Self Reflection and Deep Learning - Planting the seeds

By Nicky Poole, 889 Yoga Community Leader

Today I planned to write a little blog about our Living Yoga Program, a 200 hour yoga teacher training certification that we are offering this Fall. In order to take myself back to the curious and open mind of a beginner on the yoga journey I took a dusty stack of my old journals outside to read them, and reflect upon what I had learned. I have had an incredible morning in deep recollection of these incredible memories. I will begin to share some of the pages from the early, early years of my yoga study with you over the next few weeks.

I had completely forgotten about this picture. It was written in my journal from the year 2000. I was living alone on the rugged East Coast of Taiwan in a small town called Taitung, with only 8 other foreigners. I had moved to Taiwan after extended travel and practice of meditation in India. In Taiwan, I continued to practice yoga asana alone without the guidance of any teacher, (but with my trusty pocket edition of Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar!) I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I just unrolled my mat and started. I didn’t realize at the time what a blessing it was for me to be left to figure things out for myself, and learn to trust the teacher within, just through practice, beginners mind, and honest observation. The text here is a little dream seed I planted at the beginning of the New Millennium to take my practice and develop it until I was able to teach! Who knew what would unfold over the next 12 years! I really can’t tell you how wonderful it is for me to have found this today, and looked back at how far I have come in realizing my dreams.

28/08/2026 It always feels so good to come home, take a shower, prepare my little room downstairs and take an hour of my day to reunite my mind with my body. I’m feeling stronger, that is for sure. Discipline young lady. That’s all it is. Discipline. I want it. Nicky the Yoga teacher? Well, maybe … why not? why not!?