In 2011 I took redundancy from full time work in events.  I didn't have a plan as such it just seemed the right thing to do at the time.  I also taught fitness classes alongside this and dabbled in photography too, and I loved yoga.

Before this though my yoga journey and I suppose soul journey began. My first ever yoga class was in a female only gym on a Sunday morning, with a male teacher dressed in hippy pants and I remember absolutely loving it although feeling rather out of my comfort zone with all that heavy breathing stuff.  I remember trying to control fits of giggles, but I something really resonated with me that was kind of the start.  So I guess.....Atha Yoga Anushasanam for me began in 1997. I really had no idea how big a part of my life it would become. At first it was mostly about the physical practice and how it made my body feel, like it is for a lot of us to begin with. Working with the body is the easiest layer if you like to work with so it's often the starting point. 

If I couldn't get to a class I would practice at home, or follow Barbara Currie videos, yes VHS too, and then discovered the amazing and inspiring Shiva Rea. I travelled in 2001 & 2006 and went to yoga in New Zealand & Australia. 

Back to 2011............

After taking redundancy I continued doing part time work teaching classes and picking up bits of photography work, then everything changed.  I'd also just taken up surfing, despite a huge fear of drowning something called me to that, but one day sort of out of the blue I had all these problems with my hip.  As a child I had surgery on my hips, but I was fit, active, strong, I danced, I surfed my life was full of activity. & then boom! Taken down one day, it seemed to happen so quickly, blind-sided, devastated, in severe pain, unable to walk, I was eventually diagnosed with a tear in my hip, and a nerve impingement and osteo-arthritis. I was 37 years young and I didn't take to this too well. But I'm stubborn and after a comment from an occupational therapist who was meant to be helping my return to work  along the lines of 'but how do you think you can be a fitness instructor with an arthritic hip' I decided this was not the end but instead the start of me figuring out how to get strong again, and see what I could do.  I rehabilitated myself, and believe a huge part of that was my yoga practice too. And so the love of Yoga grew even more. It helped me navigate not just physically but mentally the challenges I was having. I had wanted to do a yoga teacher training course for a while but I talked myself out of it because of the hip.  Then I met a teacher offering 200hrs YTT and after talking to him I turned my hip in to a reason to do the training rather than a reason not to do it.  So, in a long convoluted way, that brings us kind of to now.  I've been guiding others on their yoga journey since 2018 and I'm learning and growing alongside and from all the students I am fortunate enough to meet and guide.