Teacher’s background
Rebecca Barlow has been practising Shadow Yoga since 2006. She completed a five-year teaching apprenticeship under the tuition of senior Shadow Yoga teacher, Louise Goodvach at Yoga Moves, Melbourne (2008 - 2013), where she taught classes ranging from beginner to advanced levels for nine years from 2009 to 2018. Rebecca continues to study and work under the direct guidance of Shandor Remete and Emma Balnaves, founders of Shadow Yoga.
Rebecca has studied Anatomy and Physiology with Eastwest College and has a certificate in Use of Specific Health Terminology to Communicate Effectively from Shiatsu Australia Educational Services (2009). She has a special interest in women’s health and has certificates in Pre- and Postnatal Yoga, Pre- and Postnatal Anatomy & Physiology, and Pelvic Floor Anatomy & Physiology for Women’s Health from Bliss Baby Yoga.
Rebecca has a background in dance and dramatic arts. She has studied advanced levels of Speech & Drama (1994-2000) with Trinity College London and the Australian Music Examinations Board, including classical poetry, the International Phonetic Alphabet, and the organs and functions of speech. Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) (Monash University, 2005) and a PhD in International Relations (Monash University, 2009).
Rebecca is a registered Level Two teacher with Yoga Australia. She holds a Working With Vulnerable People (WWVP) check and First Aid certification.
What’s in a name?
‘Full of deep sympathy for the good of the world, so as to bestow on men the ambrosia of remedies to win them immortality…By virtue of these good works would that I might rescue all those who are struggling in the ocean of existence.’
— King Jayavaraman VII of the Kingdom of Cambodia (oversaw the completion of Angkor Wat in the 12th Century CE)
Rebecca lived in Cambodia for six months in 2001 and returned for extended periods every year until 2008. She took the above photo of her parents standing in the gopura of the main entrance to the central tower at Angkor just after sunrise. A gopura is a formal entrance way through enclosure walls. They are common in Indian and Cambodian architecture, and they are more than just practical entrance ways: “Gopuras mark the point physically for the passage from the profane to the sacred, and mentally from preoccupations directed to the material to those directed towards spiritual ends” (Kollar 2001, Symbolism in Hindi Architecture as Revealed in the Shri Minakshi Sundareswar, p. 8). Like walking through a gopura, the years Rebecca spent in Cambodia marked something of a beginning in her journey with yoga.
Angkor Wat is rooted in Indian cosmology (the study of the origins, evolution, and fate of the universe). The entire temple complex is a mandala – a microcosmic representation of the macrocosm – and contains calendrical, historical, cosmological and mythological data coded into its design, including its geometric shape, zenith, as well as cardinal, equinox, and solstice alignments. The elongated west-east axis of Angkor Wat, for instance, is divided into sections the length of which correspond with the four major periods of time in Indian cosmology, the Krita, Treta, Dvapana, and Kali Yugas. The numbering of sculptures and monuments similarly reference celestial precession and the slow transition from one astrological age to another.
In the eastern corridor of Angkor Wat is one of the most famous and largest bas reliefs in the world. It is an enormous depiction of the Churning of the Ocean Milk, a story that occupies a central place in Indian cosmology. Apsaras were born of the churning, and emerged as the ‘essences of the waters’ (hence the Sanskrit conjunction of ap – water, and rasa – essence). They are the ‘unmanifest potentialities’, representing all the possible worlds that exist in the divine mind but may never come to exist physically. It is estimated that there are over 2000 of these fine creatures dancing their way over the temple walls. In the photo above, you can see the apsaras in the foreground, dancing on the columns of the gopura.
In the vernacular, Apsaras are usually described as heavenly dancers. Rhythmic dance that is ‘pure’ in origin (that is, without mood or feeling) is a key theme at Angkor Wat and an important tenant of Shadow Yoga. Shiva, the Lord of Yoga, is also called Nataraja, the King of Dance: “Shiva creates the world of forms through rhythm, and this is why he is represented as a dancer. Movement and gesture are the primary means of communication; dance and mime form the first language, which is older than the spoken language” (Danielou 1949, Yoga: The Method of Reintegration, p. 13).
While living in Cambodia, Rebecca learnt to speak conversational Khmer, a language that borrows many words from the sacred language of Sanskrit. Shala, for instance, is the Sanskrit word for ‘home, ‘house’, or ‘abode’. The cognate in Khmer is sala, which can refer to a pavilion, a place where people will be protected from the elements, and a school. In the context of yoga, a yoga shala is a ‘house of yoga’ or a ‘yoga school’ where a seeker on the path (sadhaka) is individually nurtured to reach his or her full potential. This is the background to the name, Apsara Yoga Shala.