Why I Love ... Yoga

I took my first yoga class in 2003. I went with my best friend, we giggled through the first breathing exercise, struggled through the class but left on a total high. It was Bikram yoga, a 90-minute class of 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises, practiced in a heated room. I had a knee injury and was eager to find an alternative way to heal it. The Bikram series got me through the injury, and I never looked back. In 2009 I attended Bikram Yoga Teacher Training in Las Vegas.

Post teacher training, my daily schedule involved between 3 and 6 hours yoga, a mainly vegan and raw diet and time spent developing my meditation practice. Despite starting my training quite late – I was 26 - I was able to increase my flexibility, especially my spine flexibility, and develop a lot of strength and stamina as well as learning how to control my breathing. I even competed, representing Ireland five times in the Ghosh Cup and came in amongst the top ten in the 2016 international final.

Fast forward to today and I run a yoga studio in Dublin. The studio offers everything from hot Hatha flow classes, yin yoga, arm balancing classes, and kundalini yoga. I have a great team of teachers who support my vision of making yoga accessible to everyone. The studio sees a wide range of people taking classes and has a great community feel to it that grows from people showing up to practice, be that once a week or day in day out.

My biggest joy in teaching yoga is to see the students witness their own transformation. The progress that happens within the first month can be huge with regular practice. As my teacher, Mary Jarvis would say, "go as far as you can, until you can go further".