Interview: Patrick Oancia, Founder and Director of YogaJaya (Part 1 of 2), talks about The YogaJaya Vision

Interview by Dylan Robertson

This is the first of a 2-part interview with Patrick Oancia, Founder and Director of YogaJaya, one of Tokyo’s foremost yoga schools. Here in Part 1, we talk about how YogaJaya got started and his team’s philosophy on yoga. In Part 2, we talk about the driving forces behind YogaJaya’s highly acclaimed yoga teacher training programs.

Tell us about how you started your yoga studio, YogaJaya.

I had been practicing yoga since the mid 90’s in various places around the world and in 2003 decided to enroll in the Yoga Arts Teacher Training course in Bali, Indonesia. It was recommended to me by one of my heart teachers and friend, Lance Schular. Lance was a main faculty on the Yoga Arts courses at the time. When I arrived back in Japan after this, I dropped into Vision Network (complex which operated the restaurant Las Chicas) in Omotesando. A good friend who was managing the Tokyo Salon Lounge in the complex knew that I was very serious about my yoga practice and suggested that I use the spaces in the complex to teach yoga.

I worked with the company in various collaborations for many years. It was really the only ever bustling hang out in Tokyo for many interesting people from all over the world. Consequently, I’d also been friends with the owner for many years and really resonated with the company vision in uniting various different people and interests.

This happened just before the first yoga boom wave hit Japan. I had already been teaching for a few years prior and had considered opening a studio at some point, but did not anticipate doing this at the time. Nevertheless, after chatting about the arrangement possibilities with the owner further, we decided that I would establish a legitimate studio there, rather than just teach yoga classes every now and then. As I wanted to return to India for further yoga study, we organized the rental contract to start 6 months after this and YogaJaya officially opened in May, 2004.

It started very basic, and it has always been the vision to keep it as grass roots as possible. Originally, it was just me teaching 14 classes a week. I designed the brand and website in collaboration with friends in a web/press design company. As there were next to no yoga workshops happening in Tokyo, I contacted a bunch of great international teachers to come and teach workshops. We had great teachers such as Lance Schular, Emil Wendel, Nancy Gilgoff, Danny Paradise and David Swenson to name a few. My focus was to always have really good quality workshops with varying teachers from different backgrounds continually taking place as an integral part of the studio vision. Few studios were interested in doing this at the time and I saw it as a real impediment to the potential growth of the scene. Over the years we have hosted over 100 such events, and these days there are tons of great workshops at many other studios as well. This is super positive for yoga in Tokyo!

A lot of famous yoga teachers come to YogaJaya. How do you meet them?

Traveling and doing yoga in different places. Sometimes I attended their workshops and other times, I just met them in the same places I was studying. I established sincere friendships with them, based on the mutual vision of personal manifestation, transformation in life and how yoga was a great vehicle for this. We all very much resonated with each other on these points and that was the basis of how they came to teach at YogaJaya.

But, it’s not that we are chasing after famous teachers. On the contrary. We pride ourselves in promoting a lot of very good teachers that are totally unknown in Japan. We have always chosen the people we work with based on sharing core values and a common vision. We’re not exclusive to any particular tradition, nor do we believe that a student needs to stick to one teacher. There is so much to learn from so many teachers. And in this way, we can better learn how to co-exist with each other on all different levels as human beings. Our focus is on spreading the word of yoga as an open-ended vehicle for personal manifestation and transformation independent from the limitations that can emerge from dogmatic practice.

Tell us about the studio you have now.

Our Daikanyama studio opened in 2006. There was a lot of gossip about the Las Chicas/ Vision Network building being sold and torn down. Nevertheless, the owners were quite ambiguous about whether that was going to actually happen or not. It was always a concern because we had built up such a big student base there. Around the time, I wasn’t actually hearing these rumors from the owners direct, rather from friends who were developers and architects that were working on planning in that area. They were saying the whole block that Las Chicas was on was going to be redeveloped similar to Roppongi Hills.

That particular block, Jingumae-5-Chome, was scheduled to be knocked down over a 10-year plan. So, I didn’t even know how much the owners knew themselves what was going to be happening. Nevertheless, I always kept my ears open for other locations. Consequently, a very good friend who is a tattoo artist introduced me to the owners of the building where we are now. They knew of YogaJaya and really wanted to have us in there as a yoga studio. So we negotiated a contract and moved in at the end of 2006 and we’ve been there ever since. Shortly after this, the owners of Las Chicas said, “Everybody’s being evicted. We’re tearing down the building.” All the businesses in the building had only a month to clear out! Luckily we moved all operations to Daikanayama/Ebisu. It was a pretty smooth transition.

The Las Chicas space was very beautiful. The spaces we used were beautifully done in a very rustic vibe. It was also really nice to actually have the café there, so it’s something we really miss. Nevertheless, these days if you take a walk down that street you can see that the development is well on its way with 3 shopping centers build in the past 3 years and more to come. Quite sad, really. The area lost a lot of its charm.

Daikanyama has really become very a solid base for us. The light in our studio is amazing and we put in beautiful new cherry wood floors over the New Year break. It has become very ‘yogafied’ over the years and we really dig the area. It’s close enough to the JR and subway lines and located in the middle of three very trendy neighborhoods. We would love to have a slightly bigger space, but at the same time we’re not out to grow bigger than needed. Our focus is first on maintaining the quality of what we do in working with people in a very integral and organic way.

For more information about YogaJaya’s Daikanyama Yoga Studio, please visit www.yogajaya.com.