Catch the energy - Katy of appleyoga

Published in Yoga Magazine as ‘What Katy Did’, February 2010

Born on a farm, Katy Appleton has an earthy, infectious energy that reaches right down the phone line. Her favourite asanas are Downward Dog, shoulder stands at dusk and head stands for presence!

With studios in London’s Belgravia, Southfields and Clapham, Katy has built up a reputation for making her particular brand of yoga - appleyoga - an enjoyable practice.

A dancer with the English Ballet for a decade, Katy took up yoga and became a full-time yoga teacher about 12 years ago. She became known for her work with people like Geri Halliwell and The Duchess of York. Since then, Katy has moved on to develop a very distinct and self-reliant style of her own. Along the way, she has become a teacher of Vinyasa, Hatha and Astanga Yoga, Pilates, and a qualified birth partner (doula).

In the first of two talks, we plunged into what Katy called “the inspiration of the moment” – beginning with the music and discipline of ballet juxtaposed to the flowing quality of yoga.

“I’m very blessed because I’ve incorporated both into my yoga practice and my teaching.” She paused. “I don’t miss that. Having been a ballet dancer for such a long time, the music element has integrated into my whole being: that of wanting to feel the music move me. And I often use music in my classes.”

Acknowledging that music in yoga was still quite unusual, she said, “More and more, I see and hear people using music in yoga classes. But I’m quite particular. I create on this magical thing called the iPod playlist.” Katy explained that, just as you would in ballet, she works with crescendos to create a playlist that moves with the actual format of the class. “The element of music can help people when they’re in very strong Virabhadrasana poses – the standing sequences.

“If they’re in the more water-based movements, there’s a more lyrical feel to the music. I’m very fussy about what I choose to use…” And she draws from across the board: from classical to contemporary music. “I’m not afraid to use music that people might hear on the radio.”

She enthuses, “When I put on something like Michael Buble, people’s energy just goes whoof! It’s fabulous to watch that. For me (yoga is) very much a dance of the energetic body. Particularly when teaching in London, I see many people quite flat when they walk into a room; energetically, their work has sucked energy from them. And to put on music inspires 99.9% of people.”

Katy confesses to spending hours on getting the musical details right (she has a Virgo sun). From there, we moved to discipline. “As a student of yoga, one has to have a certain discipline in order to reap its benefits. It’s not one of those things that can just be read about.” Although, she acknowledges, “there’s obviously a great deal of benefit in these wonderful books about yoga that are around.

“But,” she pressed on, “the actual practice of yoga – the self-reflection that yoga brings from its teaching - is not something you can just read about and then it sinks in. It’s a self-reflecting discipline and the benefits are really useful in life. I’ve noticed it in myself and I offer it to my students in a genteel but firm way.

“And I take this from what I’ve understood in myself. That’s the only way I find I can really teach authentically. What works within my own system, I can pass on with complete authenticity; with gusto!”

Katy confessed, “I’m really a bit cynical, Vivienne, to tell the truth, with a lot of this (esoteric) stuff.”  Clarifying her (earthy) attitude, Katy acknowledged, “I’m one of those people who say, ‘Well OK, let’s feel it.’ And I’m always amazingly surprised when I work with Alla (a fifth generation healer). She’s given me a great kinesthetic understanding and feeling for the energy body.

“(When) you look at the chakras, they’re based on the elements: first, Muladhara, the earth element. Then we move up into the second chakra, Svadhisthana, or the water element. The third element, Manipura, is very much the fire element, and so on. And when I’m practicing yoga, it’s very obvious to me that some of the practices or the poses or the flows, have a primary element to them. This comes, I suppose, from my dance background and gives strength and grace. You could also call the strength the ground and the grace the water… ”

As an example, she gave Virabhadrasana II – Warrior 2 – “which has an amazing strength to the pose. Of course, energetically we’re looking at the pranic (etheric) body when we’re in the pose itself, and what it’s doing, which is really Hatha Yoga; it’s there to let the energetic body dance and flow and create its balance again.

“But if it’s come out of balance, meaning the root energy’s flown up, we’ve got too much energy in our head; therefore, stress occurs. Using Warrior 2 can really help root and ground the energy. Rather than taking a yoga pose to strengthen the legs, you can take your mental and emotional state deep down into the pose, taking the breath into that strength and connecting it into the root of the earth; then the water element or ether element, has intention in it.”

You’re aligning ether and water together, there.

“Yes, sometimes I do align lots of things together. It all functions as a whole, which is what yoga asks us to do; whilst I can dissect it down, it’s all happening as  a whole. And I find that (this) gives people a much deeper practice.

“The fact that you’re going deeper all the time with yoga is what really interests me. Many teachers don’t relate to the mental and emotional levels of yoga. But it’s here that one’s life can take such a turn, I think.” Katy’s approach is remarkably holistic in a practice than can – in some places - be little more than a physical education class.

Katy said yoga in the UK is growing up. “People are looking to move beyond the physical practice of yoga to different kinds of benefits.” She clarified her thinking by emphasising that this has to involve an inwards movement.

“There are a few teachers, now, who are able to speak from that space, and from further in than I am at the present moment. Because they really have studied this in themselves: used the tools that yoga points them to, and gone further: ‘This is what I’m feeling.’ And then it becomes very authentic.

“When it’s authentic, people understand they could feel the same. Definitely. It’s fascinating, and I adore teaching that way.” Katy emphasised that what keeps her teaching is the transformation that occurs in her when she’s studying yoga – on and off the mat.

“What I see in my students, who only have an hour or so with me, perhaps once a week, brings great responsibility.” She honours this responsibility by working with students to “help them shift their energetic vibration to a cleaner, sharper, more compassionate, more open, more rounded frequency. Then they walk out into their lives, back into their family, back into their work and feel whole again. We don’t have many practices in our life that take us back home.”

When we catch up again between Christmas and New Year, she is in high good humour over the Rocky Horror Picture Show theme for a New Year’s Eve party she is attending with partner Jack. “With my dance background,” she laughs, “dressing up is part of my nature.”

She delights in describing the pretty basque, mini tutu, leggings “like stockings”, red wig and a tiny Cabaret top hat she intends to wear. Generous to a fault, she makes it sound as though Jack will be the star of the show and she is just the make-up artist.

It is a lively beginning to 2010. The next few months include two appleyoga retreats – one in Thailand, one in Bali; the start of her own teacher training programme, accredited under Yoga Alliance; and a TV series for Sky.

One of the things Katy does to take people further in their practice is to offer substantial yoga retreats. As I write, she is just flying off to Jungle Yoga’s base on Rai Lake in Thailand for a ten day appleyoga retreat. Katy takes Vinyasa flow sessions each morning, with lunar yoga practice and meditation in the evenings.

The food sounds heavenly and is sourced in the jungle or at trusted local markets. There is plenty for vegetarians and non-vegetarians, alike. There will be lots of fresh vegetables and fruits; with tofu, cashews and peanuts, fish and chicken served with noodles and rice.

In March, just before she starts work on Sky’s Body and Balance TV series, Katy is off to Bali with another tranche of yoga students. Here at Ananda Cottages, Ubud, she teams up with long-time friend, Louisa Garnier.

And then there is the new teacher training programme that Katy starts this year. We talked about the language difficulties that newcomers often experience. “One of the pre-requisites for Yoga Alliance Accreditation is that teacher training must have Sanskrit in it. But sometimes one can lose a student when one starts to spout jargon.

“I’m not saying that Sanskrit is jargon but when people can’t relate to it directly – in the immediate moment – you can see how they faze over. It’s not the case for everybody of course. But I like to use both languages, hence why I said on the phone ‘Virabhadrasana – Warrior 2’. That’s often how I talk in a class.”

Authenticity is a word that Katy uses a lot. “I like being myself. I don’t want to make myself into something that I’m not.” She is determined that her teacher trainees will “find their own voice, not become little Katy Appleton shadows.”

Shadows or not, everyone can download sequences from the new TV series. Katy has had downloads available on her website for the last couple of years and is doing the same for her teacher training course.

“With the help of friends,” she says, “I’ve been filming about 15 different sequences of particular flows to give them visual support as well as the training in the programme.” Not one to actually stay in the shade, Katy says the technological side of life has “made things more advantageous in many respects. “

In time for the TV series, her Yogaworks DVD has been re-packaged. “It has a new introduction and cover, with different inserts, but the yoga content is just the same.”

Summing up her attitude to yoga, Katy said, “Yoga has held my hand in many turbulent moments. It’s given me a hand to stand in the fire rather than run away from it. It’s easy to close the eyes and go into the ‘three monkeys’ (see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing). We need to embrace the shadow because it’s part of us. When we get to know and make friends with that, it draws the light in, anyway.”

Contact details:
T: 0845 643 7027
http://www.appleyoga.com/