#010: Ann Weston | 62 Years of Practice

Stillpoints: A Podcast with Scott Johnson

#010: Ann Weston Scott talks to Ann Weston, a UK based yoga teacher and teacher trainer, on her 62 years of yoga practice. Ann began her yoga practice at the age of sixteen in 1957. She has been a quiet pioneer of yoga in Britain since that time, quietly practicing and sharing to others what she has found to be so beautiful in her life. Yoga. Ann still teaches classes near her home in Watford and has for the last 26 years taught relaxation at an NHS cancer hospital. You can reach out to Ann directly here

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62 Years of Practice - Ann Weston

In this rich and warm conversation, Scott and Ann talk about how yoga has shaped Ann's life since she began practicing back in 1957. Ann has never rested on her laurels and has always kept moving to see what's possible in her life. She has navigated all the major explosions in yoga from the 1960s onwards. Ann shares how she met all of this while raising a family.

This is a classic Stillpoints podcast. A conversation that inspires through the story of one person who has practiced for over 60 years and has always had a deep passion for yoga. Yoga practitioners and teachers should listen to Ann's story as it harks back to a time before most of us were born, before the big explosions we know that have catapulted yoga around the world. Ann talks about the explosions of yoga in her early years that most of us are unaware of.

If you like this podcast then also listen to Scott’s conversation with Danny Paradise which also looks at the practice from a long term stand point.

Ann talks about:

• how she first met Scott.
• how yoga first landed for her when she was a mother.
• what she was like as a young girl before yoga.
• how she started her first yoga class in 1957 and really loved it.
• how she had a family in 1963 and her life changed.
• how she learnt from Richard Hittleman on the television in the early 1960s.
• how these were the first yoga classes on a screen.
• how she began moving into teaching with Diana Lang in Sunita PranaYama Yoga method.
• how her training in yoga was strict.
• how she then had to learn to teach in adult education.
• how she was able to balance her teaching and family life.
• how she moved into teaching in the British Wheel Of Yoga.
• how this way of teaching broadened her knowledge.
• how her life is broken down into a wider context.
• how in 1973/74 she elevated her teaching.
• how there was an explosion of yoga in the early 1970s.
• how her teaching was effected by this explosion.
• how she moved into a sense of responsibility for her students.
• how she moved into residentials in the late 1970s.
• how she met her first philosophy teacher.
• from the millennium she feels she has evolved again.
• how now she has found real peace with her yoga
• how teaching relaxation to cancer patients in the NHS has really grounded her.
• how she feels fulfilled from all her practice over the years.

Show Notes

Link to Instagram picture with Scott and Ann.

PranaYama yoga.

Yogi Sunita Cabral - The Lotus In The Rose book.

Suzanna Newcombe - Yoga In Britain.

British Wheel Of Yoga

Teachers mentioned

Andy Gill.

Mr Voss - Unkown.

Richard Hittleman.

Lyn Marshall - Unknown.

Diana Lang - Unknown.

Yogi Sunita Cabral amazing article.

Yogi Sunita Cabral bio.

Angela Macdonald and June Baker - Unknown.

Alistair Shearer.

John Scott.