About Dan Burt

×
Home

Timetable

Prices

Location

Teacher

Contact

MENU ☰

Dan Burt

You’ve found me! Thanks for coming. I’ve been teaching here for the best part of 20 years. ‘Here’ is Newcastle upon Tyne, but I have also taught at various locations in Europe and as far as the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When my teacher first told me that the first 10 years of practice was “beginners yoga” I didn’t believe her. But now, after two decades of uninterrupted daily Ashtanga yoga practice I can see the wisdom in her words. Yoga practice did not come easy for me. I stumbled across Ashtanga yoga - somewhat serendipitously - at an incredibly low period of my life when even walking or standing up straight was impossible without excruciating pain. When nothing else worked, yoga entered the story and saved the day. With the aid of books, DVDs and online support groups I was able to teach myself the first two series of Ashtanga yoga. It was an immense trial of fire, but within 9 months I was pain free. Not long after another fortunate moment occurred upon meeting my one and only teacher - Nancy Gilgoff. Although Nancy didn’t directly teach me asana until the 3rd series, she utterly transformed and reshaped my practice, perception, and understanding of yoga, providing the overall landscape and significance of ashtanga so that I could teach it to others authentically. With this experience, I know that anyone can attempt this practice. I love taking beginners all the way through the series in this time-honoured and traditional style that works, no matter your body type, age or background.

Key Principles

Here you will find some of the main facets of my teaching, many of which have evolved and matured over the last 20 years.

Brilliant Stillness

One of the truly fascinating things about this practice is that we remain within a 6’ by 2’ area for the entire duration and yet so much happens on so many different levels. On a practical level the foundation of Ashtanga yoga is very basic. This is no-frills yoga, with minimal apparatus, no shoes and only the pure expression of the moving body, organic, natural, animalistic. There is breath, fire, sweat and very little space or time for anything else. It teaches us to do extraordinary things, whilst remaining steady and calm. This is the power of the breath, and at some point in our yoga story, we learn this. This practice is really about the craft of breathing. Although breathing seems like such a simple, mundane thing this yoga makes breathing endlessly fascinating, bringing with it profound effects.

Keep it simple

The most obvious value in practicing Ashtanga yoga is that it meets one of our most immediate, basic needs - physical health. When our needs are met in this way then one can be emotionally stable = mental well-being. Empathy and compassion then arise naturally and easily, and one is in a far better position to be able to help others, in whatever way is suitable. You may even feel the urge to teach yoga! In terms of Jyotish (Vedic timekeeping) these principles are symbolised by healthy surya and chandra (sun & moon). This is the domino effect of Ashtanga yoga - just focus on the asana practice, sit back and watch the show! One thing follows the next, so as long as you take care of the rupees then the lakhs will take care of themselves.

Nancy Gilgoff

Discovering Nancy Gilgoff, the first western woman to learn Ashtanga yoga, was immensely impactful. I knew I had met my teacher immediately: a meeting of minds in that I had found a fellow yogi who had entered into the practice from a physically afflicted starting point, and had experienced a radical transformation. I feel blessed to have been able to call her my friend and spend time assisting her on numerous workshops and teacher training clinics in the UK and Europe. Spending concentrated periods at her shala and staying at her home in Maui were invaluable experiences that have forever shaped and fuelled my passion to teach the ‘old’ traditional and authentic style of Ashtanga yoga in the same way that it was taught to her by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.

Joyful Method

The greatest legacy that Nancy Gilgoff left was her unrelenting focus on the importance of moving students onwards through the series. It is rare to find this ‘old’ method of teaching anymore. Modern Ashtanga yoga is quite restrictive, born out of fear and inexperience, and results in much frustration and ultimately pain. A far more joyful method is to allow students to move forwards and not hold them back. For the body this is much more pleasant, although it does require some sensitivity and perception from the teacher. Good, intelligent hands-on adjustments are also becoming a thing of the past. I like to keep the art of adjusting alive and well, working on clearing out energy blockages (physical and mental) finding them to hit the mark more effectively than verbal communication.

Psyche & Healing

As we dive deeper into practice over the years we begin to understand how this process is an investigation into the psyche more than anything else. It tests our mettle in ways that we never imagined. We may uncover things that were previously buried, affording the possibility of finally burning up or casting aside those things that are no longer serving us. They appear to dissolve, or simply fall away. Seen this way, Ashtanga yoga could be a part of a larger psychological program or could even entirely replace conventional therapies. I consider the yoga room a safe and healing space in which those subtle shifts in the subconscious can occur, a place in which students feel comfortable in allowing those changes to happen. It is a silent, non-verbal alchemy.

Beyond Spirituality

I do not teach from the perspective that a student needs to reach a higher state of enlightenment or liberation. That idea incarcerates and confines a student into a psychologically painful wheel of seeking. It is a form of imprisonment. This is the true meaning of the wheel of saṃsāra. It is the ultimate spiritual cul-de-sac and yet, strangely, in most yoga circles lies at the very centre of practice, fuelled by the misconstrued belief that such seeking (sādhanā) can bring freedom. Wheels within wheels! The illusion is that one feels like one is getting somewhere, when one is certainly not. The entirety of the spiritual marketplace is financed by the selling of this dream. Such notions are not entertained at House of Ashtanga!

Already Complete

Yoga is not about being more present and more aware. If anything it is the absolute opposite of that. If yoga has to be something, then you could call it ‘freedom’ from the need to be present or aware, or anything at all for that matter. It is utter stillness (at worst) and - at best - it is total absence. But, at this point, you could really just call it anything… pumpkin pie if you like! Yoga is not a journey towards. More rather, it is an explosion out of. Ultimately, yoga practice is an expression of that which is totally beyond spirituality. Infinitely simple, intimately obvious, fundamentally unknowable and already complete.

Credentials

I am a certified ashtanga vinyasa yoga teacher, fully insured and accredited via Yoga Alliance. I have also provided Yoga Teacher Trainings for the last two years alongside Dionne Myers of Love 2 Yoga. I do enjoy working with teachers so if you're interested in working with me to further your skillset (in particular the art of adjusting) then please feel free to reach out and contact me.