Install­ment III of Don­a­van Wilson’s extended con­ver­sa­tion with Kino Mac­Gre­gor about her yoga evo­lu­tion. Since I have already apol­o­gized to Don­a­van for tak­ing so long to get this arti­cle online, I should prob­a­bly apol­o­gize to Kino now as well because she invested time and thought in answer­ing Donavan’s per­sis­tent ques­tions and did not see the end prod­uct for months. Pho­tos are pro­vided from Kino MacGregor’s web­site. In case you have not fig­ure it out yet, just click on an image to see a larger format.

Find­ing a Home

Kino Mac­Gre­gor, yoga teacher

Kino dis­cussed the direc­tion of prac­tice after Jois left New York. She iden­ti­fied Jois as her teacher. She prac­ticed at few places, but with no suc­cess. Govinda Kai left New York City to assist Eddie Stern. The issues of afford­abil­ity, con­ve­nience and sched­ule con­flicts pre­vented Kino from prac­tic­ing in a stu­dio. Also, Kino had used her money to pay for her first trip to Mysore and Jois’ prac­tice in New York City. She believed that her trip to Mysore and Jois’s tour of New York served as a mes­sage. Kino unrolled her yoga mat and prac­tice in her apart­ment every sin­gle day. Govinda moved into Kino’s apart­ment and they became room­mates. Kino par­tic­i­pated in an occa­sional work­shop, but iden­ti­fied Jois as her teacher. In the sub­se­quent years, Kino returned to Mysore to prac­tice with Jois. The longest time she stayed in Mysore was six months, doing so two years in a row. Dur­ing her third trip to Mysore, she received the autho­riza­tion to teach.

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Here is the sec­ond install­ment of Don­a­van Wilson’s inter­view with Kino Mac­Gre­gor. We pick up the story when Kino has just flown off to India to tap into the source of Ash­tanga yoga.

Water­shed

Kino spent two months prac­tic­ing with Jois at his yoga cen­ter in Mysore. Her dreams are a source of inspi­ra­tion for her yoga prac­tice and in life.

“The thing about Mysore that was amaz­ing was meet­ing Guruji,” said Kino. “The prac­tice was one thing; it is really his pres­ence that was amaz­ing. It was him, more than just the asanas. My first mem­ory of Mysore was ques­tion­ing whether or not I would really be open to the idea of a guru, some­one to have author­ity over me” she said.

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Don­a­van Wil­son wrote this extended inter­view with Kino MacGregor

Don­a­van Wil­son has been using yoga to develop patience, and he needed it when he sent me an extended inter­view with Kino Mac­Gre­gor, the Miami-​​based Ash­tanga mas­ter teacher. I sat on it for months. I’ve got my excuses, but none of them can account for all the time that’s slipped by since the 3000-​​word arti­cle landed in my inbox. He and Mary Naeger wrote up a Kino work­shop at Wood­ley Park Yoga in Decem­ber. Don­a­van wrote up an even more extended exchange with Kino, so much that I am break­ing it up into sep­a­rate notes. He pro­vides a look into the per­sonal evo­lu­tion of a yoga teacher.  Con­tact Don­a­van at dwilson95 AT gmail_​com.

First Taste

“I was 19, fast and wanted the world to hap­pen yes­ter­day” said Kino Mac­Gre­gor whose pas­sion for life exuded from her. Kino is from Miami, Florida and is an only child. Kino’s mother is Japan­ese and father Scot­tish. She has spent her col­lege years at the Uni­ver­sity of Miami and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture. Later, she obtained a Master’s degree in Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Stud­ies with a con­cen­tra­tion on sci­ence stud­ies from New York Uni­ver­sity (NYU).

After suf­fer­ing injur­ing her Achilles ten­don from tak­ing too many aer­o­bics classes, her desire to remain phys­i­cally active led her to yoga. As she was work­ing out she wanted to expe­ri­ence some­thing new and dif­fer­ent. “I went into this Sivananda-style class and just hated it,” said Kino. The class was relax­ing and calm, which hap­pened to be the exact oppo­site of what she was look­ing for.

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