We are: DurgaDas (Regis Chapman) and Shakti (Leila Rai).
We believe in a philosophy of coaching and teaching that relies on the need to be practitioners first and teachers after. We walk our talk. Kindly see our Vision, Mission and Values statement for more about our philosophy.
We also understand that coaching, training and teaching are different things. Here are our views of the differences:
What Is Coaching?
According to the ICF, the largest association of coaches in the world, coaching is:
“Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.
Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach's job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has. “
Coaching vs. Training vs. Teaching
What is performance coaching, and does it presume performance criteria that are prescribed?
Performance coaching is coaching with reference to achievement against criteria, like in an athlete: faster, higher, or more accurate. The performance criteria may be self-designed, or adopted based on organizational or functional requirements. Performance criteria may involve milestones, measures or acknowledgements of achievement, and intermediate goals to determine progress toward larger goals. In athletic “coaching”, performance coaching is a large part, a majority, of it.
What is the difference between coaching, training and teaching?
Teaching occurs when a person who has extensive knowledge about a subject, attempts to impart that knowledge to an individual on an instructional basis. If one is coaching a new athlete in a new that is new to them, one can often be in a teaching capacity for a time at the start, and periodically over time. Teaching differs from coaching and training on where the expertise is in the process. The coach uses the art of effective listening and asking powerful questions that lead to self-discovery on the part of the client.
Training is the midway point between these two things, where the responsibility for effort and integration of experience mostly rests upon the trainee. For example, if one wanted to become an Olympic swimmer, one must be taught how to do the activity, then one trains and gains experience.
Once one has a training experience, then coaching is back to our original definition per the ICF that adds to co-creative and inspirational completeness and communication to the picture.
Leila Rai (Shakti) is a certified Sivananda Yoga teacher, having taken her Teacher Training Course in Uttar Kashi, India on the banks of the River Ganges. She is also a highly respected Special Education, English and Media Studies high school teacher whose impact on students has been regarded as profound. As a lifelong learner and spiritual seeker, she studies Eastern and Western philosophy/psychology, as well as many perspectives found in the field of human consciousness. Her devotion to a yogic practice stems from her deep connection to her Indian heritage and her natural born tendency to integrate the mind, body and spirit in her approach to a contented life. Leila’s own journey of the mind, body and spirit led her to experience her own version of personal excellence as a world class athlete for many years.
Her athletic accomplishments are too numerous to mention here, and highlights are:
- 1984 Olympic Games Bronze Medal
- 1983 Pan Am Games Silver Medal
- 1986 Commonwealth Games Gold Medal
- Induction into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame.
- University of Victoria Legacy Award recipient
- Prime Minister of Canada’s Award of Champions
- University of Victoria Female Athlete of the Year
- City of Victoria Athlete of the Year
Leila has coached young aspiring athletes for many years following her athletic career and still continues to mentor young swimmers on a volunteer basis. She believes that sport and elite sport training can address the whole person, and not simply regard them as being their performances.
She holds that all human endeavours are an opportunity for growth and provides a person with valuable lessons and insights about one’s true self. Whether a person pursues an interest in a spiritual life, the arts, academics or technology, in athletics and recreation, in the service of others or the environment, in business or simply in bettering oneself, Leila sees all roads of human expression as leading to an integrated wholeness of being. Leila’s purpose as a yoga teacher and coach is to help each person uncover his/her highest potential as a balanced human. She approaches teaching from the perspective of a facilitator.
Regis Chapman (DurgaDas) is also a certified Sivananda Yoga teacher, having taken his Teacher Training Course at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm in Grass Valley, CA, USA in October 2005. A practicing lifecoach, he helps people with his years of combined coaching and spiritual practice experience. Previously, he had been practicing yoga at another nearby spiritual center.
Regis lived at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm ashram from August 2005 to January 2008. For much of this time, he was the head Hatha Yoga teacher, responsible for assisting new teachers just out of TTC along with mentoring and guiding new spiritual aspirants in the work study programs.
It was during this first year he developed the Yoga & Balance program, which attempts to explain, both in spiritual terms and physical terms, explanations for many of the issues he was hearing raised from his yoga students, ashram program attendees and TTC attendees.
He has 20 years in coaching elite endurance athletes. On average, he would work with an athlete approximately 4 years. His former athletes include: Wes Hamilton, Brian Sjoberg, Louie LaMarche, Mat McDonald, Brian Finnerty, Sterling Magnell, and Damon Kluck. His role was to take local athletes and make them into professional cyclists. He was also Florida State Time Trial Champion in 1990.
His in-depth experience plus the multiple competencies needed to assist athletes with the various overuse injuries and problems that naturally arise when coaching, allows him to integrate Eastern philosophy and teaching methods with modern physical and psychological understanding. Combine that with a healthy dose of humor and you have a truly gifted teacher.
DurgaDas will begin a Certified Professional Coach Training Program next year to gain truly superlative listening and questioning skills to assist his coaching and lifecoaching clients.
Our Style of Spiritual Work (Karma Yoga)
We specialize in integral programs and services centered on our shared yogic lifestyle. We coach athletes, businesspeople and yoga teachers, and teach yoga classes to all. We celebrate the timeless and ancient wisdom and seek to combine it’s timeless nature with that of modern methods. It’s remarkable how much is gained from putting modern science and psychology, for example, into the context offered by Yoga.
Yoga means union. That means that Yoga is for all. People of all ages, body types and backgrounds can do yoga to it's fullest. Yoga is not religion!
“One can practice Yoga without violating any sincere faith.” -Swami Sivananda
Here at Silent Motion, we combine East with West, old with new, modern with ancient. We take the best of all available tools and outlooks and combine them into a cohesive whole, which is the true nature of Yoga.
Yoga is not merely postures, but a full practical method of living life. Because the wisdom and truths about the body, mind and spirit are universal and timeless and not merely from India, Yoga is able to shed light on the lifestyle of the modern person.
What we learned in Classical traditions of Yoga from Swami Sivananda, Swami Vishnu-devananda, Swami Dayananda and other classical teachers- we pass on to you. Our in depth study of anatomy, physiology, psychology, non-violent communication, listening and questioning skills are used to your benefit.
Leila and Regis are both initiated into the Saraswati lineage via Swami Vishnu-devananda and Swami Sivananda, the great saint of India. In addition to the devotion to our lineage, we are open to the evolution of human consciousness and teachers of human potential. The perspective offered by our lineage is generally in line with what is known as Smartism. Having said this, Vedantic thinking is a little different than that and still further are the thoughts of Krishnamurti, Osho (formerly Shree Bhagawan Rajneesh), Swami Dayananda and others. Wisdom is sought continuously, whether it be from Christian thinking (which Swami Sivananda himself integrated), Buddhism, or Taoism. Very inspiring are the works of Western-perspective authors Marshall Rosenberg, Daniel Goleman, Alfie Kohn, Stephen R. Covey, Robert Bly, John Lee, and J. Keith Miller.
Ancient wisdom and modern scientific thought about the three bodies- physical, mental and spiritual- are addressed by us here at Silent Motion Yoga & Coaching.
Check out our blog for up to the minute musings on the yoga lifestyle we live every day.
Get a balanced viewpoint on life with Silent Motion Yoga & Coaching.
Yoga for beginners is primarily done through the postures or positions, what we call asanas.
The word asana means (a) without and (sana) motion. We chose the name, Silent Motion, for our yoga "business" because it points to what can be missing from modern yoga, and this is the sense of silence in the body and the mind. Balance of the mindbody comes largely from this stillness.
Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha- “Yoga is the suspension of the modifications of the mind.” - Sage Patanjali
This context is most important to grasp why one would practice yoga at all, and yet this has often been lost, or turned into something "new agey". Without context, one cannot grasp the deeper meanings behind why one practices yoga at all.
Classical Yoga has an amazing ability to properly "contextualize" any spiritual perspective. This is why yoga is universal and non-sectarian and is not even religious, even though it's often closely associated with Hinduism. Yoga focuses more on the practical methods behind all spiritual traditions, on what all traditions have in common rather than anything that divides us.
The practice of Yoga requires no worship of elephant-headed "Gods" or anything like that.
In any case, these multifarious "Gods" and extensive mythology in Hinduism can be seen as practical or metaphorical instead of as "Gods". They represent principles, and not necessarily 'dieties'. A Hindu might think otherwise, yet they serve as many purposes as principles to the secular person as they do to a religious Hinduample, Ganesha, above, represents the positive thinking principle. According to the mythology, he's the god designated to advocate for humans themselves. He's the principles of overcoming obstacles and fears.
Mastery of asanas are achieved when one can hold the posture for 3 hours. Consider this for a moment. Does one have the equanimity of mind to hold postures for that long? Also, most yoga postures taught at your average yoga class are greatly simplified. This is the principle of Ganesha applied. One begins simply and becomes more advanced with time.
Notice that most yoga practiced in the world today is more about the transitions between asanas and body alignment. Either that, or it's often like an aerobics class, and even the students themselves come to get "a workout". Music is played in the background, making it difficult to have the internal experience which is promised by Yoga, or even to hear the instructions from the teacher.
The ultimate purpose of what we call "yoga" in the world is to make the body flexible enough to be able to sit for long periods of time. Any "fitness" can be considered in this light and less in terms of modern physical culture.
One starts by using the mind to control the body and keep it steady and *not move*. It is merely one step, the third, in the ladder of success in Self-Realization. Pranayama, which is the fourth step, outlines the management of the vital energy. Fifth is withdrawal of the senses, needed to get to step Six, which is concentration. Unless one's senses are under control, concentration cannot occur. Athletes call this the gateway to "flow" experiences. Seventh is meditation, and only through the mysterious vehicle of meditation, can Self-Realization (the 8th step) occur.
This is the purpose of beginning yoga practice and it's context. In the following blog posts, we will cover the purpose of yoga asanas, the details of each yoga pose, how to do it in a balanced way and so on. Later, I will be adding audio and video podcasts as well, so keep your eyes open for that.
Kindly let us know if you have any questions I can answer in this blog for you.
Om Namo Narayanaya, DurgaDas (Regis Chapman) & Shakti (Leila Rai)
Owners and Founders