I am Helen and I discovered yoga around 25 years ago after suffering personal trauma in my early 20s. I didn’t want to go on medication after suffering from PTSD type symptoms, so I quickly developed a regular practice of Hatha yoga, specifically Vinyasa flow in the early years, due to the healing I experienced and the ability to cope with life’s challenges in a much more effective way.

Due to severe illness, my practice has evolved significantly in the last 4 years into a daily practice of various styles adding Qigong, Yin, Ashtanga, Somatics, Yoga Nidra, Pranayama Breath, Forrest, meditation, and Therapeutic yoga. I believe after suffering from severe illness that this has enabled me to recover much quicker from trauma, anxiety and post-surgery challenges associated with breast cancer. It also enabled me to have a much more balanced and calm approach to my career and leadership in my previous challenging role.

My practice evolved during the early stages of the Covid Pandemic, into teaching my team ad-hoc classes over Zoom whilst working from home, due to many people struggling with becoming sedentary and working alone, and the affect this had on their mental health, as well as starting meetings with short meditations to enable people to be able to think more clearly, calmly, and be present.

This led me to making a life changing decision when the opportunity arose to leave my long-term career for life and retrain as a self-employed yoga instructor.

I studied at Yoga Like Water in Cornwall, as I liked the fluid nature of the teaching, enabling me to develop my own style of yoga and be able to pass on my knowledge to others about the benefits of yoga to help recover from trauma, and deal with the challenges of modern life, mentally and physically. Since qualifying I have completed 2 breath work courses with my teacher Dan Peppiat of Yoga Like Water via the Movement for Modern Life online platform, and as a result, I have now developed a daily meditation practice in addition to my own Asana (movement) practice. I have also been able to use this knowledge to put my anatomy training into practice in a more effective way, by explaining why having healthy breathing, is so important for us to be healthy human beings, as well as physical exercise.

Once I was able to start teaching, I started an online class with a group of friends so I could test out my ideas on them ready for when I officially started as a yoga teacher, this has evolved to include old colleagues (now friends), and I am pleased to say some friends have become new yogis as a result.

I am very in tune with the local environment, having moved to Devon from Staffordshire 8 years ago, as the pull of the great outdoors became too much to ignore so I upped sticks and made the move. Now I'm blessed to be able to enjoy the sea, forest, moors and countryside every day. I spend many hours walking my hound in local beauty spots in and around Dawlish, our hometown.

Therefore, many of my classes are inspired by the sun, sky, earth, trees and sea. I enjoy paddle boarding and a bit of wild swimming, with the occasional surf. I have a passion for cooking my own plant-based food and am pleased that I have nearly achieved a fully plant-based diet as well as being free of dairy for many years now, believing that what we put into our bodies is what we can expect to get out in terms of energy levels and general wellbeing and health.

I feel very grateful every day to be alive, having endured breast cancer treatment twice, and am grateful to be able to carry out what is a long-standing ambition of teaching yoga to others and cannot wait to pass on my great energy and zest for life to others that are interested in joining my classes.

Taking all of that into account it is my aim that my yoga classes really are suitable for anyone and everyone and can be adapted to suit all levels of abilities, and I can also promise to bring a lot of fun and laughter as I do like to laugh every day, it is how I have got through some of the biggest of life's challenges the universe can throw at you, and I enjoy helping others to do the same.

I look forward to welcoming some new, existing and returner yogis to my classes very soon, so I can share what I've learnt on my life journey so far with you. Namaste!