My Yoga Journey
With a very poor sport background (or rather a non-existent one – absolutely not the “fabulous ex-dancer/ex-gymnast” story so many teachers have), my first foray into a gym was at the age of 28 and, little by little, I saw all kinds of improvements. My God-given gift is to be universally untalented in sport, so I tried everything I could – I signed up for tennis, I got a mountain bike, I started running, I joined an orienteering club, I tried mat Pilates, circuit training, gymnastics, reformer Pilates and then – yoga.
After a few years of “boring stretches”, in July 2017 I stumbled into a Dharma Yoga Open Level class at Triyoga Chelsea, taught by the wonderful Emi Tull (Dharma Yoga is a yoga style founded by Sri Dharma Mittra and would generally be considered a quite demanding practice, with a lot of back bending and inversions.) I could barely do a headstand, so there I stood in fascination looking around the class full of contortionists who were tying themselves into knots or ‘scorpioning’ to death.
I immediately fell for the energy of the class and have been coming back ever since. I got an unlimited membership at the biggest London yoga studio and became completely captivated by the practice of yoga. I tried vinyasa, ashtanga, hot yoga, iyengar, power yoga, rocket yoga – I continued practicing dharma and vinyasa and slowly built up my yoga style – a dynamic intelligent vinyasa with focus on strength, effort and focus.
GOING DEEPER
In my early days of practicing yoga I discovered that often – given my academic background and my need-to-know-everything brain – I found I wasn’t getting enough information from my teachers in the regular classes. In some asanas, didn’t know what specifically was going on; I didn’t know what all the benefits were of various poses and how best to modify a pose I found was too intense.
So in 2018 I started looking into how to explore yoga more deeply, and early 2019 I took an immersion yoga teacher training in Sri Lanka, led by Mathieu Boldron. He’s an international yoga teacher who specializes in educating teachers. I am quite confident I found one of the best trainings currently available in the world, and that month-long intensive course gave me the best possible knowledge as a new teacher.
Getting my start in the London yoga scene combined with my YTT has given my yoga journey a unique and solid start. While I relocated to Prague in 2019, I still go to London regularly (as well as other places) to meet great yoga minds in order to continue collecting knowledge, so that I can bring the best I can to my students and to my classes. In 2019, I practised in yoga studios in London, New York, Berlin, India, Austria and have taken classes / workshops with some of the leading yoga teachers.
MY TEACHERS
You wouldn’t be reading this today were it not for the brilliant teachers I’ve had the opportunity to meet and practise with. With yoga, in most cases you don’t go to a school where you hope for the best / wait / search for a teacher that will change your life. If you meet the right teachers, they will change your life. Below you can check out some of the teachers who have influenced my practice. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have practised with them – if you are ever in London (or Paris), go practice with them.