Mindfulness advocate Jase Te Patu (​​Ngāti Apa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Ruanui) has had a long and varied career in the wellbeing industry. A former dancer and Les Mills teacher trainer, Te Patu came to yoga by way of rehabilitation after tearing his achilles. 

At first drawn to the practice for the physical embodiment it offered him, he soon realised he had “never, ever considered my mental or spiritual well being until I started studying yoga”.

Te Patu bought Power Living (an Australian version of power yoga) into Aotearoa in 2016, and was a fixture on the Wanderlust circuit during this time (Wanderlust being the Australian/NZ arm of the international yoga festival that operated until 2018, when it was placed into liquidation). 

Despite the association with power yoga, a very physical and demanding form of the ancient practice, Te Patu always had a more multi-faceted approach to the discipline – incorporating te reo Māori instead of (or alongside) sanskrit, and encouraging his students (particularly the men who were drawn to the physicality of his teachings) to become more present and mindful.

Te Patu recently sold his share in Awhi, the Wellington yoga studio he co-founded and taught at, and is now focused on teaching mindfulness in schools via his latest venture M3 Mindfulness, established in 2018 after the death of his younger brother led him to seek ways he could support his nieces and nephews through their grief. 

“I'd used mindfulness, meditation, yoga to save my own life,” Jase explains. “I have my own lived experience with mental health challenges and I’d helped thousands of people at my yoga studio with tools to be able to overcome challenges.” 

Rebecca Wadey caught up with Te Patu to hear his views on the westernised forms of yoga, its similarities to te ao Māori, what learnings we can take from it to be more present this Matariki, and how washing the dishes can be the perfect mindfulness activity. 

Rebecca Wadey: I know you as the person that brought power yoga into Aotearoa. Do you still have a regular yoga practice?

Jase Te Patu: Yoga to me has always been not just physical. I still practise yoga, just not what you or other people think [it] is. I don't need to do a handstand or the splits or warrior one, warrior two. My yoga is meditation, which is sitting and being quiet.

RW: There's a spirituality to yoga that has a beautiful alignment with Māori. And then there's the westernised version of yoga.

JTP: I was drawn to yoga physically at first. But when I started studying it I realised that yoga was never about asana [poses]. I fell in love, and it drew me back to te ao Māori because I saw the alignments. Like whakatauki - small phrases with maximum meaning that have a deeper whakapapa. The creation story between Hindu and our creation stories are similar.

Ranginui, Papatūānuku and Tāne Mahuta are characters you might see in the indigenous stories of India and Hinduism. [With] different names obviously. 

Karakia are like chanting, mantra are like mōteatea. There are so many similarities. 

And te whare tapa whā  [the four cornerstones of Māori health] which I'm a big advocate of. Te whare tapa whā; our physical, our mental, our spiritual and our social wellbeing are all elements that yoga focuses on.

So to answer your question, the European version of yoga is something I've never sat well with. People did come to my yoga studio for the physical at first, but I'm like, ‘stay, and you'll get way more bang for your buck’.

RW: How would you give them that?

JTP: Our yoga studio, Awhi, was so busy and so popular because we took the holistic approach. There are five teachers there now who speak te reo. That was always my goal through being a teacher who speaks te reo Māori: to share yoga and the beautiful synergies between the two worlds in my own reo, in my own expressive way. 

We’re sharing the beautiful practices of yoga, the holistic practices of yoga through a te ao Māori lens.

RW: Matariki is a time for reflection. How do you think people can use elements of mindfulness to better appreciate the Māori New Year?

JTP: I'm a practitioner of mindfulness every day, but I'm still really terrible at paying attention to one thing. 

My partner used to call me “I'm just”, because we'd be sitting having dinner and I'd be on my phone or at my computer going, “I'm just sending an email”. “I'm just speaking to my sister…”  Just pay attention and be with your whānau and take those precious moments. Matariki is a time for us to look at the way we're living our lives and to make some really positive changes when it comes to our wellbeing. And mindfulness is just one of those ways that we can do it.

RW: If there are people who think that mindfulness means they have to put aside an hour to sit down and do a big meditation, what would you suggest as some simple ways they could start being more present?

JTP: Mindfulness is not limited to sitting down and being quiet and closing your eyes. For people who've had trauma, closing your eyes and being with your thoughts is maybe the worst thing you could do. 

Some mindfulness activities (and it's not the activity, it's how you are doing it actually that makes it a mindfulness activity) are:

- Gardening is a perfect example of a mindfulness activity. It's how present can you be with your hands and Papatūānuku and the soil and the whenua. 

- Washing the dishes is one of my favourite things, because I have to be mindful with how I'm doing it. 

- Making a cup of tea. You're being patient, present, waiting for the water to boil, for the tea to steep, taking your time to drink it, not just gulping it down, sitting down and making it a moment. 

- Journaling. Writing down three things that you’re grateful for.

- Sitting and being present. No devices at the table, no TV in the background, no radio in the background, just having kai with your whanau, sharing kōrero.

It doesn't have to be sitting and being quiet. For those who are time poor, it can just be two minutes a day. Those are just some real simple exercises that are mindfulness exercises. 

Matariki is a time to perhaps pay more attention, to draw a spotlight on those parts, those times in our life in a kind way, not a judgmental way, that might need more attention.