Yoga has been a constant companion ever since I came to it in my late teens
This was in 1979: my aunt, now retired yoga teacher Margaret McLaughlin, recommended it for my anxiety and sleep issues and I found could turn to it no matter what life threw up.
My pathway to teaching yoga was more winding, via Alexander Technique teacher training
When working in the computing department of a large company whilst on the lookout for what I really wanted to do in life, Aunt Margaret suggested I train as a yoga teacher. By that time, via a work colleague, I had found my way to Alexander Technique, partly to help with the neck pain I sometimes had doing yoga. I realised that to be happy with myself as a yoga teacher, I would want to know more about Alexander Technique. In this way, I came to train as an Alexander teacher and in fact only came back to the idea of the Yoga Teacher Training for my own benefit, to complement what Alexander Technique had brought to my life. Part of the training involved setting up and running my own classes and I found so much joy in these classes that I have been teaching ever since!
My journey into Yoga with Babies was sparked by working with a pregnant Alexander teacher colleague
Then, through one of my Alexander students, I met and started working with experienced childbirth educator, Nadine Edwards. I was just starting my Yoga Teacher Training, so ante and post natal yoga were included in my training from the beginning. Nadine’s work developed into what is now the Pregnancy and Parents Centre in Edinburgh and I came to focus particularly on the postnatal side of things at the centre. A parent coming with their baby to my classes mentioned an article she had seen about a yoga teacher who did yoga for the baby too. Some years later, coming back to teach postnatal classes after a post viral fatigue illness and my own pregnancy led to me stepping back from what was then the Birth Centre work, I remembered about the article and ended up travelling to Cambridge with my 7 month old baby to do what turned out to be the first Baby Yoag training with its pioneer and founder of Birthlight, Françoise Barbira Freedman. Yoga for the babies added a valuable and joyful element to my postnatal classes and I have been teaching Yoga with Babies classes ever since.
Yoga for Sleep has always been part of my yoga journey
Sleep issues brought me to yoga and over the years, various yoga practices helped with sleep disturbances. In my fifties, however, I had sleep problems I wasn’t able to deal with, even with all the yoga I knew. So, when I came across a training in Yoga Therapy for Sleep Recovery with Lisa Sanfilippo, I knew I had to do this, not only for myself but for so many of my students who I would hear reporting sleep issues. This training, with its organised and multifaceted approach, brought whole new dimensions to healing sleep with yoga. I now not only sleep much better generally but have recourse to a deeper understanding of how yoga can fit with the science of sleep for when sleep goes awry with life’s vagaries. I value this so much that I now assist on Lisa’s Sleep Recovery teacher training courses and I am delighted to share the benefits of Yoga for Sleep Recovery as widely as possible.
A wee, personal snippet
I live in Edinburgh, Scotland with husband and fellow Alexander Technique teacher Rob; and son Julien in his early 20s who is a blacksmith and traditional craftsman looking to combine these with work in the outdoors.