Beginning again
It seems quite a sad title for this blog… I can assure you it’s totally the opposite. Exciting, scary, humbling, refreshing, and a sense of relief that a little perspective changes everything.
I first did my yoga teacher training in 2003, after a summer apprenticeship in Ibiza. A whole 17 years ago. And things change… My teacher had changed. In his daily yoga he began to refine his method. It became simpler, with instruction specifically to help us feel deeply the joints, the relationships between our body parts, the subtle and not so subtle feelings that we usually cannot feel or ignore. Instruction that releases tension yet builds strength and, with practise of course, brings deep and profound change to the practitioner over time. This has filtered through beautifully and clearly into his teaching of us all, and how we should teach others.
I attended a few of his London workshops in the meantime, and noticed how my practise felt different in comparison. Of course, this can happen as my own experiences and best replica watches 2021 ideas, indeed the limitations of my own body, steer me to adapt my movements in other ways. But I was feeling lost. The teaching I felt I believed in had changed and I felt I needed guidance to be authentic again in my own teaching.
In 2016 I invested heavily in yoga immersions with senior teachers from The Dynamic Yoga Training Method, both in London and in a two week Teaching skills intensive in the beautiful mountains of Tuscany. 
And for the latter, I took all my kids with me… a 13 hour journey with car, bus, plane, taxi, train-change-train, and car again… with a 10, 8 and 3 year old. They revelled in the freedom that living on a mountain brings… from jumping in the river, cooking ‘stick bread’ on an open fire, rambling across terrain with wild flowers a metre high… there were adults present with the children but they had a freedom that just isn’t available in suburban London.
And me, I began again at the beginning, as if I was learning yoga for the first time. Feeling the joints – soft, feeling the relationship between the different body parts, and how they all move relative to each other, and as impacts of other actions. Feeling muscles activating as I move. This is deeper yoga than I have ever practised before.
Learning sequencing and wording to teach my own students, so they can become more aware of their own bodies. Bringing softness and openness, and deeply sensitising them into what they are feeling. Creating an empowered student who can trust the wisdom of their own body, so that no matter the posture, shape or movement, they can be safe in their yoga practise.
And those weeks following, since we came home, went along the same vein… the children beginning again back at school… my youngest at nursery for the first time. Returning to my business and looking at it from a fresh perspective. All things seem a little different, as if relaxing into my yoga practise has helped things around me slot into place with greater ease. I seem to have more time to do things I find interesting, besides yoga!
And the only thing that I can attribute it to is being more relaxed as a consequence of my being more focused and committed to my own well-being in the form of dynamic yoga. As I became more comfortable and relaxed within my own body, it reacted less to stressful situations… school runs, sibling fall outs, relationship challenges etc. I loved this new beginning. I am sure that by taking the time to practise yoga regularly I continued to be aware of myself. I know better when to take some time to rest, and I know that when I feel bursts of energy it’s a good time to get things sorted that maybe I’d had no time for lately.
And in the three years since then I completed more training, in Yoga, Meditation, Massage and Aromatherapy. I have taught many classes and workshops in Dynamic Yoga, both complete beginners and those more experienced in yoga posture practise. I have taught meditation, I have led workshops and courses in Yoga Nidra which were extremely well received.
Circumstances have led us again to more new beginnings as I left North London in 2019, and moved back to my home town of Derby. I left all my clients behind in the safe hands and voices of some of my most respected peers. Here I begin again, with new clients, new therapy studio, new trainings, new employment working directly with cancer patients 4 days a week to support their wellbeing through relaxations, mindfulness and meditations.
2020 being the year of lockdown and mask-wearing to protect those vulnerable in society from Covid19, it became clear to me that I need to return to my business because so many people need access to thing that help them cope with the situation, however that may affect them. So, I’m wearing PPE not only at work, but for clients who come for therapies. My hygiene practises were already of the highest standard but some guidelines mean adaptations have occurred.
As I have moved on, I have learned from each situation, each client, and will continue to do so. I will provide the best, most suitable treatment to you, according to your needs.
I know that I want to share this all with you through my complementary therapies and yoga classes. I want to help you connect to yourself through yoga, meditation and therapies, and allow this deep relaxation which is available to all of us, to manifest within you. I hope to help you realise that you can function better and be a better version of yourself by just relaxing into who you actually are. Because you are… perfect!
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