Paul Terrell - The practice and teaching of yoga

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In 1998, on a suggestion from a work colleague, I made my way down to the yoga studio of Bryan Kest in Santa Monica, CA. where I was going to attend my first yoga class. There were about 185 people in a line that went around the block. Someone in front of me suggested "when you get in, just put your mat down anywhere you can. The spots are going to go fast, don't worry where you're at". That advice turned out to be very true. we were in a large room and the mats were edge to edge. As the class started, it seemed very straightforward. We started to move through a series of warm up postures and breathing exercises. I'm not real sure when things changed, but before I knew it the stuff we were doing gradually became more and more difficult. It didn't take long before I was trying to balance in some strange position while I was soaking in my own sweat. After an hour and a half of this, we laid on our backs resting in silence. That's when it hit me. My mind was unusually calm, quiet. I didn't want to do much thinking because I was more interested in just "experiencing" what I was feeling. I had that sensation of  catharsis in the back of my throat, like I needed to cry. Somehow, in the middle of Los Angeles, with over 16 million people, it can seem like the loneliest place on the planet, and in the middle of all of that, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the sensation of belonging. I had that feeling like I had just arrived, like I just got home and I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. 

I had no idea how much this event would change my life. I spent the next 20 years trying to find out what happened to me that day. 

I began my first regular yoga practice in the studio of Bryan Kest, a pioneer of Power Yoga. Learning his dynamic style and mix of disciplines allowed me to understand that there was a lot more to yoga then just the physical poses we practice in an asana class.

In 2004 I began to look at the underlying principles of my daily practice. I studied different forms of yoga and researched their lineages. I moved to Costa Rica for 3 years and lived near a popular week long yoga retreat center; their revolving weekly workshops and trainings became my regular practice which provided me with an in depth exposure to every style of yoga I could imagine.

In 2007 Bryan Kest became my mentor toward becoming a yoga instructor. He provided me with the knowledge I was seeking to deepen my practice and begin my path toward offering Yoga to others. Simply put, he taught me how to find the teacher in myself. He introduced me to S.N. Goenka's Vipassana Meditation, an introduction that made a lot of things clear to me and instilled a discipline that set me on my path of dhamma. I started to understand the bigger picture behind the meaning of yoga.

In 2009 I completed Bryan Kest's Power Yoga teacher training and began teaching what I believe to be a style influenced by several different forms of yoga. With a goal of health and wellness, offering a gentle way to take care of the entire body while honoring and flirting with it's limitations. I started to teach a style of yoga that gently allows you to explore your limitations.

When I first discovered Ashtanga yoga, it took me over a year to realize I was even practicing it. My local instructor Shayna Libbie was always teaching the same poses, in the same order. She would always start and end the class with some kinda chant. It was always a long and very thorough experience, the kind where when you're first starting out you wonder if you should actually go back to that class. But you do. This was Ashtanga as taught by Patabi Joise. 

I started attending other Ashtanga classes with different instructors. There was something different in what Ashtanga was bringing to the yoga practice. There was a different level of “seriousness” going on in the room. There was a piercing focus on what you were doing in the pose, a constant attention to everything happening in the body and at any time, if you are able to go a bit further in the pose, you were able to recognize that and take advantage of that moment. It was really involved, really intense. I don’t ever recall trying to work with my body in such a precise way before. I was doing lots of yoga, using my body in several different, new ways, but never with such focus on what I was trying to accomplish, with the instructor right there to encourage you constantly. In 2009 I moved to Encinitas, CA to take study with Tim Miller and attend his Ashtanga Primary Series yoga teacher training. 

In 2010 I opened my yoga studio "Yoga on Yamhill" in downtown Portland, Or. One of the visiting instructors was David Williams, a good friend and mentor of my first yoga instructor, Bryan Kest. David became a very good friend and taught me how to do "Ashtanga Yoga for the rest of your life".  Because Ashtanga Yoga had a reputation of being very intense, it was important to find a way to develop a daily practice that wasn't so daunting. Learning how to make Ashtanga Yoga approachable for any body type was a skill.

In 2012 I completed Seane Corn's Vinyasa Flow Teacher Training. Her sequencing experience and application of the energy channels (Nadis and Chakras) to asana was missing from my practice. It's about taking the practice to a whole new level. Working with the ever changing energy and emotional levels in the room can be aligned together to compliment the experience. Effectively working with a room full of people requires moving the energy around; Seane really knows how to do this well. Her teaching format is based on solid alignment, using a flowing alignment process, where verbal adjustments are often made "on the fly". It's definitely an art to be able to talk a room of moving people into proper alignment.

In 2012 I completed Paul Grilley's Yin Yoga Teacher Training. Developing a sense of the Yin aspects of yoga as well as a whole new understanding of anatomy, kinesiology and skeletal variation. How the body works, how it moves, and how to read and understand its limitations. I was so amazed at the education I received in one training that I began to attend Paul Grilleys Yin Yoga Teacher Trainings every year, After Paul and Suzie stopped doing international trainings, they settled into an annual program at Land of medicine buddha and Mt. Madonna both in the Central California Coast. 2024 was the first year I have not spent an annual training with the Grilleys since 2012.  

In 2013 Paul Grilley assisted me in developing a course on Yoga and Meditation that I still teach at Portland State University to this day.

In 2016 Paul Grilley assisted me in developing my Yin Yoga Teacher Training program that I still offer to this day. 

In 2013 I completed the Sarah Powers Insight Yoga Teacher Training. In my own mind I started to realize a few things that I thought were unique to my style of yoga, but didn't know how to put it together. I practice meditation when I begin my asana practice; I am always trying to maintain the meditative state of mind during my flow. Over time I became hyper aware of all of my control over the body, where my limits were, finding the boundaries in stretching, balancing, endurance, patience... Sarah Powers teaches this in a format called Insight Yoga, where you actually learn the formal meditations of Shamatha and Vipasana and apply them during the poses, the specific meridians and chakras the poses effect, and the corresponding organs in the body being effected. Through a process of investigating, activating, releasing, and allowing the prana to flow.

In 2014 I did a lot of traveling and attending yoga centric events. Bhakti Fest was a regular pilgrimage for me. It was such an amazing environment to spend time in. As I became more and more familiar with Kirtan music, I became intrigued with the Harmonium. I met Daniel Tucker at a booth, he was selling harmoniums that he had just imported from India. I had to buy one. It was an amazing experience for me, something I had been looking forward to for a long time. I spent the weekend in his booth, watching people come and play beautiful songs. I started to read the book that I got with the harmonium, "Demystifying the Harmonium" by Keith Villanueva  (Keith Hanuman). I read the book cover to cover, playing the harmonium along the way. learning the basics of SARGAM, Thaats, Tals and Ragas. I read the book over and over, it was almost as though I began to know the author without ever meeting him.   In 2016 I attended the Jai Uttal Kirtan Camp as a way to learn more about Bhakti Yoga. The morning lectures were from Keith, I finally got to meet my Bhakti Mentor in person. 

Jai Hanumanji!