Tony was an excellent and skilful teacher for this course.

His presence embodies what he teaches and I particularly appreciate his instructions, the quality of his voice and how he carefully chooses his words to help us “feel” certain important ideas.  I think his ability to create the right conditions for the environment and holding that environment for the participants are key elements of this course. Tony is also very observant and sensitive to our needs, and his facilitation of the reflective learning often enriches our experience through learning from each other. I have gained a lot in this process.

I came into the MBSR class with a dose of skepticism because of the word Mindfulness. I thought I knew what the word means and I am not sure what I can learn here to foster more of it. What I have gotten out of the course changed my view on the word Mindfulness and what it stands for. The course was very thoughtfully designed to start from the ’shallow’ end, where the concept is first explained and some simple exercise to start off, all the way to the climatic full day silent retreat where we get to experience everything we have learned in an intensive and immersive experience. Through out the course I found that reflective journalling was extremely useful for me and it deepened my learning and experience in a far richer way than i expected.

We have been taught many exercises – my personal favourite is Mindfulness Yoga, it is now a morning ritual for me to spend 45 minutes to an hour very early just to do that. It’s not a physically challenging activity at all. The intention is simply feel the body sensation during the various simple poses. I close my eyes so I don’t check how far I stretch and I visualise using only the muscles that are needed for that movement. I no longer strive or care about whether I do things perfectly. I found that my mind / body connection has improved considerably and I have much higher respect for my own body.

In summary I would highly recommend to anyone who would like to cultivate ability to filter out unwanted distractions (internal and external) at your discretion, and then the ability to focus and stay productively focused on your chosen activity. You do need to bring an open mind and a healthy dose of patience and plenty of reflective thinking to get the most out of it, but the result could be life-changing depending on how much you embrace it.

To me Mindfulness is now part of my lifestyle, it’s no longer something that I do when there is a need. The world was a whirl and now it has slowed to a pace where I can appreciate the beauty of everything around me, my existence, my relationships with others and the environment.

Kevin Ho – Former MD Global Investment Bank and now a Transformational Coach