Live as fully and as passionately
as you can. Don’t be a cynic. And always trust your sixth
sense.
These are the words Ian Fraser lives by.
Fraser isn’t a motivational speaker, a therapist or a soothsayer
— not officially, at least.
He’s an instructor at Centretown’s Rama Lotus Yoga
Centre. His convictions were developed through his journeys,
his life experiences and his practice of yoga and meditation.
He imparts his credo to his students along with a multitude of
yogic poses.
Having just wrapped up an afternoon class, Fraser is freshly
showered and changed out of his regular teaching attire —
tight shorts and a sweat-drenched white t-shirt.
Seated bare-footed and cross-legged on the floor of Rama Lotus’
cold room, where the Kundalini style of yoga is taught and practiced,
Fraser says he became interested in the Indian discipline because
he was in pain.
“I had a really bad back and also emotionally, spiritually
– nothing was happening there for me,” he says.
“I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just knew
I had to make a change in my life.”
So, he changed.
Back in the ‘70s, the South African native was living in
London and working in the restaurant business. His life, by his
estimation, was wild and unspiritual.
“It was a crazy, yuppie lifestyle. I smoked a pack (of cigarettes)
a day, drank too much, partied too much, and did way too many
recreational drugs.”
By the time he hit his 30s, he had all the material perks he
thought he wanted — a house a car, a motorcycle, a good
job. But he says there was a void in his life that possessions
couldn’t fill.
“I got out of the business, sold absolutely everything I
had — I had one little box of stuff left — and left.”
He traveled to the South Pacific and then made his way to Mexico.
While he first encountered yoga during an earlier visit to India,
it was in Mexico where the physical and meditative exercise made
a lasting impression on his mind, body and soul.
“It was really one of the peak experiences of my life,”
he says. “It really shifted things for me. It helped me
see clearly, see what my path was.”
He traveled up the West Coast to Los Angeles, where he took a
teacher training. He wanted to relay the benefits of yoga to
other eager soul-searchers.
“It made me look at myself in a different way,” he
says, describing his month-long routine of meditation and yoga
every morning and evening. “It was the first time I was
in a space where my stuff came up and I had to deal with it.
I had to really confront some of my fears and my demons and change
some of those regular patters on my life.”
He relocated to New York, acting as director of the Omega Institute
for Holistic Medicine, while also teaching yoga.
There he met Ottawa-native Jamine Ackert, his ex-wife and long-term
friend, and the original impetus for his move to Centretown.
Since he moved here and began teaching at Rama Lotus, his yoga
regimen has become somewhat less intense than what it used to
be.
At what he calls his most disciplined point in 20 years of practice,
Fraser was meditating twice a day and assuming various yogic
poses for an hour and half each morning.
He attributes the decline in practice to his busy teaching schedule.
His eight classes a week include Hatha yoga, an accessible way
to learn the basic postures and breathing techniques, and power
yoga, a class taught in a heated room with a faster, more aerobic
feel to the poses.
Despite the decline in his personal practice, he says being a
good instructor requires him to continue practicing on his own.
“I don’t think that one has to be flexible to be a
good yoga teacher. I think it’s much more internal. Good
teachers do their own practice, so they know what’s going
on in the body.”
He says he’s had to adjust and alter his teaching and practicing
style to suit his age. “The reason I teach like I teach
and the postures I teach is because it works for me. If it doesn’t
work for me then I can’t teach it.”
Catherine Larrivée, manager of Rama Lotus and a student
of Fraser’s, says the 53-year-old has a “fire personality.”
“When you take his class you are going to work hard,”
she explains. “Whatever you need to deal with, you’re
going to deal with.”
Fraser says he makes sure newcomers to his class feel welcome
and at ease.
“I introduce myself, make a little joke, make them lighten
up because I know what it was like to go to that class. You’re
not sure what you’re supposed to do.”
Ackert, who calls Fraser’s teaching style strict, admires
his supportiveness.
“He encourages people to stretch but not beyond their limit,
so he’ll get people into unusual stretches and encourage
them to stay there and see how it feels,” Ackert, a fellow
instructor at Rama Lotus, says.
“He’s a really strong teacher so he’s really good
for people who want to go deep into the poses. He’s very
motivating,” she adds. “A lot of students keep coming
back again and again.”
And to the skeptics, who don’t come back for that second
class or never give yoga a whirl, Fraser encourages them anyway.
As he shifts in his seat to find comfort, he explains how yoga
bettered his bad back and neck. He is adamant about the physical
health benefits of yoga.
“I was in desperate pain. I don’t know what I’d
be like now if it hadn’t been for yoga.”
He also says that many of his students are triathletes, who recognize
yoga’s muscle-lengthening powers.
“Working with the breath and the concentration helps them
not only be a little more flexible when they’re doing their
triathlons, but then to remind themselves to come back to the
core, take the breath deep and be present with the breath. Let
the breath move the body.
Even more important, Fraser says, is the mind-body connection
yoga creates.
“It’s interesting to see how if I’m not feeling
grounded, how that affects my body. And that one day if I’m
feeling nice and relaxed, my mind’s relaxed and my body’s
feeling much more flexible.”
He says yoga produces a sixth-sense most people are too busy
to notice — energy. In his spare time, Fraser translates
this energy into clay sculpting. Most of his pieces are modeled
after yoga poses.
“He knows really, from inside out, how the poses go and
I think that really comes through in his art,” Ackert says.
He describes the enjoyment he gets from sculpting with the same
vigor as he does yoga. He explains nonchalantly that he practices
six different types of registered yoga and several other interpretive
ones. His favourite postures include a straddle-split forward
bend (a seated pose that stretches the hips and lower back) and
the standing forward bend with interlocking arms (a stretch that
works the thighs and opens the shoulders).
After a 20-year journey, Fraser has settled in Centretown to
be close to his and Ackert’s six-year-old daughter.
After a long sigh, he asks himself how he ended up teaching yoga
and living in Ottawa, of all places.
“I look back and I think that it quite a story. I look at
myself, and I don’t know myself,” he says, referring
to how different his life is from his decadent time in London.
He’s not afraid to admit his life didn’t turn out as
perfectly or exactly how he had planned. But he’s alright
with that.
He just takes a breath, stretches, and moves on. |