Ebb & Flow Corporate -

I started my career within the fashion industry.

 

My yoga journey started much like many of yours – a true A type personality, I found yoga when the rest of my life became hectic and stressful.

Unlike most people who travel South East Asia on their gap year, aged 18 and unsure of what university to choose, I left school with my A-levels and decided to take a year out before studying full-time. I found myself interning within the fashion industry and three months in, I end up in a full time role that I loved; I was working in the wholesale side of fashion, selling to luxury department stores like Harrods, Net-a-Porter and boutiques around the world which meant a lot of travel too.

I couldn’t imagine possibly giving this up for student halls! So, I carried on working and made a side-move into fine jewellery still continuing to sell to the contacts I had made.  I decided that whilst working and still trying to fit in my love of Yoga, I would begin my university journey, juggling everything to enable me to complete my Business Management degree.

Aged 23, I was running the production and wholesale departments of an Italian fine jewellery brand, whilst committing my evenings and weekends to my dissertation and of course I was exhausted, stressed and burnt out.

I realised I had defined myself by my job and how hard I was working and that in doing that, I may actually have missed the point; I felt like I had forgotten to actually live my life.  So, one Monday morning in November, I handed in my resignation and by that afternoon, I had booked a flight to India to complete my teacher training.

I had been practicing yoga for about 4 years by then, having discovered the practice when I developed back pain from long hours sitting at a desk. I soon realised how after classes, I felt calm and content and I wanted to feel that way all of the time. 

So following my gut, I completed my first yoga teacher training (a 200hr certified teacher) in Feb 2016 and then decided to really immerse myself, get deeper into the asana knowledge, anatomy, philosophy and chakra training so enrolled for a further 300hr certificate in Nov 2017 (to become a 500hr teacher).  Since then I’ve also spent 2 separate weeks building up my knowledge about Yin Yoga which is a passion of mine.

As a full-time yoga teacher, my week is split between yoga studios, visiting clients at home for private sessions as well as teaching within offices.

Whilst each class is completely different, being able to have the opportunity to teach within the corporate environment brings me particular joy. I know what it feels like to be on the other side of these classes; stressed, exhausted, holding tension with your body from lack of movement and a bad posture from long hours sitting at the desk. I remember working long hours at work and missing yoga classes to finish assignments and meet deadlines.

 

In my corporate classes, I like to create this calm, safe space where just for one hour, you can leave all of that behind. I like to sequence the classes to be open to everyone; all ages and experience levels. We combine some strength building (especially around the abdominal and glute muscles to support good posture) with general mobility and relaxation techniques, all whilst trying not to take ourselves too seriously 😉

It’s an honour to be invited into your workspace and to guide you on this journey of reconnection to your body – and I hope to see you all on the mat soon!

 

Weekly yoga classes