Your teacher

Yoga

What I teaches is an eclectic mix of tried and tested yoga practises, based on sound yogic principles and ideas that I haves explored over the years. My sources are the Retreats and Workshops I regularly attend, and the study I have undertaken, and these feed my personal practise, where I explore the potential and impact of different practises for myself and then figures out the details of how to teach them to my classes. In this way, my teaching becomes less ridged, more creative and fresh and is infused with great personal understanding and insight.

I first found Yoga after a nasty car accident left me with neck and back injuries & stiffness. When my physio sessions came to an end I asked what I should do now and he said ‘You go to Yoga’! I followed his advice dabbling with different form of Hatha Yoga and enjoying practising Vini Yoga for many years. But for the last 16 years I have been practising and studying an approach to Yoga based on the profound and revolutionary teachings of Vanda Scaravelli. I have attended countless Yoga Retreats and workshops over the years, studying extensively with my teacher Bill Wood and for almost a decade I have worked periodically with two of Vanda’s long-standing students, Diane Long and Sandra Sabatini, here and abroad, as well as some of their protege’s: Caroline Reid;  Louise Simmons; Robin Stamm; John Stirk; and Pete Blackaby.

I have been teaching Yoga for over 20 years, and hold a British Wheel of Yoga Teaching Diploma (3 year, 500 hour course), a Diploma in Children’s Yoga from RYE (Research on Yoga in Education) and I’m qualified with Satyananda Yoga, to teach Yoga Nidra (Deep Relaxation). I also have a Masters Degree in Mindfulness Studies with the University of Aberdeen and spent a 5 year period studying and practising at Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Centre in Scotland, together with regular study/practice in the Feldenkrais Technique and Qigong. Last year I completed Pete Blackaby’s ‘Humanistic Yoga Course’ online. 

As well as my own yoga classes in the community, I also teach Yoga students with multiply disabilities for the charity SENSE, including classes at SENSE Touchbase Pears in Birmingham, at a residential home for the ‘sight-impaired’ elderly, and since the Pandemic, a ‘Phone-Yoga’ class for sight impaired/ blind/ students. I have also taught weekly Yoga classes to primary and secondary school children, and now offers occasional days in schools on Health & Wellbeing days.

Meditation

I began a personal meditation practise in 2000, learning Transcendental Meditation (TM), amongst other yogic forms of Meditation. I have also been a member of the Stourbridge ‘Community of Interbeing’ Sangha, who practice mindfulness according to the Zen Buddhist teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.

In 2005, I went on a retreat with Rob Nairn, (renowned for making Buddhist philosophy accessible for the Western mind), and have studied and practised extensively with him (and his proteges) since then at Samye Ling Monastery in Langholm and on Holy Isle off the West Coast of Scotland. I spent 5 years practicing and studying on a Masters Degree course at Samye Ling Monastery and have a Masters Degree in ‘Mindfulness Studies’ from the University of Aberdeen, based on the application Rob Nairn’s Meditation teachings in Education. I graduated in 2015.  

I teach secular Mindfulness in the local community and trained to teach the ‘Mindfulness Based Living Course’(MBLC) and the ‘Compassion Based Living Course’ (CBLC) with the Mindfulness association, which I teaches intermittently in my classes. I have also been a supporting teacher for their ‘Being Present’ programme, and regularly receive supervision to support my own practice and teaching, together with regular CPD programmes and silent retreats. I have been a member of a Compassion-based Mindfulness group of teachers, who discuss the teaching of meditation and practice together. In 2018 I trained with the ‘Mindfulness in School’s Project’ to teach the ‘dot b’ course for school children.