Say namaste to the renowned Italian yoga instructor and founder of Odaka Yoga, Roberto Milletti
Where’s home for you?
That is a good question! Over the last few years I’ve been travelling around the globe. My life is full of clouds and currents and my home is the place, where I teach and share yoga love, so that’s almost everywhere I go.
Tell us about Odaka Yoga – what inspired you to create this contemporary form of yoga?
I grew up by the sea, spending most of my time sitting on the shore, watching the waves. Simply by observing these natural rhythms, I could extrapolate the movements and adapt them to the human body. It gave me the inspiration to create a style of yoga that incorporates Bushido (the way of the warrior) principles, zen and yoga postures, to release physical and emotional tensions. Once you begin to relax, long standing self-limited patterns can dissolve and are replaced with strength. Your inner yoga warrior unfolds. Yoga is the best medium to surf the waves of life.
At what point in your life did you embark on a yogic journey and why?
I was a European champion of karate at 18. One day, while walking in a park, a man armed with a knife attacked me. After 11 years of martial arts, I should’ve been calm and able to defend myself, but I froze. I felt blocked, at the mercy of my assailant. I realized that technique, without the right attitude, is mere appearance. Later, on my way home, I was playing the assault on my mind, and a different image came into my head. Years before, I met a yoga master who demonstrated the power of the silent mind. His calmness in motion was the answer to my emotional imbalance. That was the first step in a lifelong journey into yoga and my deeper self.
How has yoga transformed your life?
Yoga has taught me the importance of grounding my awareness in my physical body. The physical body lives in the ‘here and now’, not somewhere else. In a quarter of a second, our mind can project itself between the past and future, but our body is always in the present.
What’s your idea of Zen?
Zen, like Tao, cannot be totally explained in words. Zen is based on a practice for the body and mind, rebalances brain function. Zen leads us to live in the present and experience reality fully and delight in the basic miracle of life itself.
What are you looking forward to about the Happiness & Yoga Festival in Abu Dhabi?
I’m most looking forward to feeling the ‘love’ there. Love is the essence of yoga.
Where are you travelling afterwards?
Japan, Korea and China for a teacher training course, some workshops and a yoga Marathon.
Your luxury retreat in Baja California looks amazing…
The White Lodge Eco Luxury Resort is an eco-friendly lodge, which is 100% energetically independent – our main suppliers are the sun, the plants and the sea. The resort is built with all our love so as to be as organic and intimate as possible.
What are your passions off the mat?
Music and nature. They are both ways of exploring the unknown, and stepping outside my boundaries, seeing the world from a different point of view.
What animal are you most like?
I’m fascinated by the flight of the eagle close to the sun, across lonely lands. The essence of yoga is like the eagle flight: ‘Live in the world like an eagle, being in the world but not of the world”
What mantra do you live by?
My favourite mantra is AUM. AUM is the origin of all mantras and the vibration of the universe. I like to resonate with it.
Love & Gratitude,
Roberto
