Latest news from JohnScottYoga.com

Happy New Year!

Welcome to our second newsletter!  

Firstly thanks to all of you who recently signed up and are new to the newsletter.   There are now over 250 of you and as a thank you you’ll be hearing the news from John and Julia on here first.  I’ll be posting the information you see below probably on January 1st or 2nd to John’s Facebook page and social media outlets

It’s actually been a quiet end to 2018.  John spent a 2 week period in China completing a teacher training course there with 250 lucky students.  He’s rounding out 2018 as ever in Purple Valley where he’s stayed on with Julia to have a bit of rest and relaxation

Julia’s been busy with her acting and supporting John with the teaching whenever she can join him.  I’m sure all of you who have been lucky enough to meet Julia this year will know she’s a lovely woman and a great asset to both John and the teaching community.  If you haven’t met her yet and you do get the chance to meet her do go over and say hello!

I was hoping to bring a message to everyone from John and Julia over the festive season but I dropped my phone down the toilet (oops!) so I haven’t been able to badger John so much for any messages or updates :(. Hopefully there will be some news to share when John and Julia set out for New Zealand in the New Year.

Down below you’ll see this newsletter has some updates for you on John’s Teaching Schedule for 2019 and some interesting other news, some of which I can share, and some of which I’d love to let you know about but have been asked to keep it to myself for now (more on that hopefully in the summer).

Other than that, I’ve added some pictures from John and Julia’s instagram accounts as way of a wee review of 2018, and all I’m left me to do is to wish you a Happy and Peaceful 2019!

As they say where I’m from – Happy Hogmanay!

Graeme
— JohnScottYoga

Picture of John (at Yoga in Salento) from Richard Isaac –
www.richardisaac.co.uk
www.instagram.com/richardisaacphoto

Teacher Training

Sandra Howling has just completed module 1 for the 500 level students.  She’s planning on continuing their training in the New Year and offering the Foundation and 200 hr courses as before.   Beata is also re-running the 200 hr level course in Wroclaw, Poland as she did early in 2018.  One of John’s other Senior teachers has recently indicated to me that they’re in the early stages of planning their own John related Foundation course.  They’re working with Sandra to align course content/manual material so hopefully this course will also see it’s place on the teaching roster later in 2019.

See details on all courses here at AVYRC.com 

Events in 2019

John has let me know that there will be no additional events being added to the schedule for 2019 other than those that have already been announced.  Whilst this will be greatly disappointing for those looking to study with John in 2019, John has some very good reasons for doing this:  

Firstly, he’s been meaning to schedule a break for the last several years.  He was intending to go back to India and also take a longer sabbatical two years ago to do some off-road travelling on his motor bike.  Though these specific plans have changed, he’s finally scheduled in some time to take this break in 2019.

Secondly, he’s not actually going to be sitting with his feet up doing nothing! If you know John he’s pretty much always working on some new topic (the latest one he was interested in was hypnosis!) and seeing how and where he can bring that in to his teaching.  John’s got some wonderful projects lined up between May and the end of Autumn.  I’m hoping to share some news on these when I can.

Thirdly, John’s very keen to support Julia with her career.  Julia’s been acting again in Poland in the back end of 2018 and I know John loves to be there to support Julia when she’s on set but with some down time between takes. 

And finally, and this is some good news John’s asked me to share,  John and Julia are looking for a Shala space of their own, somewhere they can spend longer periods of time and begin to settle into a more regular routine without so much travelling.  As I understand it they are pretty far on in locating a suitable area and studio space but as with all of these sorts of things there are a some big decisions to make. Hopefully a good many of these will happen in the summer of 2019 and more solid plans are put in place and can be announced!  

Keep up to date on John’s events here.  Remember, John always recommends his Senior and 500 level teachers as well!

JSY Senior Teacher Events

John’s team of Senior and 500 level teachers are out and about in 2019 spreading John’s teaching with their own individual style and depth of experience.   To keep track of where you can find them visit John’s website here – JSY Community Events 

JSY Shop – 2019

Many thanks to all of you who made purchases from John’s online shop and for bearing with me as I sorted out the website and the distribution process!

John’s shop (at shop.johnscottyoga.com) will be open again from January 5th

Both John and Julia expressed interest in adding new items in to the shop, many from students that they have met on their travels. and I’m hoping to bring some of these to the shop in the first half of 2019.

iOS and Android App Updates

I’ve been busy here on other pieces of work that have kept my business afloat but now that these are ending I’m hoping to have more time to spend giving some much needed TLC to John’s Apps. Here are some of the items I have on the to-do list

• Remove the In-App Purchases from iOS and collapse the items from the ‘Shop’ into the Apps.  The In-App Purchases haven’t been so widely used and the underlying code is inherently complex to maintain, so it’s time for it to go
• Remove the Practice Builder as a stand-alone app.  It’s going to become part of the Primary series app anyway (It’s currently an In-App Purchase) so it makes sense to no longer have it on its own.   I am working on a 2nd Series version of this too which would appear in the 2nd Series App
• Updates to the User Interface which hasn’t really been changed much since the Apps were first released.  I’ve recently discovered a great UI library that I’m hoping to look at in the New Year to add in some wee touches here and there
• Fix the issue with Android PDF document loading.  I’ve actually implemented a fix for it here that would allow the Android Apps to host the PDF documents without relying on an external viewer. It’s taken a lot of time and effort to find a suitable one, it seems to work ok, but of course I have to get the App updates through the Google Play store first so there’s a little bit of work here to do to
• Updating the Desktop, TV and Watch Apps to the newest development environments

Of course Apple and Google are likely to be releasing newer versions of their development kits as well in 2019 so there will be the ongoing task of keeping all the Apps within the guidelines.  On this point, Apple has recently informed me that the Primary Series ‘Lite’ App no longer falls within the App Store guidelines and I’ve no plans to update it.  This App will be removed by Apple in early 2019 if they’ve not already done so.

2018 in Review

One Last Thing….

New Online Course – Sanskrit Numbers!

Just before John left for China I had the chance to sit down with him in Warsaw for a lovely evening with him, Julia, and my first teacher here in Glasgow, Julie Hanson.  It’s one of these evenings where you just sit and talk and before you know it the restaurant staff are standing there with their coats on waiting for you all to leave!   During the evening I had the chance to talk with John about what I’d been working on with Julie – an online yoga course. As part of a ‘test’ I made for Julie, so she could see the sort of thing that could be done, I had built a test course on Sanskrit Numbers on John’s TT website – AVYRC.com  

Following a quick chat with John I asked if it would be ok to let you all see it, he said YES!

So if you’re interested in seeing what I’ve done, head on over to AVYRC.com where you’ll be able to register for the course (see the Register option from the menu at the top). Once you confirm your email address you’ll be able to access the wee course for free!  It’s all just for a little bit of fun.  There’s a wee quiz at the end (not so easy!) and a certificate of completion for those who like these sorts of things.  The course will be available until the end of January but I may add to it over the coming year if there’s interest and re-release it later on

Oh, the content uses material from John’s App combined with some of John’s training material from his handbook.  The image above (drawn by John) is from that and is one of John’s typical ‘homework’ exercises that he likes to give students.  It’s all explained in the course so you’ll find out more about it here.  Have fun!

p.s.  If you’re also interested in Julie’s course on Seasonal Yoga you can find out more about it here