Just Jozef

Jozef Wiewel is a senior yoga teacher and widely known throughout the UK, where he’s available for workshops, teacher trainings and posture clinics. He teaches contrasting styles, from Yin to Hot Yoga, reflecting the breadth and depth of his experience. Many of his courses qualify for CPD (continuous professional development) points. Away from the mat, he’s also a keen metal worker, creating yoga-inspired scuptures. He’s a popular and sought-after teacher but still took time out to chat to OM about his love of all things yoga.

It was actually the mystical side of yoga that first got me into it. I did some Kundalini Yoga back in the mid 70s when it was mostly hippies that were into it. You would do it in someone’s back room with a nice patterned carpet. Then eventually I started getting more into the asanas. At the time I was doing martial arts and the yoga poses were pretty similar so they seemed to complement each other.

In the 80s, I worked in a clinic where many of our clients were professional footballers, such as Bryan Robson (former England captain). I started their treatment with deep tissue massage but then I introduced some yoga. I didn’t call it yoga because back then footballers didn’t do yoga: I called it stretching. A lot of the injuries I dealt with were from overuse and then not stretching at all afterwards so it really helped in their rehabilitation and afterwards. I also worked with dancers at the Bolshoi Ballet who were very easy to work with as they already knew their bodies.

Yoga was taught very differently in the past. Teachers would basically try and force you into poses by lying on top of you or pushing down on your hips in poses such as Uppavista Konasana. There was no consideration that we are all built differently and that maybe our joints just would not allow certain poses.  So after years of forcing my body into poses, overdoing it and showing off when I was demonstrating, I started to get problems. Until that point I had thought I was invincible. So I started getting into the anatomy of yoga and that’s when I began to develop my current approach to teaching: bring the body to the posture, not the other way round! You can’t expect 20 people in a class to do exactly the same thing. Krishnamarcharya taught people privately and adapted the yoga to their bodies but that’s not the easiest way to make a living. So I am very strict about what I teach, particularly in beginners classes and only teach poses that I regard as safe and in a way that I believe is safe. For example, in Warrior 2 I ask people not to go too deep and to keep their shoulders in line with their hips. I also always bring my anatomy skeleton to classes to show people where there might be restrictions. I try to explain to people that yoga is not about going deep but moving in a safe and responsible way.