Why I started Yoga
I guess anyone with a regular Yoga practice will tell you the same thing. My journey to becoming a Yoga Teacher began, quite simply with a knee injury. I had been using running up until that point as my go to therapy if I was feeling a little overwhelmed or stressed out. I would pop on a favourite playlist and go out and run. I’m not sure what I enjoyed more, the 30- 45 minutes of uninterrupted music or the running, but one thing was for sure, any mood that I left the house in, be it stressed out, mad, bored, tired etc… was gone by the time I got back. A lot of the time there was a battle of wills with myself to simply get out and go for a run, but once I did it, I felt amazing afterwards.
Then unfortunately, I sustained a knee injury, the problem was with my IT band and 5 minutes into my run I could feel an uncomfortable pull at the side of my knee and just couldn’t run anymore. What was I going to do? Running was my form of release and without it, I was beginning to panic.
I figured that perhaps in my overzealous attempt at just running out the door and popping in earbuds to listen to a latest album release, I hadn’t been giving my muscles the proper strength training and conditioning they needed. If I were to continue with running, perhaps a little more time spent on stretching and warm up, warm down was warranted.
And that’s why I started Yoga.
My yoga Journey
My first few classes of Yoga, I felt the most inadequate I’ve ever felt in my life. But it’s part of the Yoga Experience, that the challenge is with you and your body and what you can learn to do with it, NOT comparing to what anyone else can do. There should be parking spaces for Egos outside every Yoga studio, sometimes it’s good to be a beginner.
I’m about 5 years into a regular Yoga Practice now, some days it’s just 15 minutes on the mat before I get on with my day and I’ve learned how to flow now too, which is ultimately just a series of combined asanas(postures) flowing into one another.
If you find a great teacher who can show you how to do this, it’s simple to set up a home practice that you can dedicate as much or as little time to as you like. The flow will soon become second nature and you’ll forget what it was like to be a beginner.
I now own my own Studio in Walton on Thames in Surrey called The Secret Garden Studios, where I run small bespoke classes each week. I teach one to one private classes along with smaller classes, where I can tailor a little more individually to my clients.
I’m also a qualified NLP Life Coach so I like to incorporate that into my classes and well my love of music is pretty prevalent in my class settings too. I specially curate my own Secret Garden Studio playlists for each class and upload them onto Spotify, so when you’re not in the Studio you get to relive the experience at home and hopefully inspire you to practise!
In the warmer months we like to take our practise outside to some carefully chosen Secret Gardens, follow us on Social Media to stay up to date on where and when that will be and join our Secret Garden Tribe. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram under ‘The Secret Garden Studios’
Look forward to seeing you on the mat!
Niamh
