Yoga was first introduced to me in 1998 in my London home (England), by two New Zealanders. Curious, I went along to my first teacher, Maggie Taylor in Catford, South East London. After my second class I experienced a deep sense of calm and ease that seemed to have been absent for years. How could this be as I’d only done a few simple stretches. I kept going to these local classes, and began practicing a little yoga most days.
This was the beginning of my yoga journey.
Since then it’s taken me to the Bahamas, where I certified as a Sivananda Yoga Teacher.
To Ibiza in Spain, where I spent time with Godfrey Devereux (www.windfireyoga.com). Here I realised that your approach to yoga on the mat, was the micro of the macro. That amplified out into life would be this same pattern. I saw the potential that yoga has to relax us into our natural state of being. That the practice on the mat really can facilitate change off the mat.
I travelled to Byron Bay in Australia and spent several weeks with Sofia Diaz (www.sofiayoga.com). It was here that I really opened to and embraced my femininity, through yoga and dance, chanting, sacred circles and group work. All fun, intense, real and liberating.
I have been fortunate to meet other wonderful teachers on my journey, Linda Henderson in Blackheath, London being one of them (www.greenwichgateway.com).
I also completed six months of the Iyengar Teacher Training (after learning the method for 2 years) with Wendy Brown in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Teaching yoga (since 2002) is a very rich learning process. The friendship that develops with students provides a fertile ground for learning: learning about their bodies, hearing their questions, asking my own, seeing the ways of being that exist within us all, have all made this relationship one of mutual learning. I was always worried that I did not know enough to be a yoga teacher… but I slowly realised that being myself, really being myself, was enough.
The Yoga of Life. Some of my most important teachings and insights have been life experiences; with family, friends, partners, and with myself. Learning how to navigate through the highs and lows that we all go through. How to feel them, how to come through them, how to accept them and acknowledge them as valid and real experiences of this life.
I was fortunate to meet Mark Whitwell at the beginning of 2007 (www.heartofyoga.com). He communicates a message that is often missing from contemporary teachings. It is empowering, it reminds us that as we are, is truth. It is the experience that we are looking for. His book, “Yoga of Heart, The Power of Intimate Connection”, is a text that can be referenced again and again, each time seeing another gem that reminds us of our own peace and power…
“Truth is a pathless land. Truth is not something to be found. Truth is already present in you, right here, right now, as the Life that is you.”
So here I am today, knowing more and more what is it to flow in my own river,
What it is to be alive right now.
To walk in truth and stand tall like the trees,
To breathe like the wind and shine like the sun.
To glow like the moon and to howl like the wolves,
and how to be alive in the darkest of the nights.