With the Kilifi Wellness Festival coming up, iN would like to introduce you to some of the wellness practitioners who will be teaching there. First in our series, we meet yoga teacher Rebekah.
Rebekah combines her Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering, and experience in that field, with years of yoga practice to bring a unique blend of knowledge to her teaching.
She explores the intersection of science and inner awareness, and shares those insights with students. Her approach to hatha yoga integrates anatomical detail, biological principles, and a blend of yogic philosophy with scientific understanding.
With each asana (yoga posture), Rebekah invites her students to observe bodily sensations, breath patterns, and the subtle stirrings of thoughts and emotions.
In conversation, Sarah Luddy delved deeper into Rebekah’s practice and background.
Sarah Luddy: Firstly, can you tell me about the foundations of your teaching practice?
Rebekah: The foundations lie in a classical Hatha Yoga. Ha-tha, meaning Sun and Moon, so it has both Yang and Yin, which means that It’s well balanced. People often need the Yang, the strength, not only to build the strength in their body, but also the strength of mind. Some people need to build more confidence, or they need to build more motivation in their life, or they need to have more steadfastness along their path. That is a sort of Sun/Pingala/Yang/Ha/masculine type of quality.
One often focuses on Yin when they think about yoga, like, I just need Yin because I already “do”. But it’s nice to have a balance, because these postures inherently affect our mind as well when we’re in them.
Secondly, we have the “Tha” moon/Ida/Yin/ the feminine. This is the ability to surrender, to soften, to open, receptivity. That is going to come into the practice towards the end of the class where we’re letting go. We’re spending more time in postures. [My] class will always have the mix because both are needed to balance out the body and the mind and the personality.
That’s just the physical postures. But what I direct a lot of the [mental] focus towards is:
We get into these shapes, but we’re really using the postures to cultivate awareness, equanimity, and even-mindedness.
That’s what I would say the core foundation of what I’m focusing on is.
SL: I know your personal practice is very deep, and you have spent time at ashrams [places of spiritual retreat and yogic teaching in India]. How do you distill and share the depth of your knowledge with people who are just coming to a drop-in class?
R: So what I actually do is I’m constantly studying, and when I think of something, have an insight, or I read something, or listen to something, or I’m in the ashram, and feel this thing is accessible to my students, I write that down.
I have this big database of stuff to say, and then it’s like, okay, this is what I want to say in my class. And I grab all those sentences. And how do I access that in the moment? Well, I actually have a [mental] algorithm. I know I want to say what feels accessible to people. I’m choosing things that are not too esoteric – that would scare certain people away. I like when [the concepts] are more scientific, biological or easy for [the student] to understand experientially – how it affects their mind and body.
Asana-wise, I might have a few things that I know I want to do, otherwise it is very impromptu. I’m just watching and I’m feeling people.
SL: That’s interesting. I would have thought it was the other way. Going to classes I always assume that teachers have a set of asanas planned that complement each other, and they make up the background talk around those asanas.
R: No, I improvise. I used to [plan the asanas], but now that’s easy, I know exactly what should come next. I can see what the bodies are doing. Now I’m just trying to focus on teaching the philosophy.
SL: Since you mentioned you used to prepare class one way, now you do it another, can we talk about what brought you to yoga? How you found your path there, and what was your journey?
R: It was sort of random. There was a deal going on at the local yoga studio, and I decided to go for it. I think it was a buy one, get a week free, and
I went into my first yoga class, and I felt an inner focus that I had never felt before, without some sort of stimulant.
And I was sweating immensely. It was hot. It was a hot studio, and so I was deeply detoxifying.
At the time, I was on medicine for ADHD. I was in my master’s at university. I had been put on dexedrine, which is like Ritalin, by a doctor and I was highly addicted to it. I couldn’t get off. I wanted to get off of it. I was thinking “I don’t want to live on this stuff. I know that it’s not good for me”. It did help me listen during lectures and study for long hours, but I could see that it was not good for my body, or my overall mind. I got to the point where I couldn’t stay awake unless I was on it.
So I went to my first yoga class and I never took a pill again.
For 6 months I barely missed a day of class so eventually the studio hired me. I would work behind the front desk, talk about the yoga, talk about the biology, talk about everything. Sell packages, smoothies, and I found my yoga community there.
SL: So you just completely immersed in the yoga world from day one. And then you went to study yoga in India. How much later was that?
R: I think the first time I went was 2017. I’d often just go sit a Vipassana* [silent retreat] course. Vipassana is also a big, big part of my practice and my teaching, because a lot of what I’m saying are insights that I’ve had during Vipassana meditation practice;
It’s a big part of the recipe of teaching people to be aware of what’s actually happening in the reality.
So I’d go to India every year, spend anywhere from one to three months there, do some meditation, and then immerse myself into an ashram and just go deep into the tradition. My day-to-day is built around living a yogic-Ayurvedic lifestyle.
SL: What do you see as the role of a teacher in yoga, especially outside of an ashram?
R:
Yoga is not rules. Yoga is a set of suggestions for someone’s wellness. But at the end of the day, everyone must be their own teacher. So I’m guiding people into shapes, and I’m showing them the way, but they must themselves walk the path. They must themselves take the instruction that I’m giving in order to break away from thoughts. [I can teach] how to do pranayama – Take conscious control over their breath so they can take conscious control over their nervous system.
So the role of the teacher is to distill the teachings, to bring them in a concise but also thorough delivery, so that it’s packaged well so people can understand it and then apply it to their own mind and body.
SL: One last question. What do you feel people can gain from yoga practice?
R: They gain the experience of what it is to have clarity in the body and the mind.
*Vipassana, meaning “to see things as they really are,” is thought to be one of India’s most ancient techniques of meditation. This technique is often taught in ten-day courses, during which participants learn the basics of the method and practice it under the guidance of experienced teachers.
Rebekah is normally based in Arusha, Tanzania. The Kilifi Wellness Festival is a unique opportunity to experience her deeply embodied teaching on the Kenyan Coast.
Rebekah also practices other holistic therapies, such as Thai Yoga Massage and Ayurveda. You can find out more on her website rebekahyoga.com
You can easily reach Kilifi for the Wellness Festival flying with Skyward Express to Malindi or to Mombasa, where you will currently find discounted flights.