1. How did you come to Yoga?
I first practiced Yoga at University in Scotland and found it profoundly restful and a real break from the pace of everyday life, like stepping outside of the busyness.
When I graduated and returned to London I searched for a teacher like the one in Scotland. This took months and it wasn’t until I found the Inner Yoga Teacher Mel Softley in North London that I knew I’d found the right person; going to yoga class felt like such a relief, a different way of being. At the time I was going through a period of great transition and the Yoga facilitated space where I could be myself, look at myself honestly and encourage gentle release and growth in a very holistic sense, a kind of coming home to myself. My training with the Inner Yoga Trust helped cultivate this new and profound relationship with my body and develop awareness through movement, the breath and a connection with gravity. Teaching Yoga allows me to pass this on to others and keeps it alive in my daily life in an interactive way.
2. Who or what inspires you in your profession?
Seeing change over time in the way that students move and feel. The constant discovery of new aspects of the body, its movement, its connections, and actively engaging with unlearning and relearning over and over as an integral part of being alive.
My current Inner Yoga Teacher Julia Moore is a constant source of inspiration, her work is so spontaneous, inquiring and honest as well as other teachers throughout my Yoga journey such as Mel Softley, Jenny Beeken and Sarah Doherty the Pilates Teachers here at Clerkenwellbeing.
3. What is your favourite bone/muscle?
It changes all the time but if I had to choose I’d say the feet – they are the foundation for the rest of the body.
4. What is it that you love about what you do?
I love the opportunity to share my learning with others, and to help people. The fact that Yoga is part of everyday life, and is a way for people to actively engage and connect with their own power to inhabit their body and to grow and heal.
5. What area of Yoga are you most interested in?
Restorative Yoga. They say you teach what you most need to learn and I find myself drawn to restorative postures and working with the breath. I found Yoga, but there were lots of years of not being very good at listening to my body which can still surface at times – I feel that this is prolific in our society. Working with the ebb and flow of our feelings and cultivating acceptance of the fact that some days we may feel more connected to our practice and ourselves than others is an on-going challenge, so listening to what the body needs on any particular day is something I try to stay with in my own practice and in my teaching.
6. How long have you been practicing?
Over eight years but I began a more dedicated practice 6 years ago in 2008.
7. What do you think is the most important thing about your treatment?
Patience, self-acceptance and continuity – if it feels good just keep doing it and don’t be too hard on yourself.
8. Tell us something that people don’t know about Yoga
I believe that the physical aspects of what we call Yoga were just spontaneous and fluid visceral exploration, which is primal and ancient – feeling which movements and postures feel nice, releasing, opening and freeing.
Drawing on this during practice can be helpful.Like a cat stretching on its back when it feels most at ease – most vulnerable yet most in touch with itself. Every now and then in the sun on my mat or just walking or sitting in the park I feel a deeper sense of that, just basking in the joy of the body.
9. Where did you study?
I studied over three years with the Inner Yoga Trust which is based in Hampshire, the course consisted of several residential weekends and one residential week for each year of the course in different parts of England, staying in community houses or farms in the countryside. It was lovely to have that sense of retreat and immersion and it felt like a true gift to myself and the beginning of a journey.
The Inner Yoga Trust work from the premise that our body has the intelligence to know how it needs to move. Inner Yoga encourages self-discovery based on one’s own practice but is influenced by Scaravelli and many others through the lineage of Teachers.
I am currently taking a Teaching Yoga for Pregnancy Module with the inner Yoga Trust.
10. Where do you see your practice in 5 years’ time?
In five years I will be teaching Yoga, and Yoga in pregnancy, post natal yoga as well as working with parents and babies. I hope to train in Yoga Therapy also.
11. What has been you most interesting case?
The release of a student’s diaphragm and/ or psoas muscle during pranayama (breathing practice) in class. The next day after a strange dream the student felt and held themselves very differently. This was a clear example of the way that Yoga can affect deep inner change and release without the need for analysing and working things out with the mind.
12. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
In my spare time I like to go swimming in the ponds at Hampstead Heath, go for long walks, drink coffee and eat cake, read and I am just starting to get more into gardening.
