#125 Gerald Disse & Linda Munro Ashtanga Yoga Paris
Gerald Disse & Linda Munro Bringing Mysore to Paris (www.ashtangayogaparis.fr | @ashtangayogaparis)
Bringing Mysore to Paris | Teaching as a married couple | Finding Ashtanga in the early 90s | Changes from yoga | Looking for meaning | Being in class with Madonna | Giving up a career in fashion | Becoming a teacher | Teacher-student relationship | Yoga Lifestyle | Building a community in Paris | Pattahbi Jois 1991 | Sharing with other teachers | Eating more chapatis | Start of the Paris shala | Mysore v Led class | Changes in practice | Importance of the series | Importance of leaving the Ashtanga rules | Impact of “Me Too” with teaching
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GÉRALD DISSE
Gérald has been practicing yoga since 1989 and teaching since 1996. He discovered Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in 1991 with Sri K Pattabhi Jois in Mysore, India. He spent 8 years traveling to Mysore spending 4 – 6 months per visit to learn more of the system, then going off to some other exotic location to practice daily what Guruji had taught him. Gérald was taught up to the third series and was one of the first French students to have been personally authorized to teach by Sri K Pattabhi Jois. As he had learned directly from the Guru at a time when there were not so many yoga students in Mysore, he started to give workshops around the world. He gave Ashtanga workshops in Australia, New Zealand, and around the USA and Europe.
In addition to his Ashtanga practice, Gérald continues to cultivate a meditation practice in the tradition of Kriya Yoga. He has a daily pranayama practice and has been certified to teach kriya and pranayama by his teacher, Sri O.P. Tiwari.
During his travels he visited Auroville, an international spiritual community in Tamil Nadu, South India. He related with the place immediately. It was a way for him to remain connected to the spirituality of India and also still have connection to the west, so he decided to build a house and a yoga shala and become a part of the Auroville community. Gerald spent 5 years there teaching daily Ashtanga Mysore style classes in between his workshops around the world; until 2004 when he decided, after being away for 17 years, to move back to France. Gérald is now settled in Paris where he has founded a beautiful community of yoga with Linda and their children.
In 2019, Gerald and Linda opened Ashtanga Yoga Golfe Juan, a new location to share their precise teaching of yoga on the Côte d’Azur, in the south of France, their new home.
Gérald is an Experienced Registered Yoga Alliance teacher.
LINDA MUNRO
Linda took her first yoga class in 1995 in Toronto, Canada with Ron Reid. But a couple of months later she was in a fairly serious car accident and had to have physical therapy. This is when she decided to use the yoga as a way to compliment the therapy. Soon after she realized that the yoga would be a life time practice. A practice of asana, pranayama and meditation but also a practice of being truthful, a practice of being kind, a practice of being fearless, peaceful and happy. She believes that the practice of “yoga” is continuous; the practice does not stop when you roll up the yoga mat. The practice of yoga includes the way you live your life, the way you relate to your family, friends, co-workers and to the strangers on the street. This is the life long practice of developing yogic awareness.
In 1997 she moved to New York City with her work in the fashion business while continuing a daily ashtanga practice studying under Eddie Stern. The year 2000 brought her to Paris, France. After thirteen years in the world of fashion she decided it was the time to move fully into the direction she had been moving since her first yoga class.
She felt a strong desire to sincerely give to others what her teachers have given to her; so in 2002 she started teaching yoga as her own study and practice continued. Gerald and Linda opened Ashtanga Paris in February 2004.
She studied yogic scriptures and philosophy, having completed a 250 hour study program of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, and a 120 hour course on the Bhagavad Gita under the supervision of Georg Feuerstein. She was one of his 10 mentoring students until he passed away in 2012. Linda is also a student of Sri O.P. Tiwari and is certified by him to teach pranayama. As well she has completed the anatomy for yoga training with Leslie Kaminoff and is a junior yoga anatomy trainer. Not to mention she has studied with the late guru of Ashtanga Yoga, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in Mysore, India and NYC.
In 2019, Linda and Gerald opened Ashtanga Yoga Golfe Juan, a new location to share their precise teaching of yoga on the Côte d’Azur, in the south of France, their new home.
Linda is registered as an experienced registered yoga Alliance Teacher and continuing education trainer.