awareness over achievement
How I came to yoga
I started practising yoga about eight years ago, and in the beginning, it was mostly physical. I loved the movement, the rhythm of linking breath to body and the feeling of getting stronger. I also noticed that I always felt better after class. I could not quite put my finger on why, but something about the practice was serving me. I felt lighter, calmer and more settled.
So I kept coming back to my mat.
As life happened, through difficult times, disappointment, change and everything in between, I started noticing that each time I came back to my mat, I came back to myself a little differently. Sometimes I found clarity, sometimes just a bit of space. Slowly, I realised that yoga was becoming much more than the physical practice I had originally fallen in love with.
After a particularly challenging period, I decided to take a big leap and complete my 200-hour teacher training at The House of Om in Bali. That experience changed my relationship with yoga. I began to understand that the practice was not just about what was happening in my body, but about learning to be more present with my thoughts, emotions and experiences.
While I was there, a butterfly landed on my finger. Butterflies have always symbolised my dad since losing him, and in that moment, I felt completely present. I did not need to question it or understand it. I just knew I was exactly where I needed to be, doing what I was meant to be doing.
That idea of presence has stayed with me.
I have spent a lot of my life caught up in what has already happened or what might happen next. Yoga has taught me that being present does not mean difficult things disappear. It means learning to sit with them, notice them and meet them differently.
The physical practice is still something I genuinely love, but for me, it became an entry point to something much bigger. You come to the mat to move, and somewhere along the way, you start to notice yourself a little more.
That is what I want to bring into the room when I teach.
200-hour certified · The House of Om, Bali
My classes are built on breath and steady movement. The postures are only one piece of it. In the eight limbs of yoga, the way Patanjali set them out, the physical shapes are a small part, and what I care about is the awareness you build on the way into a pose, not how the pose ends up looking.
So you can expect a slow build toward stillness, plain language instead of jargon, and any Sanskrit translated the first time you hear it. It does not matter whether this is your very first class or you have been practising for years. You should walk out feeling met, not measured.
Every class has a single theme running through it from start to finish. It might be a line from the Sutras, one of the Yamas or Niyamas, a chakra, or simply the season we are in. The point is that the time on the mat links up with something you can take away with you.
what a class looks like
Most classes are Vinyasa, a ladder or creative flow, and move through the same arc, whatever the level or the theme.
- 01
Theme
A single idea to hold onto: a Sutra, a Yama, a season, the breath.
- 02
Centering
A few minutes of breath and stillness to arrive and set an intention.
- 03
Warm-up
Gentle spinal movement and joint preparation. Awareness before intensity.
- 04
Build
Standing sequences and balance work that lead somewhere on purpose.
- 05
Peak
One posture the whole class has been quietly preparing for.
- 06
Cool-down & rest
Forward folds, a long Savasana, space to feel the effect.
The House of Om · Ubud, Bali
On the mat
meet your practice where it is today.