INTERVIEWERS: GABRIELA NEVES & MAHMOUD MANSI
About Gale Claire:
“My life has always been anchored in a committed physical practice. Practicing ballet from the age of 3, and highland dancing from the age of 4 into my adulthood, I went on to study dance in university. After exploring other career choices, my passion for movement therapies became my apparent life dharma- Committing to a life of learning and sharing empowering life practices. I have studied yoga with different teachers: 200 hr hatha yoga under Meghan Currie, Sridaiva with Desi Springer and John Friend (intensive), Yoga Tune Up’s Embodied Anatomy with Trina Altman, and 300 hr with Bryce Yoga. The most influential teacher in my practice is Dana Skoglund, my teacher who has a background in Anusara and Sridaiva yoga, as well as ayurveda. Through yoga and ayurveda (I study with Cate Stillman and Dr. Summit Kesarkar) I strive to facilitate a newfound sense of self-empowerment, self-accountability and gratitude for life in all those who practice in her community.”
THE INTERVIEW
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After experiencing physical problems and pain you started practicing Yoga to overcome this. How did it turn into a profession?
Yoga turned into a profession after my father died from cancer in 2014. His death came about very quickly once we learned about his cancer. I went through an intense period of reflection when he died. I was reassessing how I was choosing to live my life. I became very aware of the emotional baggage I was carrying with me through life and which was preventing me from sharing and connecting with life in a deeply meaningful way. I realized that I could not spiritually, emotionally or physically afford to live disconnected from practices of joy any longer. They became the highest priority. So, instead of fitting in yoga when I could, I pushed the ‘shoulds’ on my schedule to the side and put yoga at the forefront.
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You practiced ballet since you were a kid and studied dancing in university. How did these things help you as a Yoga instructor and Ayurveda?
It has meant that a great deal of my sensory perception has been devoted to feeling the subtle articulations in movement. There was a developed ability to perceive physical sensations and be aware of subtle alignment or misalignments emotionally and physically (considering that emotions as felt physically). So, increased sensitivity and physical awareness. It helps me to be able to communicate ways of navigating the body in greater detail than had I not had done these things.
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What is necessary to become a Yoga instructor in terms of professional and personal skills, ethics and communication?
I feel that having many yoga teachers of different kinds is great for our global communities. From my perspective, what each teacher offers will be different and valuable in it’s own way for some people. What makes me enjoy other teachers most is his/her honesty in offering what they have learned from his/her own experience. I find that when as teachers we feel there are certain things we ‘should’ teach or ‘should’ know, those are the least potent teachings we can offer. They are experiences we have yet made use of in our own lives and therefore transmit very little intelligible information. For me, offering and teaching from a place of humility, always bearing in mind that there may be information that could change our current mental framework is most important. That way we are all open to be learning and exploring together as a community, knowing that we all bring valuable perspective to the table as teachers and students.
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If you have only chosen Yoga as a hobby, what would be your alternative passion career?
Dancing. I kind of feel like that is a cheat answer because I blend the two already. Beyond dance and yoga I also really love textiles, sewing and design!
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Some people, especially those who are stressed and really busy, think practicing Yoga is boring. How do you convince this kind of person that Yoga can be a good way to relax and overcome problems?
It is in these cases that yoga or a similar practice is extra important. Yoga reminds us that there is a balance between yin and yang. If we are constantly in a stimulated state our systems have no opportunity to rest and detoxify on their natural 24 cycle. Constant stimulation and drive is setting one’s system up for depletion and reliance on stimulants and depressants, etc. to produce states of vibrancy and states of relaxation that are meant to come from rest, nourishment and rejuvenation.
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You have mentioned in your biography that you had experienced other careers. Can you please tell us about them? Can you please tell us what do you mostly dislike in the corporate world? And if you were to be a corporate manager, what different would you do differently for your employees to make things different than the way they are?
I worked in health food stores in various roles, and also as a branch file manager in a financial office. What I didn’t like was that the status quo seemed to normalize disease of body and mind. It felt taboo to practice health and seemed out of place to believe in one’s own capacity for positive change. Often I felt mocked in subtle ways for being ‘wellness focused’.
If I were to be a corporate manager I would make sure that slow time, or down time are valued in the daily cycle for my employees. There would also be some sort of encouragement for warm or fresh lunch at mid-day.
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From your point of view, what is the best technique to brand yourself, and what is the best way to reach out for students?
Well, I am sorting that out myself. I would say that exploration and feedback are both important in this process. We have to allow enough exploration to find what we most enjoy offering so that our service is fresh and vibrant for our clients. It is also important to hear from your clientele so that you know what they most valued in the time you worked together. This is important because we have all of the background information on ourselves, and learning what stands out to a new set of eyes can be hard to do on our own. It is most important to me that when we are branding ourselves and focusing the aims for our intentions, we check-in that it comes from an openness at heart for community building rather than any manifestation of competition or dominance mentality.
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What kind of message do you believe you are delivering through your work?
Playful stick-to-itivness. I really encourage people to show up for themselves, to keep the bigger picture rooted in our commitments to the small details- that’s how our deepest desires are realized. I facilitate people to create and establish sound structure so that we can maintain our vitality and sensitivity. Our sensitivity supported by sound structure is essential for our creativity and joy. We have to maintain our ability to feel deeply.
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Let’s say you are working in a health club as an HR person and you are responsible to recruit a Yoga Instructor, what are the questions you are going to ask him/her? And how are you going to test their performance?
I feel it is important to acknowledge the importance I would play as the HR person as well. As the person leading a meeting it would be up to me to set an authentically welcoming tone. I would be looking to see that the person shares their expertise from his/her own experiences. My feeling is that often we feel we need to share information that is ‘right’ and validated, but which may also be simply repeating what we have been told which transmits less meaningfully. I would be more interested to see that what the person has to share is coming from experiential, visceral learning. I would also be looking to see humility and honesty. I would ask what he/she feels his/her strengths are and what he/she hopes to become better at over the next year and who they feel comfortable looking to as a mentor. Performance would depend on what the person is wanting to offer for classes. I would look to see that what they are wanting to offer and his/her evident strengths actually match-up.
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You have spent part of your life living in Egypt as a Yoga Instructor, how did you find the market there different than in Canada?
In Cairo I found that there was more of an expectation that yoga be ‘relaxing’. I teach classes that encourage positive change through rebuilding the tissues. This means that classes will be physically challenging in order to bring about the changes we wish to see in our structure and behaviour. The perception that yoga is mainly a tool for relaxation made it difficult at times for me to setup appropriate expectations of what people were going to experience in my classes. The relaxation through passive practice is usually taught in a yin practice as opposed to yang. This delineation between yin and yang parts to a yogasana practice is perhaps not yet clear in Egypt, but surely is becoming more so.
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From your personal observations, what could be solutions to poverty in Egypt?
First I would say that this isn’t my area of expertise! However, my input is that two valuable considerations are to empower women and venerate the farmers J
The greater the female perspective is represented in public policies, the more comprehensive the policies can be, and therefore the more community building can take place. In terms of farming, these are basic life skills many of us urbanized folk have lost, which renders us completely dependent on the institutions that govern larger scale resource distribution. Building value in the community around basic life skills like farming (based on local ecosystems) is bound to create a more resilient and resource-affluent population.
Website: http://www.galeclaire.com/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/gale.claire/?fref=ts