As a writer, when you’re preparing an interview with someone, you do your research. You look at their website, at what they want you to know about them. And you look at what else is out there about them. You’re searching out that interesting angle, which will make your article that bit special.
In the days leading up to my trip to Manchester to meet Matt Ryan, I check out his website, Yoga Manchester, and read all about him in a piece from the Manchester Evening News entitled ‘Matt Ryan, Manchester’s Mr Yoga’.
Admittedly, that article was written nearly ten years ago, so I was intrigued to see how much this character, who seemed so much larger than life, had changed in that time.
TEN years ago Matt Ryan’s life was at a crossroads. Manchester Evening News
So that would be twenty years ago now.
I DJed at the Haçienda, South and Home nightclubs, did some promoting for the Haçienda and South and set up a record label. It was a real hectic lifestyle – lots of drinking and partying. But I was finding it really stressful – dealing with door staff and tackling drunken punters. One day I was feeling really stressed out and one of the bar staff suggested I tried some yoga. Matt Ryan, Manchester Evening News
And the rest, as they say, is history.
And so yes, I formed a view. As I sat and waited for Matt to arrive at the Earth Café at Manchester Buddhist Centre, I had a picture in my mind. What I did not expect was for this guy to turn up with his six month old son in a car seat. Six month old sleeping son.
We started back at the beginning with ‘that black hole I was stuck in’. Rewind twenty years and Matt was leading the life of a bat. The excesses of that lifestyle were taking their toll. He was looking for answers for the anxiety disorder he was struggling with in therapy, alternative medicine, Western medicine, anywhere and everywhere. Including yoga. When he discovered yoga, he threw himself into it wholeheartedly, as he does with everything. Yoga took the lead in his life.
And why did he choose Ashtanga yoga? Well, really, it chose him. When he attended his first class in Withington, he had no idea that’s what it was. But he was very physical back then, into football and running, so this style of yoga suited him well. He embraced the pure physicality of the practice. This was a physical practice with mental benefits and he was hooked. He hung up his headphones and headed off to India for two months to study with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. He felt like a fish out of water initially, but stuck with it and his life was changed.
I basically gave up everything that was bad for me. I needed to. It was purifying. I had to strip it all back. I became a vegetarian. My friends describe that time as when ‘Matt got cosmic’. I’ve never looked back. Matt Ryan
When Matt returned to Manchester, he organised his first yoga class in the area his sisters lived in, because he knew he would be able to persuade them and their mates to come along. As it was, 76 people turned up to his first class! And that was back when yoga was not in the forefront of public consciousness as it is now. Matt certainly knows how to promote what he’s doing.
I nearly killed everyone in that first class, I think! Took them through the Primary series. I didn’t know anything else. I realised I’d have to adjust what I was doing. I had to be more flexible. But they came back. The next week, that one class divided into two, so I could do two different levels. Matt Ryan
And then, two years ago, Matt created Yoga Manchester, a network of teachers and venues and yoga classes across the city. Yoga Manchester was not set up as a studio with a single centre, but as Manchester’s first yoga community for everyone.
At Yoga Manchester, we offer yoga classes throughout Manchester – in Altrincham, Chorlton, Cheadle Hulme, Didsbury, Heaton Moor, Sale and Withington. We believe passionately that yoga is for everyone regardless of size, shape, age, sex or experience, and take pride in creating a welcoming environment for all. Yoga Manchester
And then out of this community grew Yoga Express, arising from the desire to make yoga accessible to those working in the city during lunch hours and straight after work. Compact classes for people on the go. Again, Matt worked hard on his promotion, it’s second nature to him after his years of DJing and promotion in the music scene.
I attended the Matt’s 45 minute Yoga Express class later that afternoon, along with a room full of others – a real mix of men and women of different ages and abilities. There was a great vibe – relaxed and yet it was clear that everyone was there to work. Although Matt’s not one who believes in pushing you beyond your limits.
If it hurts, don’t do it. Where’s the fun in that? Matt Ryan
He does prowl the room constantly though, adjusting and passing encouraging comments (and the odd challenge!) He brings his character into his teaching, his sense of humour, his down to earth approach. And his students seem to love it. It’s a hot day, a really hot day, and yet they are all here.
Matt shares with me the three main things that a yoga teacher setting up a class needs to get right – and often gets wrong! Firstly, convenience – right location, right day, right time. Secondly, the personality of the teacher: be interested in your students, be funny, be interesting, be good at what you do, be authentic. And finally, it’s about the quality of what you’re delivering – be good at what you do, keep learning, keep training, give people what they want and need at the level that they need it at.
He decided to write this advice and more into a series of blogs, but Matt admits himself that he’s no writer and instead, a couple of years ago, he turned it into a book with the editing help of some of his friends. ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Setting Up a Yoga Class’ is filled with ideas of what has worked for Matt himself. Great ideas. It’s an easy read and a great starting point for any yoga teacher just starting out.
Matt likes to describe himself now as ‘a normal bloke who does yoga’. If that is even a thing. He loves his football and is a passionate Manchester City supporter. He actually trained in City’s academy when he was younger. He then got into music and played in a band for while, before he found his place in house music on the decks as a DJ. He’s now 48 and as he looks around him, he’s pretty philosophical about his life as it is now: what he describes as Mancunian ambivalence.
This is what I am now. It is what it is. Matt Ryan
Don’t get me wrong, Matt Ryan is not discontent with his life. Quite the opposite. He just isn’t into over-analysing or digging deep or entertaining regrets.
He’s got kids. He lives a normal life. He’s pretty sure he’s not anything special. And he’s happy with that. You can tell that as he’s bouncing his little boy around in his arms across the table. But this normal guy sits and stares at a wall meditating for 40 minutes a day and does yoga. As well as yoga, he’s discovered the power of meditation. He was trained in Zen Buddhism by his teacher Brad Warner and this practice of Zazen has affected his asana practice 100%. He loves how he’s learnt to let thoughts go and be immersed in his practice without expectation. He still sometimes has that sense of not being real. He’s felt that throughout his adult life. But what could be more real than staring at a wall? That right there is real in itself.
And so now, he’s starting to teach Zen Buddhism. That’s his latest project. This man is never without one, it seems. He’s ready to share what he himself has learnt.
As the conversation draws to close, I take the opportunity to ask Matt what brings him joy? That throws him for a moment.
Well, my family, my wife, my kids obviously. My yoga practice. Zen. And green tea – I’m a green tea anorak, I import the proper leaves and everything. And then there’s Manchester City – the team brings me joy. Sometimes. Matt Ryan
The family have been travelling a lot recently with Matt’s wife, who’s a hairdresser for Vidal Sassoon, working for a year in LA and then six months in London. And now they’re back in Manchester.
What’s so special about Manchester?
It’s just home. My family are here. Good friends too. I heard somewhere that Manchester has a mothering aspect – everyone who leaves finds themselves coming back. Matt Ryan
We can’t not talk about what’s happened in Manchester recently. I have to ask about it. So how did the recent attack at the MEN Arena affect the city?
I don’t know. What can you say? It was hard to find the right words to say anything. I had a sense that people in class were looking to me for guidance the next day. We held some silence in class. The profits from that night’s classes were given to the charity to help those directly affected by the bombing. That was all we could do. Matt Ryan
There’s no hint of pretension about what Matt Ryan says and does. He does everything he can to distance himself from the ‘forced spiritual side’ that you can sometimes come across in the yoga world. He’s seen teachers modelling themselves on the yoga sutras because that’s what they think they should be doing, rather than the motivation coming from within. Spiritual to him is doing good and being good. That’s it. He knows what’s right and wrong. He doesn’t need anyone telling him. It’s just a case of putting that into practice.
Matt Ryan doesn’t strike me as someone who’s aspiring for people to look up to him. He doesn’t take himself too seriously.
And yet I think people do. People will. People can relate to his story.
People see him as one of them.
Because that’s exactly who he is.