A New LifeScientist-turned-actor-turned-yoga instructor David Collins has finally found his feet, writes Sylvia Thompson
Following two different career paths in a lifetime is becoming less unusual. But moving on to a third is still only the preserve of a rare group of individuals who continue to search for more personal fulfilment, more financial security or a more flexible schedule in their working lives - even after they have been successful in one field or another.
David Collins is one of that rare breed. Having studied genetics at undergraduate and postgraduate level, he then gave it all up to become an actor. Now, in the past few years, he has left the world of television drama and theatre behind him to become a full-time yoga teacher.
The long, firm handshake he greets me with is confirmation that he has found what he was looking for, even if it took him almost seven years in science and 16 years acting in Ireland and Germany before he set up the School of Ashtanga Yoga in Dublin.
Interestingly, Collins sees nothing incongruous about his moves from researching the molecular genetics of breast cancer (the subject of his PhD thesis, which he never completed) to acting and now to teaching and practising this dynamic form of yoga which promises health and happiness to all those who follow its discipline carefully and routinely.
"I was fascinated by science in general and molecular genetics in particular. In fact, I have always been fascinated by trying to understand things around me and yoga is just a different way of doing that," explains Collins.
"What appealed to me in acting was that special way of being that comes with creating a piece of work for the stage. My years in acting were very much a time of self-exploration as much as anything else. There is a spiritual dimension to the theatre which is very difficult to find now because of the business constraints on every show having to be successful."
Collins links his quest for knowledge back to his Jesuit education at Belvedere College, Dublin. As an affirmation of this influence, a former headmaster will carry out the religious ceremonies when he marries fellow yoga teacher Paula Herbert next year.
His move from science to acting was a swift one: "I found I was spending all my time in the Galway Arts Centre rather than in the laboratory at UCG - and I couldn't see David Collins PhD genetics on a theatre programme."
His move from acting to yoga was a more gradual progression. "I had been an asthmatic for years and suffered from bad eczema so, while I was in Galway, I began working with acupuncture and later practised ta'i chi and aikido which led me to yoga.
"Yoga served me well as an actor as it is good for the body, the voice and the breath but, over the years, it slowly changed from my yoga teaching [Collins first trained as a yoga teacher from 1992 to 1994] supporting my acting career to my acting career supporting my yoga life."
Throughout the 1990s, Collins worked in theatres in Ireland and Germany, moving back and forth as work demanded. His role in Conall Morrison's adaptation of Patrick Kavanagh's Tarry Flynn in the Abbey Theatre was one of his "big moments" on the stage. Between 1998 and 2002, he worked both in theatre and television drama, playing the role of Conor in the TnG series, Ros na Rún.
In 2002, he decided to take some time off and went to Florida in the US to do an eight-week course in a yoga studio.
"It was there that the shift happened for me. Yoga became a daily, effortless practice. Throughout the 1990s, I had lived with the idea of yoga and, suddenly, I had begun to live yoga. I came back from the United States, started to teach a few classes and it has grown from there."
Four weeks in India practising yoga with the same teacher was the final defining experience.
"At around that time, I was asked to do an acting job and I turned it down. In January 2003, I got another theatre offer and I realised I couldn't do it. From then on, I started to invest more time and now have classes five nights and three mornings a week."
Now displaying a contentment with life which is impressive, Collins seems to believe firmly in the philosophy of life behind his yoga practice.
"Yoga teaches us all to be responsible for ourselves and know that we can achieve what we want if we can let go of the striving."
And what of material success? "Well, I bought my first car when I was 40. Acting was a tough life financially. I can have a more secure income as a yoga teacher. One of the yoga sayings is make yourself prosperous so you can take away the worry of survival. I'm quite happy to be prosperous - so come to class, everyone," he says with a laugh.
See also www.ashtanga.ie