Taking one for the team

Heads Up- this is gonna be another tough one -maybe it would get an 18 certificate if it was at the flix – just so you know – and if you’re a bit squeamish maybe knock it on the head John now.Go watch some you tube videos of kittens ! I might not even publish it.

A mate of mine introduced me to the book The Artist’s Way a few years back -it’s a pretty cool read if you want to go check it out. The vibe of the book is this – write 3 pages every day – it doesn’t matter what you write as long as you write something – even if it’s gibberish – which is usually what comes out the end of my bic. In fact my writing could be released under the title Diary of a Mad Person – or something. Most of it is inane nonsense – trying to get in touch with my inner artist – it’s just a shame that my inner artist seems to high on LSD most of the time. Anyway I did the 3 pages thing for a good couple of months and I then I stopped. Just because , well you know how it goes with these things , you start off with all good intentions but you miss a day which turns into 2 days then it’s a week then it’s ah fuck it I’ve got better things to do with my time ( which tbh I really haven’t unless you consider watching kitten videos on you tube the best use of my or anyone’s time ?) . Ok so where was I – the writing stopped. And I’m actually gonna level with you here – some of the stuff that was coming out of my pen was some deep shit – childhood stuff –   I aint gonna go into the nitty gritty but well it revealed a lot about myself to myself- Some stuff I kinda knew but other stuff well not at all. Can anyone actually say that they know themselves well ? I guess that’s why psychologists are making a fortune these days (note to self – next lifetime be a psychologist – these guys and gals are on a mint) And the funny thing is – these people are just as broken as me and you. I remember reading something in Ram Das’s ace book ‘The Only Dance There Is’. He was talking about therapists in general. The line was something like this ‘You are only as high as your therapist’ my take on this is that you can only fix yourself via a therapist as much as the therapist is fixed them-self. And we don’t really have any idea how good or fixed our therapists are , well apart from a couple of certificates on their wall. And as we know certificates mean ‘nowt. Look at all the dog shit terrible yoga teachers with their gazillion hour certificates handed out by other terrible yoga teaching trainings which have have been ‘accredited’ by SELF REGULATING SO CALLED YOGA GOVERNING BODIES – really. You could not make this shit up. Sorry went off on one there. And I do love everyone really. Just some of it makes me gip. I mean I might well be just another dog shit yoga teacher – but in my defence I’m an authentic one. I’m living my life currently out of a van which is not as awesome as it sounds. Not that you need to live in a van to be an authentic yoga teacher. But I do. More about that in a bit.

Anyway the last 6-7 months haven’t been any kind of picnic and it’s easy to look back at this time as a bit of a disaster, maybe a lot of one. Yoga MCR promised lots , delivered lots ( well in my opinion it did) but alas it bit the dust due to financial implications – ie I ran out of dough and it needed probably around 15-20K (at the very least) to make the fucking thing work properly and I didn’t have that money just lying around under the sofa. Actually I don’t have a sofa just a back seat that turns into a bed. And yes I had a quick ganders for 20K under the back seat too , ya know just in case a wee leprechaun had took pity on me and stashed it there .If only I’d have believed in those ‘Angel Cards’ at the Mind Body Wallet fairs things could have been oh so different. But I didn’t. I thought Angel Cards were fucking stupid then and fucking stupid now.    And well here we are. Back to square one. Fifty Four living in a van , pretty much hand to mouth. Is it time to hang up the lycra and get a proper job,? Yes I’m joking – I don’t own any lycra. Different people tell me different things about driving jobs -‘Amazon pay you a grand a week ‘ says one person , ‘Amazon pay you and treat you like shit’. Maybe I need to do my own due diligence and find out for myself. Not that I have a problem with getting a proper job or even hard graft. When I sacked off school I was a plasterer’s labourer for 18 months which was brutally hard work. But I enjoyed it – gave me a super good attitude towards  hard graft, which I still have. I put plenty of blood sweat and tears into trying to get Yoga Mcr up and running again and I’m honest enough to say well it wasn’t enough. But I did try. So what next. 

I thought the witty pun Manc with a Van would inspire me to greatness or maybe I would start a daily vlog thing with updates on how I was getting to grips with me meals on wheels new life. But yep you guessed it – I’m too cynical to do something like that. Cynical in that I mean who could give a flying toss watching online daily updates from a third rate Yoga teacher getting to grips with his mind and a van. And let me give you some insider info – it ain’t pretty. I’ll share something that you probably don’t need to know but I guess it inspires me to my own authenticity as a yoga teacher – to let folk know that just coz I can stick my legs where most people wouldn’t want to (nor should they!) and I can sit and look at a wall , scrub that , the inside of the van side door , for 40 mins a day in a zen mediation ting, some nights in the van I’m alone and I’m sobbing. Literally floods of tears in desperation of this life and how things have turned out. One minute I’m living my best Ashtanga Yoga teacher life flying high on the streets of Venice Beach Los Angeles and then in what seems like a blink of an eye I’m on my knees in my van (well I have to be on my knees or sat on my arse as it’s not one of those fancy vans that you can stand up in) sobbing. Surely life can’t be this cruel. But before you get the hankies out (or phone the Samaritans on my behalf) these moments pass , like the teachers tell us they will pass – and they do. I get up roll my yoga mat out do my practice or sit and do zen. And the moments of despair pass. Life is like this. Good moments and not so good moments. Following the advice of Australian Advaita teacher Sailor Bob ‘What problems have you got unless you think about them’. This advice might seem a bit trite (which is a posh word for shite) but well it’s obvious and true. Busting my ass through Surya Namaskar and the craziness that follows the last thing I’m thinking about is pity me all alone in a van. In fact that’s the last thing on my mind. Same with Zen. And thats why I teach these practices – not because they are magic wands but I have road tested them for the last 25 years or so. And they work. But here’s the secret – for them to work , you have to do them – aint no shortcut. And life is shit and life is great , the love you take is equal to the love you make sang Macca and aint that the truth. I offer all this insider info not for anyone’s pity , not by a long way sunny Jim , but in the hope that it might help someone who might be going through a bad time. And if you come to a class that I teach I will stand before you as living proof that I am broken and I am fixed , this is life. There’s no harm , or problem in being broken my friend. It’s all part of the human being dance. Ok?

Next stop Deal. 

So the Matt Ryan Yoga roadshow will be appearing live n direct from Deal- a small seaside town up the road from Dover. I’m hoping to set up a small yoga studio. Local classes for local people. Me plan is also to create The Breakfast Club – cold water swimming in the ocean (ok it’s the English Channel and yes it’s freezing , but cold water swimming in the ocean sounds a little more fabulous) followed by some deep bastard Pranayama to create internal heat (basically to get the body warm again) then Yoga asana , zen mediation finished with porridge n green tea – what a top way to start the day eh? The plan is also to have week long Mysore Intensives for all those pure Ashtangis out there who want their bodies pretzeled by yours truly – I’m pretty good at that I’ve been told. Watch this space and as always stay fabulous and be excellent to each other. 

Epilogue

So just to add a little bit of a silver lining to the above doom n gloom. 

I’m a life long supporter of MCFC ( as my father and grandfather were)  and in the 22/23 season just gone the boys in blue won an incredible treble – on the back of a treble of premiership league titles (I wont go into the details here – apart from the fact that City for once are THE BEST TEAM IN THE LAND AND ALL THE WORLD, AND ALL THE WORLD) . And in some weird twist of fate the darker my nights alone sobbing in the van got , the better the blue shirted heroes played. This continued right through to the Champions League win in June. It felt like I was taking one for the team , and ya know I wouldn’t have had it any other way. If someone would have said to me last August (2022) Matt by next June , you will have re-launched Yoga MCR and had to stop it due to lack of funds 3 months later , you’ll also end up living in a van in a rather pitiful hand to mouth existence sobbing in moments of pure despair BUT MCFC will win an unprecedented treble (Premiership title , FA Cup – beating rivals MUFC in the final and Champions League Trophy) I would have snapped their bloody hand off : ) .