Sarayoga & Pilates

Yoga, Pilates and Personal Training in Northampton

I am a certified Sun Power Yoga Teacher, level 2& 3 Anatomy & Physiology. I am also a qualified Pilates teacher and personal trainer. I have also taken many other complimentary courses such as Nutrition, Advanced CV training, Core Stability, Postural Alignment and Muscle Imbalances, all of which I feel contribute towards my ability to teach Sun Power Yoga (with a large scope for posture modifications) and offer wellbeing advice to my clients.

From a young age I have always been interested in sports and in keeping fit. As a teen I qualified as a black belt in Taekwondo and went on to become a British champion in the sport. I was lucky enough to win a place in the British team and I came an amazing 3rd in the European championships in Paris. Although I have trained and competed with the best in Martial Arts and cherish the memories that I have of the sport, my new passion in life is now Yoga.

I have been practising Yoga since 2006 and decided in 2012 to re-train and become a qualified Sun Power Yoga teacher. I have been trained by Anne-Marie Newland and although the course was one of the hardest I have ever experienced it has very much been life changing for me. The standard that Anne-Marie expects from her teachers is exceptionally high and passing the course is one of my proudest achievements.

I love being able to teach Yoga and watch my students grow in both ability and confidence. One of the facets that I love most about Yoga is how inclusive it is. You don’t need to be super strong or flexible to be able to take part and there are lots of modifications that can be used in order to develop students to a point where they are able to execute the full postures. However, any level of Yoga involvement is highly beneficial in terms of getting your body moving and improving your day to day posture. Yoga at any level also helps to detoxify the body, by gently stretching muscles and joints as well as massaging your internal organs, Yoga ensures the optimum blood supply to various parts of the body. This increased blood supply flushes out toxins and is believed to slow down the effects of the ageing process.

The health benefits to practising Yoga are well documented, however, I know from first-hand experience how expansive the benefits are. As someone who suffers from a chronic illness, I know how challenging it can be at times to stay positive and pragmatic about the future. I firmly believe that Yoga is healing all of my old injuries that were sustained during my Taekwondo days and it is helping to heal me internally. I know that even on days when I lack the motivation to do my daily Yoga and breathing practice, I will feel invigorated and ready to face the rest of the day afterwards. Although Yoga is not a magic cure, practising regularly and taking time to really meditate and breathe each day has dramatically improved the severity of my symptoms.

With Yoga you are always pushing yourself to try and get more from your body and constantly striving to achieve the more advanced postures. This on-going development and improvement is what will keep me interested and passionate about Yoga for the rest of my life.