear view mirror. Either way I hope you enjoy it.

The beginning

I still remember the moment. Riding down in the lift after covering a friend's Mysore programme one morning. One of the students suddenly said ‘I had no idea you were a good teacher’. And ping - that was it. My ego was spiked.

I had said that I wouldn’t start another programme. Long time readers of this blog might remember my opening article, about the pandemic enforced closure of my Melbourne programme and the resulting joy of sleep and wanting to live a somewhat more ‘normal’ life once more. But then sometimes it only takes a little spark to override everything you’d previously learned. 

Ego - the enemy of judgement. 

Fast forward a few months and I’d found ‘the place’. On paper, the studio seemed perfect. Centrally located in Mitte, well connected, showers, no other programmes nearby. Tick, tick, tick, tick.

In hindsight (it's such a wonderful thing), it was a silly location. It was 2022, the COVID era was not yet done, and people were not coming back to the office. After only a few weeks, it was clear that the area was soulless and lacked the working crowd I’d hoped to connect with.

It was also a silly idea to try and launch what was at the time, the 12th - yes TWELFTH - Mysore programme in Berlin. We even got up to 13 at one point. (Berlin is now down to 9). By way of comparison, pre-COVID London, a city 3 times the population of Berlin and multiple times the average wage, never got above 10. 

But here's the thing. Sometimes, when an idea comes, when a dream fills you, it won't go away. Trying to hold it down is pointless. You can try and ignore it and maybe over time it will subside but then you always run the risk of looking back and thinking ‘what if’? So sometimes, just sometimes you need to run with it. 

If I am honest, I felt back then that in all probability it would not work. But then I also knew that if I didn’t try then I would always wonder…...

I originally gave myself two years to make it ‘work’ (whatever that meant). As it was, Enso - the studio I was renting - closed after only 10 months. The first 6 months were nothing less than soul destroying and when I learned the fate of the studio, it was at the point that we’d only just started to get going. I briefly considered just closing then. This gave me an easy way out. Just the excuse I needed. This way I could always say that I had tried. 

But as fate would have it, another small space had just opened around the corner from my then home in Prenzlauer Berg. Being new, they were keen to have me sub-let the mornings. Perfect……

While beautifully conveniently located, MySenses proved impractical on many other levels. It was cold, both the space and time slot were limited and it was located slap bang in between the two longest running Ashtanga studios in Berlin. Another silly idea.

Then as Berlin housing would have it, shortly after, we had to move to a new apartment to the other side of Berlin. Suddenly the 5 minute morning walk to the Shala became a 20min drive. Yet despite all the negatives, we started to build something there, in that little room. We were still not huge but there was something. 

Fast forward another year, and suddenly one day I spotted a beautiful location, a hidden gem around the corner. As is so often the way in Berlin, no website, google listing, just a sign on building entrance. A bright warm large room which gave us scope to expand. Our first 6 months at Here & Now were amazing. People started coming. Finally we had a core group of regulars and new people joining all the time. We were growing and we were building a community.

And then, 30th March 2025 - the clocks changed……

The change

Obviously I am not saying that the self imposed international jet lag we cause ourselves twice a year is to blame for our shala to fail. But if you ask me when was the moment that growth turned into decline, and I can pin point it to that day. I remember the mood changing. People started dropping off. People started moving away from P’Berg. Less and less new people showed up. The word of mouth that any shala needs to flourish vanished. And that decline continued for the next 12 months. Slowly at first, then things seemed to spiral very quickly. By Good Friday the following year we finally reached the decision to close. 

‘How did you go bankrupt?’ ‘Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.’

Ernest Hemingway

I won’t hide away from the fact that it was a tough decision. In truth we knew the writing was on the wall some months before. However, for good or for ill, I try to be pragmatic about these things. Change is inevitable and viewed this way even difficult decisions are normalised.

The truth is that most new businesses fail. This is even more true for Mysore programmes. Over the last 25 years I have seen so many start and disappear in the blink of an eye. Many don’t make it past the first 6 months, usually new teachers who don’t realise just how long it takes to build something up. I knew what I was in for when I started (this was not my first rodeo). So in a way I can be proud that we lasted almost 4 years.

At the same time, I have also learnt over the years that while perseverance is essential, so too is knowing when to quit. I watched my first teacher and mentor drag out his studio, long after he’d lost the passion for it. I've witnessed something similar with my father, who even at the age of 75 and who is physically [to use a technical term] knackered, refuses to give up farming.

‘Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.’ 

Otto Von Bismarck

Wellness

There is one other significant reason behind the decision I will touch on here. I don’t wish to overplay this element, but it’s important to this story. I got sick.

In February we hosted Petri Raisanen - a wonderful weekend that for the first time saw the shala totally packed. It was an exhilarating experience but as anyone who has hosted such an event will know, it's also totally exhausting.

After dinner on the last day of the workshop, I felt unwell. At first, I thought it was just food poisoning. Normally these things pass after a few days, but 3 weeks later I was still struggling for energy and suffering from fevers. This is odd for me. The farming genes in me mean that I rarely take days off but I was forced to here.

In many ways, it wasn’t unexpected. The winter had been bitter and the fumes I’d been running on up to that point, finally dried up. With the benefit of hindsight it’s clear I had burnt out some months before. After 3 years of both running a programme and working largely full time. I had quit work the previous Autumn as it was clear something needed to give. Sadly, in more than one way, that pause came a bit too late.

As a good friend of mine once put it, to get a programme to work, you either need to be lucky or you need to hustle. Sadly we never really got much luck and well, at the start of the year I was all ready to hustle. But by Easter I was spent.

‘Burn out’ is a strange term in some ways. Many people think of it as something sudden and extreme. Most will envisage someone struggling to get out of bed each day. That’s partly why it carries the stigma that it does. But many of us who have experienced it know that it can often be far more subtle than that. It can gently creep up on you over months and years. It doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t continue to function, but more that everything is 1000 times harder, and inspiration for anything other than getting through each day, is null and void.

Anyway, in the end it transpired that I was diagnosed as being 'pre-diabetic'. This was less of a shock to me as it runs heavily in my family. And while, in itself, it doesn’t need to be anything too serious, and can be managed through diet, it was a wake up call to myself about my lifestyle. 

You see, and contrary to the common perception many have about the yoga world and the Ashtanga teacher lifestyle, it is not, for many of us at least, all that healthy. The vegan, whole food, smoothie, chia seed, spirulina spiritual wellness world that surrounds us is often not the reality of our day to day lives. In order to hold down any sort of ‘normal’ life alongside teaching, means we rarely get enough sleep. Some don’t need it and others are better suited to going to bed at 8pm. But for the rest of us, we often spend our days craving energy. And it's all too easy to turn to sugar and carbs just to make it through to the weekend when hopefully then we can rest. (For a more detailed discussion see previous blog).

The future

I love teaching. I loved having my own Shala and working with the same students day in, day out. But sometimes you need to accept when things haven’t worked out.

I hope this reads as frank and honest (and occasionally funny) as I always try to be. I have a strong memory of a deeply insulting exit letter written by one (short lived) former Berlin teacher when she bowed out of Berlin some years ago. 

Berlin can arguably be called the Ashtanga capital of the world. I don’t know of any other city that offers so many programmes, teachers and students. Bearing in mind its long hard winters, its ‘poor but sexy’ logo and its party all night reputation this is no mean feat. It’s also a community that I love dearly and will always respect for its diversity.

Ian is currently teaching in different locations in and around Berlin. For more updates subscribe to the newsletter.