Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #83 – Yoga is an Ocean – Yoga in Angola with Hamilton De Sousa

Welcome to Episode #83 of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! Thank you so much for tuning into the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. My conversation with Hamilton De Sousa, a yoga teacher from Angola, was so enthralling as we wove so many elements of spiritual understanding of yoga, of vipassana, and of the world together. I hope that this conversation made you see what is possible in the realm of yoga — and what is IMPORTANT on the path of yoga.

If you’re looking to tune into a podcast episode that is all about yoga in Angola then this is the conversation for you.

Tell me more about Hamilton De Sousa

Hamilton De Sousa has been practicing yoga for over 20 years. As he says, he fell in love with the first sun salutation and never looked back. He has spent time in India studying Ashtanga yoga in Mysore and Goa. He opened his own studio in Angola called The Studio in Luanda, the capital city of Angola. He teaches Ashtanga, Hatha, Power, and Restorative yoga at his yoga studio. Hamilton is also a long-time Vipassana meditator.

What to expect in the Yoga In Angola episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast

Hamilton De Sousa, a yoga teacher from Angola, defines yoga as a self-journey and self-inquiry practice that helps humans evolve and develop to connect their individual consciousness to the universal consciousness. Through the practice of yoga, one can become self-aware of their body, thoughts, and consciousness and ultimately become one with all. Hamilton shared with us his profound experience – an experience of oneness where he left his body, went into the sun, and touched everything. This experience made him realize that he is everything, and he is not afraid to die since that day.

Hamilton shares how he fell in love with yoga and his 20-year journey practicing Ashtanga yoga, as well as vipassana meditation. He emphasizes the importance of discipline and devotion in Ashtanga yoga, while also acknowledging the need to adapt the practice to truly listen to the body. He also highlighted the humbling nature of yoga and its ability to become an integral part of one’s daily life.

Incredibly, Hamilton studied with Pattabhi Jois himself in Mysore, India, and while the classes were large and he received few adjustments, the energy and progress he experienced were unparalleled.

When the conversation veered towards why the world needs, yoga Hamilton shared his  belief that people are turning to yoga to answer deep existential questions and cope with the stress and fast pace of life. Yoga provides a way to connect and find purpose in life.

Curious about yoga in Angola? This is the conversation for you!

Favorite Quote From Hamilton De Sousa

“The energy on the planet is shifting. People are becoming more aware and more people are awakened and they see, okay, what’s my life’s purpose? Just to work, pay bills? What else can I find? They’re looking for spirituality, they’re looking for answers, deep answers and yoga has all these answers. It’s one of them, but you can find someone else as well by yoga. Yoga was made I think, for that time as well.”

Connect with Hamilton De Sousa

https://www.instagram.com/thestudioangola/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100033837473501

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Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #83 – Yoga in Angola with Hamilton De Sousa Transcript

[00:00:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: Namaste, family and welcome back to the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! Today, I am so excited to welcome Hamilton De Sousa on to the podcast today. He is a yoga teacher and yoga studio owner in Angola, and his yoga studio is actually called The Studio, and it’s in Luanda, the capital city of Angola.

So he’s been practicing yoga for over 20 years, and as he says, he fell in love with yoga during the first sun salutation and he never looked back. He spent time in India studying Ashtanga yoga in Mysore and Goa, and he teaches Ashtanga, Hatha, power and restorative, and is also an avid vipassana meditator. So thank you so much, Hamilton, for being on the show with me today. I’m really excited to speak with you.

[00:00:51] Hamilton De Sousa: Thank you, Lily. Thank you. My pleasure.

[00:00:54] Lily Allen-Duenas: So I was curious. I would love to hear more about you, Hamilton. Tell us a little bit about your story and maybe more details about how Yoga First came into your life.

How Did Yoga First Come into Your Life?

[00:01:06] Hamilton De Sousa: Okay, so I began doing yoga like 20 years ago, as you said. I start with the books. So I used to have a lot of back pain and I was very young. I was like 28, something like that. I was really young and I started reading the book and the book was saying that if you do this pose, it’s good for back pain, and I tried the pose. 

When I finish, I felt like release, was less back pain, [00:01:30] and I said that’s good. Next day I tried again, and then back pain went away, so I decide to look for the yoga studio. At the time I was living in London, I looked for the yoga studio and I founded the Ashtanga Yoga London School, and then I never looked back, so I went there as I did my, my I enrolled in the studio.

I started with my teacher and then I never looked back, since then I kept doing yoga, practicing yoga every day, basically become part of my life.

[00:02:01] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes, yoga does do that. It just becomes a part of your life, your day-to-day life. It’s really a strange morning for me when I don’t practice yoga. It’s oh, I feel a little different throughout the whole day. And I know you have been practicing Ashtanga yoga. So what has that journey been like for you? Practicing Ashtanga for 20 years?

What Has Practicing Ashtanga Yoga for 20 Years Been Like?

[00:02:24] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah. First of all I really like the discipline. So Ashtanga requires a lot of discipline and devotion, and that’s what I like the most. So you have to be on a mat every day. You have to practice every day. I fell in love with the discipline. 

And through the journey for 20 years, of course I have to adapt a little bit. I’m not that young anymore and Ashtanga is a very vigorous, very intense practice. So I adjust myself cause I intend to keep practicing. I never been too hard on myself as well, and I’ve been too crazy about, sometimes [00:03:00] I take it easy.

Sometimes I do the full primaries, sometimes I do off primary. It goes as I feel, so I don’t, I’m not too hard on , myself anymore. The last seven, eight years, I start slowing down a little bit. I really want to keep practicing so I don’t push too hard, so I don’t break it, and I just go with the flow every day.

[00:03:20] Lily Allen-Duenas: That’s smart. Not to push until you break because I know that, yeah, so many yoga teachers can get… or yoga students, or teachers, or anyone who’s interested in practicing, they can get very intense with, oh, I really want to do a handstand or get my feet behind my head, or peacock or scorpion, like they just get obsessed with a pose or two.

Don’t Push Until You Break it in Yoga + The Body is an Amazing Teacher

[00:03:43] Hamilton De Sousa: But I learned my lesson. I had an injury before. That wasn’t, not that I was born wise, I had my lesson, I had my knee and when I began doing yoga. So I was doing the Marichyasana D, an advanced pose for me at the time, and I didn’t wanna wait, so I hurt my knee, and then since then I started to, you know,  be a little bit more conscious about and not forcing, and not pushing too much. Listen to the body instead of listening to my ego, my head, or my whatever. So I learned very quick. It teach me very quick.

[00:04:16] Lily Allen-Duenas: It is a humbling practice. Yes.

[00:04:20] Hamilton De Sousa: That’s yeah. 

[00:04:22] Lily Allen-Duenas: The body is an amazing teacher!

[00:04:23] Hamilton De Sousa: It is. It is. Yeah, it is. Yeah. If you have the wisdom to listen, yes, it is.

[00:04:29] Lily Allen-Duenas: [00:04:30] And so also, I know Hamilton, you have a background in fitness as a personal trainer, and so how do you think that your background in personal training and in fitness, in teaching classes, how does that kind of… how did that get you started into yoga or how did it change how you teach you? What about that do you think infuses your practice or your teaching style?

How Does Your Background as a Fitness Personal Trainer Impact or Change Your Journey as a Yoga Teacher?

[00:04:53] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah, so my job in London at the time when I started doing yoga, I had a back pain, even being a personal trainer, being very active and I used to swim, cycling and everything. Still, I used to have a lot of back pain, but pain to be in bed, and I was very young, as I said, I was 28. I was very young and I could not understand why I have so much back pain.

So, then, I began to do yoga and I still do in my personal training and teach group classes. I was very familiar with teaching because I used to teach aerobics, body balance, body pump; you name it, cross secret training. So teaching for me was normal already; not yoga, group classes. 

Then I, after six years of practice yoga and two long trips to India, my second trip that I done through India, when I came back, I decide to take a course and start doing… teaching yoga in the studios and gyms that I used to work in London. It actually was better for me. So it was more calm, and I was more in going to the vibe of yoga, so be more calm, more cool, more stretches, breathing meditation. So yeah, [00:06:00] and then I moved to yoga. I still teach physical classes like body pump.

I still teach… and I still do in personal training. And I also use a lot of this ayurvedic and holistic approach of yoga to my personal trainers as well, which works very well. In terms of stretching, sometimes I use meditation. It depends who comes to me and I see what the person needs. I have people who come to me with depression, anxiety, and they wanna lose weight.

Yoga is Like a Medicine

[00:06:28] Hamilton De Sousa: And I say, okay, maybe you should do yoga for the next three months and see how you going. I gain so much knowledge through the years, so when people comes to me, it’s like a medicine. I say, “Okay, maybe you need that.”

And I tried that. We tried that for six weeks, two months, and then I change again. So it goes, I don’t give every, there’s no one thing fits all. So it depends who comes to me and depends what they need. We have a conversation and we decide what to do. But yes, I use the personal trainer. I use to yoga and I mix the two. And they work very well.

[00:07:01] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah.

[00:07:02] Hamilton De Sousa: At least for me! For my experience, it works really well.

[00:07:05] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, I have a… I know a lot of yoga teachers out there have imposter syndrome, so just feeling oh, how would I ever stand in front of people and tell them what to do? And I think coming from your background, it was more natural probably for you to get in front of people and guide them.

[00:07:21] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah, I also did a lot of holistic courses and ayurvedic courses for 20 years in a row more because even before I was already [00:07:30] studying anatomy physiologist. So I have a lot of knowledge and I keep studying and I keep improving and I keep just road you never finish, you can’t finish. I’m still a student. I’m still learning

[00:07:41] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, it’s an endless practice and we’ll be a student of Yoga for life.

[00:07:46] Hamilton De Sousa: For life, yeah, we are. Even Pattabhi Jois used to say, “I’m also student. I still learn with you guys. I’m also student.” He used to say that and he was like, 90, so a very old man.

What was it Like to Study with Pattabhi Jois in Mysore, India?

[00:07:56] Lily Allen-Duenas: Did you study with Pattabhi Jois in Mysore?

[00:07:58] Hamilton De Sousa: Yes, I did. 

[00:07:59] Lily Allen-Duenas: What was that experience like?

[00:08:01] Hamilton De Sousa: It was like a room full of 30, 20 people, 30 or 60, 60 people, so he hardly touch you. This used to do guide classes and sometime you come in really the adjustments, but… Mysore practice, uou practice by yourself basically. You go there, but I was practiced by myself because 60 people, 80 people in a room, just him and Sharath, two of them.

But still the energy is different. Somehow you progress so much. Your body opens. You can do poses you couldn’t do it at home. I don’t know. The energy is different in Mysore it’s amazing. It’s even, it doesn’t touch you. They don’t do much, but you still… your body opens so much. The practice is different.

You feel light, you feel like it feels different. I don’t know. It’s amazing. I’m willing to go back to Mysore soon. Maybe next year I go back to Mysore.

[00:08:52] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, I hope. I hope so. For you, and I’ve studied yoga in Rishikesh and I’ve spent time in Dharamsala and in Kerala and Amritsar, [00:09:00] so I’ve never been to Mysore and I do, when I was in Rishikesh, I was doing Ashtanga yoga every day at Yoga shalas, and, but I don’t know if that’s where my energy is taking me, as you said, I’m getting older, things aren’t as easy, and I feel like I’m gravitating more and more towards Hatha instead of even Vinyasa practices. So yeah, energy shifts as time shifts.

Yoga Practice Can Shift Over Time 

[00:09:22] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah, it does, it does. I have days that I go to the mat and I just do like few poses Hatha yoga. Sometimes I just do few poses, basic poses more important. What is more important for me is to be on a mat every day. That’s what’s more important, not to do the full primary or the Hatha intermediates, to be on a mat. Sometimes I just go do Hatha yoga, sometimes just meditation. As long as I have time for myself, that’s what yoga is for me about. It’s not really the full primary. No, that doesn’t make me a better person I don’t think it does.

[00:09:55] Lily Allen-Duenas: I like that the full primary doesn’t make you a better person.

[00:09:58] Hamilton De Sousa: No, it does not. 

[00:09:59] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, I like that because I think it’s such a beautiful reminder that not one yoga pose, if you get to it, it won’t make you a better person. It won’t make you more calm or peaceful.

[00:10:10] Hamilton De Sousa: That’s for sure. 

[00:10:11] Lily Allen-Duenas: It’s about making time for yourself. As you said, time for self reflection!

[00:10:14] Hamilton De Sousa: It’s, yeah, it is about mix for reflections, time to be there, to feel to connect, that’s what’s more important for me, if I can’t have a five, 10 minutes a day, fine. If I can have two hours, I can do full primary. I do. It goes as it goes.[00:10:30] 

[00:10:30] Lily Allen-Duenas: It goes as it goes. And so when you opened your yoga studio in Luanda, Angola, when you opened that, what was your community’s response to that studio opening? Or was there a lot of yoga studios already open in the city?

What was it Like to Open a Yoga Studio in Angola? 

[00:10:45] Hamilton De Sousa: But yeah, when I moved back to Angola, there was no yoga students in Angola, no. There was none, not even the yoga teachers here, I would say. There was a teacher here [by] the time I moved back to Angola, but she was sick and unfortunately she passed away. And then it was me teaching. And then, it was, no, not many people knew about yoga.

And I moved back here to open a yoga studio and it wasn’t easy. I used to have one student, two students, very slowly… They start coming up one by one, telling their friends, family. And then I start building my clients and then I established myself. I was very lucky there was an American lady.

She moved to Angola and she was looking for a yoga studio, yoga teaching. She found me and she the one who brought me a lot of students, a lot of foreigners. So the first five years, 80% of my students, they were foreigners. There was like people working in Angola. Like people from America, Canada, London, whatever, all foreigners.

 Cause the Angolans there wasn’t really very much into yoga. The Angolan people and yeah. And then after the [00:12:00] COVID, then it changed a little bit. Now I have more Angolan students. I have more, like it’s balanced. I have 50/ 50. 

Now we have, I have 1, 2, 3, 4 yoga studios. I was the pioneer, I would say I was the pioneer here. Now we have four yoga studios and I like it. I feel my students now, they teach the students that I used to taught them. They teach us now. They did courses now and then they are teachers now. I feel happy. I’m very happy.

[00:12:29] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, I’m happy it’s growing why do you think it’s getting more popular?

Why Do People Need Yoga?

[00:12:34] Hamilton De Sousa: Ha! People are going mad. People need something. People are going mad. People are going crazy. People have a lot of stress and they just work or, they start questions.

What’s the purpose of my life? What am I doing here? A lot of people come to me, they all have a kind of this crisis-like existential crisis. I talk to them and they say, “Yeah, I don’t really know what to do with my life. I have a job, but I’m not happy.”

They start doing yoga. They, some of them, they stay, they like it. They find the purpose, yoga somehow answers some questions, deep questions, existential ones. I think that’s why it’s become very popular. Yoga humanity needs that. We’re going crazy.

[00:13:16] Lily Allen-Duenas: Are we going crazy because of the technology or the environment, everything.

What’s Going on Energetically with the Whole World and How is Yoga Important?

[00:13:22] Hamilton De Sousa: Everything, Everything: relationships, friends, family, jobs, everything. I think it’s too much. Everything going [00:13:30] so fast, and I think others, as they say, the energy on the planet is shifting. People are becoming more aware and more people are awakened and they say, “Okay, what’s the purpose of my life? Just to work, pay bills? What else can I find?”

They’re looking for spirituality, they’re looking for answers, deep answers and yoga have all these answers. It’s one of them, but you can find someone else as well by yoga. Yoga was made, I think, for that time as well.

[00:14:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: That’s a very powerful thing to think about: what’s going on energetically with the whole world and how is yoga important?

Everyone Needs Yoga

[00:14:07] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah, it’s popular. I don’t know. I don’t wanna get [it] wrong, but I think it’s… I dunno, 30 million people, I don’t know. Many people do yoga every day. I can’t remember. I was Googling it the other day. There’s a lot of people in the world doing yoga every day. Lots, thousands of people doing yoga every day.

So there’s and Angola could not forgotten. Angolans are people. We are, we are humans. Doesn’t matter if you’re Angolan, and if you’re black, if you are white, you all have questions, you all have the same feelings, and I think people need yoga.

[00:14:40] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, and my mom, if I’m honest with you, Hamilton, my mother said, “Oh really? You wanna like really become a yoga teacher and make a business outta that? Really don’t you think it’s just gonna not be popular soon. It’s so popular now. Won’t it stop becoming popular soon? It’s just a trend!”

That type of dialogue we had, [00:15:00] and it was like, no I feel very certain in my heart that yoga is not a trend and it’s not something that next year is gonna disappear or go away. I think you’re right. People are calling for it. They’re needing it.

[00:15:14] Hamilton De Sousa: No, more and more.

[00:15:14] Lily Allen-Duenas: They’re finding medicine in it.

[00:15:17] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah! It’s medicine. It is. If you do the right yoga, if you do the the right yoga for you, because you don’t, this is not every yoga, I don’t think every yoga for everybody. Yoga for everyone. You need to give the right amount, the right type of yoga, I think.

But the right person is not. At least for me, I, I look to people and I say, “Okay, maybe you need something cool, something more relaxing. He needs more restorative because it’s full of stress.” So I’m not gonna give him Ashtanga yoga because he’s just gonna burn him out even more. 

I play a little bit with the sequences and then with the poses, and to give the right amount to the right person at the right time, otherwise it won’t help, as well. So you gotta be careful with, uh, what we give to people. But yes it is medicine. It is definitely a medicine.

[00:16:04] Lily Allen-Duenas: You’re right, and we do have to be mindful of what we’re recommending, and as you said, somebody maybe needs a slower, gentler practice, but I also like to think that the people who are very energetic, and really have a ton of energy, and are always doing things, they’re probably the ones that need the slower practice.

[00:16:21] Hamilton De Sousa: And they wanna do this ashtanga whatever, power yoga because they wanna lose weight or because they wanna feel tired, they wanna go home and sleep. But I said, “No, you need the opposite. You [00:16:30] burned out already. You need to, you know, you need to chill. You need to sit down, breathe. A few poses, do restorative, and some people they come they fall asleep.”

[00:16:41] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yep.

[00:16:41] Hamilton De Sousa: I have clients, they pay me to sleep. They say, have rest to sleep. I give them few poses. I let them there for three minutes, five minutes or each pose. Then they go, “Hamilton, I wish I could take to my house because that’s the only place I can really disconnect and sleep and. Have rest.”

[00:17:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: And Hamilton, a question I do like to ask every guest that I have on the show is what is your definition of yoga?

What is Your Definition of Yoga?

[00:17:08] Hamilton De Sousa: Yoga is a science that helps humans, human beings to evolve. Yoga is a method that helps human beings to develop, to evolve, to be a better being, to self discover. I would say it’s a self-journey, the self-inquiry practice; you study about yourself, and then you will find who you really are.

The word yoga means union, but yes, it’s the, is union between my individual conscience to the universal conscience. I think yoga take to that as an individual, I become aware of the single and the unified conscience where I come from, where everybody comes from. I think here is the path to take you back. That is one of it. There is more, but yoga is one of them. Helps the human [00:18:00] beings to develop, to evolve to grow to connect with a God, or whatever you wanna call. Think that’s for me. Yoga.

[00:18:08] Lily Allen-Duenas: Beautiful. I love that when people remind us like you just did, Hamilton, that yoga is the union of the individual consciousness to the cosmic or the ultimate consciousness. Because often in, at least in the US and in the West, people interpret yoga as a union of mind, body, and spirit. And that is just like the surface level, right? That’s definitely a step we take. But it’s that forgetting that it’s the small into the large, the individual into the cosmic. 

Yoga is Union

[00:18:40] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah, it is. When you do the asanas, you become aware of your body. Like you become self-aware of your body. Like in time and space, become aware of your body on time and space, how you do the movement. But then as you go deeper, You can start becoming aware of your own thoughts, of your own consciousness, and then you start going deeper, and then you become aware of the self, the real self, and then you become aware there is more than that.

You can be even bigger. When the self, the self-awareness. Become aware of the cosmic. And then you wanna connect with that. And that’s the goal of yoga. You become one with all. Cause we only one, we just separated, but we’re only one.

[00:19:26] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah.

The Experience of Oneness

[00:19:27] Hamilton De Sousa: There’s only thing that exists. So I’m going too [00:19:30] deep now, but I already have that experience, so I don’t wanna go to this. This experience of oneness, I already have that. And yes we are only one thing.

[00:19:39] Lily Allen-Duenas: Wow. And was that a realization you had during a vipassana?

[00:19:43] Hamilton De Sousa: No, actually no. It was that was the time that I was going through a crisis. I was like, my mom was passing and I couldn’t really understand why she was so young. She was like 52. She was my age. Now I’m 52 now. She was passing away with cancer. That was when I started doing yoga, ashtanga yoga. And once I finished the practice and lie down and I say, “So just tell me what happened.”

Why my mom? Why she has to die so young? And I close my eyes and I just went to the meditation. And then I had this feeling that I left the body. I left the body and I went to the clouds, to the sky. Deep deep, like the speed of light. And I went into the sun, I would say. I went inside the sun. That’s the experience that I had. And the sun sent me back to the earth, and I was everything because the sun touched everything, so I was everything. I was the gazelle. I was the grass. I was the river. I was the trees. I was the fruit. I was the man with the fruit.

I was… I was the lion. I was everything! I was everywhere. And I never been afraid to die since then because I said I am everything. I’m just inside Hamilton, but I’m also the lion. I’m also the grass. I’m also the tree. I’m also the water. I’m also the clouds. 

[00:21:00] I felt that was the experience of oneness. Was very quick, was like two seconds or maybe one millisecond. I don’t know how long it was, but then I never been afraid to. I’m afraid how I’m gonna die, but I’ve never been afraid to die since that date. That was my experience of oneness. 

[00:21:17] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, that’s profound. And to have those experiences are so rare and unique and personal.

[00:21:24] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah. It’s was it was like, it wasn’t a blink of, I was so quick, so fast, the experience to go into the sun and come back and touch everywhere. It wasn’t everywhere. Everything.

[00:21:36] Lily Allen-Duenas: So Hamilton, I’d love to hear too about some of your experiences in vipassana if some of our listeners maybe aren’t familiar with Vipassana. It’s something I’ve done myself too. I’ve done the SN in Goenka and Mahasi Bali and India and Sri Lanka. So I’ve done multiple vipassanas you have, Hamilton.

But I’d love to hear in your words, what is a vipassana like, and what kind of transformation or what did you learn from it? What was the purpose of doing Vipassana for you?

What is a Vipassana Like? What Kind of Transformation Did You Experience, or what did you learn from it? 

[00:22:08] Hamilton De Sousa: Okay. The first one in Bangalore, I was there studying with Phattabhi Jois, but it went away cause it does, his tours to Europe. So he went away and I had three more weeks in, in, in Mysore doing nothing. And a friend of mine told me, “Hamilton, why don’t you go and do vipassana you stay there for 10 days? They give you food, so he just [00:22:30] meditate. So, go and try something.” I said, “Okay, why not? I’ll go.” And I went, so let me see what it’s all about. 

10 days. I go. It was the best thing I’ve done in my life! Honestly, I thought, I thought like they gave me a diamond. They finished the course, Goenka, the discourse he was given every day. I said, this guy is giving something so precious. When I finished the process, I said, they gave me a diamond.

I have to look after this diamond for the rest of my life. And I felt so good. The first time in my life. The last nine and the 10 day, I had no pain. For the first time in my life for 20 years old or many years, I was suffering with the pain. I had no pain. I was only feeling very subtle vibrations, very clean vibration. And I said, wow, this is amazing. And yeah, I kept practicing till today I practice even sometimes I only five minutes. But vipassana is, was the best thing I’ve learned in my life. 

 I don’t really understand what happened. You just, I just follow what Goenka has said, and it works very well for me. Last one I done was last year; I went to Toronto and I took 10 days. I’m going to Toronto again. I’ll do it again, but I wanna do 20 days or maybe two courses. I’m gonna serve and I’m going to sit. I love it. I love it.

[00:23:58] Lily Allen-Duenas: That’s beautiful. How I [00:24:00] usually think of my vipassanas is like a crucible or a pressure cooker. Like by spending 10 straight days with no eye contact, no speaking, no stimulation. So for our listeners that just to know there’s no books, no pens, pencils, paper. There’s nothing to read or do. It’s just meditating.

You know that that’s really it. So it’s about a hundred hours of meditation seated, sitting meditation in 10 days. So a hundred hours in 10 days. And that time, wow. A rice cooker, a rice pressure cooker. So much goes on, in your head, in your body, in your energy, and it’s different for everyone, but I think it’s almost guaranteed to have some type of transformational effect.

The Practice is Like a Diamond

[00:24:51] Hamilton De Sousa: I agree with you. Yes. I, every time I finish vipassana, I feel like, wow, I feel like I had a diamond and I have to take care of it, and I go home and practice. I actually like to sit down and be quiet, I really like it. Shut my eyes and just close my eyes and just, breathe, stay there, quiet, observing. 

[00:25:10] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah. I love how you’re saying Hamilton, that it’s like you get a diamond and you have to take care of it. Like that’s such a beautiful beautiful image for me.

[00:25:20] Hamilton De Sousa: Every day you have to polish a little bit. It’s like you have to go there every day and polish a little bit, so it keep shining. Otherwise, you get dust and you know you have to clean it every day. [00:25:30] You have to take care of it every day.

[00:25:32] Lily Allen-Duenas: And by clean it and take care of it. You mean meditate and yoga and time on the mat? Yeah

[00:25:35] Hamilton De Sousa: What [00:25:38] do, like you sit in meditation, like vipassana observing sensations, and in stay there. Actually, I think every human being is a diamond. We’re all diamonds, we just a lot of stuff at the top of us, but everybody has a light and everybody should be shining. It’s just matter of you really realize that you are diamond and start doing your work. Cause the light is with everyone. Everyone have a light.

[00:26:03] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes, everybody is a light a hundred percent. And in Buddhism, they often say that we’re looking at ourselves in the mirror, but the mirror is so dirty and so our practice is just to gently slowly clean the mirror it. It’s not like you have Windex and a paper towel and just can clean it. It is years of generational trauma, narratives stories that you just one by one removed. So from the mirror, that’s a metaphor I’m very familiar with. But yours with the diamond is just so beautiful, Hamilton. I love that.

[00:26:34] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah. Thank you.

[00:26:36] Lily Allen-Duenas: And I also wanna ask for our listeners as well as myself. There are people who are tuning in who don’t know too much about Angola as a country, as a place. Can you share with us more about Angola?

Life in Angola

[00:26:50] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah. Angola is a very interesting countries like India. It’s almost like India’s. A lot of pollution. Very dirty, a lot of mess, a lot of [00:27:00] poverty. But we also have good things. We have nice beaches, nice people. People are friendly like India, very easygoing people, very friendly. Angola is almost like India: it’s you hate it or you love it. 

Luanda is a big city. Now we like 28, 20 8 million people living in a city in Luanda. Yeah, it’s a busy city. Crazy like every other city. Yeah. I’ve been here for 12 years. I was born here and I moved to London and then I moved back here, so it’s my hometown.

[00:27:35] Lily Allen-Duenas: At what age did you move to London?

[00:27:37] Hamilton De Sousa: moved to London. I was 18. I was 18 when I moved to London. I moved to Lisbon. Then I moved to London. And then 12 years ago I moved back to Angola.

[00:27:47] Lily Allen-Duenas: Wow, you’ve done a lot of traveling. That’s wonderful. And you, I love Lisbon too!

[00:27:51] Hamilton De Sousa: I love traveling! I love traveling. I… one of the reason I become a yoga teacher was to travel.

[00:27:58] Lily Allen-Duenas: We are similar in that!

[00:27:58] Hamilton De Sousa: I love traveling! I haven’t done too much traveling, doing yoga, but I love traveling really.

[00:28:06] Lily Allen-Duenas: I do as well. And that’s a huge reason I became a yoga teacher too. I spent five years living outside of the US. The first three were like with a backpack and just going,

[00:28:16] Hamilton De Sousa: Traveling to India?

[00:28:17] Lily Allen-Duenas: and traveling, teaching yoga, and then doing more trainings cuz you know, I just couldn’t stop learning. And I did my first certification in Nepal and Kathmandu, and I immediately knew, “Okay, I have to come back! I have to go to the root of yoga, [00:28:30] the sources of yoga, these authentic and ancient teachings and lineages, like I have to learn.” So I loved it. I’m with you. I think we definitely are on the same wavelength Hamilton.

[00:28:41] Hamilton De Sousa: Yoga is like a big ocean. You just can’t really know everything in one lifetime. It’s so deep. It’s I dunno. It requires a lot of study and practice, you also experience, you have to practice and feel yeah. 

[00:28:54] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah. And so Hamilton, for our listeners–

[00:28:57] Hamilton De Sousa: How long have you been practicing? Just a question for you. Very quick. How long have you been practicing?

[00:29:01] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, Yeah, so I’ve been practicing for over half of my life. I came to yoga when I was 16, so I’ve been practicing, yeah, for…

[00:29:10] Hamilton De Sousa: Very young. Okay.

Ebbing and Flowing of the Yoga Practice

[00:29:11] Lily Allen-Duenas: Young, but I didn’t practice really regularly until I was 18. That was when I was able to go to classes, we’ll say three times a week, and then I progressed to five times a week when I was about when I was 19 or 20.

But, just as is natural with something that’s been with you this long. The longest relationship I’ve ever had is with yoga. It’s ebbed and flowed. And so now that I committed to becoming a yoga teacher, six, seven years ago. Now, my practice is daily and it really has an ebbed and flow, but as you mentioned earlier, how we’re practicing and how what kind of Austin are, and that’s ebbed and flowed too. Whether I’m spending an hour on my mat, doing a vinyasa practice every single morning for a whole year, and then the next year I need yin yoga for three straight months. You never know. I think [00:30:00] just responding to that, listening to your body is the most advanced thing you can do on your own.

[00:30:04] Hamilton De Sousa: I think it is, and it’s very wise. If you able to, to listen to your body. You are wise. You have to feel, you have to really listen to your body. What’s, what suits you at that moment, but you need to be wise to be able to do that. If you’re not, you’re just going to do, you’re just gonna hurt yourself. You’re just gonna burn yourself out. Imagine I have to teach classes, so many classes, if I don’t slow down in my practice, sometimes I’m not gonna be able to, but still, I also don’t wanna teach too many classes that I burn out. So I need to have the balance, I need to balance, I need to find a balance. Maybe I don’t teach too many classes, but also, I don’t do all this practice. I have to play around. I have to be wise to do that.

[00:30:43] Lily Allen-Duenas: Play is a great word. Play and keep things light and joyful.

[00:30:48] Hamilton De Sousa: Yeah, Yeah. Enjoyful joyful. That’s the word you have to enjoy. You don’t wanna be there like, “Oh, I have to do yoga again. Let go again.”

[00:30:57] Lily Allen-Duenas: So Hamilton too, I know some of our listeners might have a question for you or maybe they, wanted to ask something that was related to something you said on the podcast, so I’m gonna link to your Instagram and your Facebook in the show notes. Anymore people are listening to the podcast.

You can just scroll down, click a link and be connected to Hamilton, or you can head on over to my website, wild yoga tribe.com/yogainAngola, and you’ll get a transcript of this episode. Show notes and links and everything you could need. But [00:31:30] Hamilton, would you like to say here on the audio itself, just what is the name of your Instagram and Facebook?

[00:31:37] Hamilton De Sousa: My Instagram name is @HamiltonDeSousa, instagram as well the studio, Angola. And I have Facebook one is also the studio: @studio_yogaluanda. 

[00:31:51] Lily Allen-Duenas: Perfect. Okay.

So Hamilton, it has been such a joy to be with you today. I have loved this conversation. It’s been so organic and natural, and I’ve loved your words and your metaphors. Yoga as an ocean, yoga vipassana as a diamond. I think you’ve been just so great to be with you. Thank you so much.

[00:32:11] Hamilton De Sousa: Alright. My pleasure. Thank you. You’re really good. Very good. I’m very happy you invited me for this wonderful talk today.

 Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Outro

[00:32:22] Lily Allen-Duenas: Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast. My conversation with Hamilton De Sousa, a yoga teacher from Angola, was so enthralling as we wove so many elements of the spiritual understanding of yoga, of vipassana, and of the world together.

I hope that this conversation made you see what is possible in the realm of yoga and what is important on the path of yoga. If you’re looking to tune into a podcast episode that’s all about yoga in Angola, then this is the [00:33:00] conversation for you. Thank you for listening to the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast. Be well.

Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast #80- Yoga Fusion – Yoga in Cameroon with Sten Kadji

Welcome to Episode #80 of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! My conversation with Sten Kadji, a yoga teacher from Cameroon, was so bright and beautiful as we looked at yoga as a union of spheres, a fusion of many practices. I hope that this conversation made you curious about how yoga is a journey, and what yoga is for you can change, grow, and transform at any moment and it likely will throughout your life.

If you’re looking to tune into a podcast episode that is all about being open to change, and being flexible with yourself and with life, then this is the conversation for you.

Tell me more about Sten Kadji

Sten Kadji opened the first yoga studio in Cameroon, Studio Ark Yoga, at the end of 2019. While he began practicing yoga in 2015, he received his yoga teacher training certification with the Africa Yoga Project in Kenya, and was actually in the same graduating class as Rama Saeed from Ghana, a previous guest on the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. Sten teaches various types of meditations and Power Vinyasa Yoga at his studio in Douala, Cameroon.

What to expect in the Yoga In Cameroon episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast

While Sten Kadji is from Cameroon, he first came to yoga while attending university in Florida. Upon returning to Cameroon, he knew he wanted to bring all that he had learned to his community. He sought out a yoga teacher training with the Africa Yoga Project in Kenya, and opened the first studio in Cameroon shortly after in his mother’s art gallery. As Sten says, “It was a no-brainer how art and yoga associate.”

Our conversation veered off into many beautiful directions, including how Sten defines yoga, the gifts that yoga has given him, and all that yoga has brought into his life. His mother lost her battle with cancer a few years ago, and Sten credits yoga for helping him to heal.

It was fascinating to hear how being the first yoga studio in Cameroon has given required him to shoulder more responsibilities surrounding yoga. As Sten says, “In Cameroon, we do have a lot of preconceived ideas that people who associate yoga to religious affiliation or sometimes it’s very mystified and we take a lot of pride in dismantling these ideas or these myths around yoga. Through practices like meditation and breath work and even different workshops like around the yamas and niyamas and different philosophy around the practice, we try to share with our community around us.”

If you’re curious about yoga in Cameroon or what Cameroon is like— then tune in! This is the Wild Yoga Tribe episode for you!

For the skimmers – What’s in the yoga in Cameroon episode?

• Opening Cameroon’s first yoga studio in an art gallery
• Dismantling the myths around yoga
• The powerful training experience with the Africa Yoga Project
• Yoga is a journey that is ongoing, a flow that doesn’t stop
• Yoga is a practice meant to be shared

Favorite Quote From Sten Kadji

“Yoga practice has shown that we are able to live a more blissful and happy life by some simple tricks. I call these tricks, just like sitting in silence allows us to listen to ourselves more, be more present taking the time to move, things that seem very mundane and almost innate. Yoga reminds us that, it really takes time. And there there’s definitely virtues of yoga, like hard work and pushing, but also knowing when to let go. So I think all these little lessons that we learned on and off on the mat are so crucial to us today globally because it’s accessible to everybody.”

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