Over the 30+ years I have been practicing yoga, I have studied a number of different styles. I would describe the style I teach as simply being “Hatha Yoga” (N.B. any form of yoga that heavily uses physical postures is hatha yoga). My teaching is particularly influenced by Iyengar yoga – especially through cues for specific algignment, use of props, and a tendency to stay longer in poses than the types of ‘vinyasa’ or ‘flow’ classes that tend to do ‘one pose one breath’).

My two main teachers in my teacher training both had very strong backgrounds in anatomy with respect to new understandings of fascia and body science, and my own practice has also been significantly shaped by having long-term physiotherapy to recover from an injury where a car hit me when cycling. These have all contributed to an approach that involves both a ‘whole body’ approach to asanas as well as an emphasis on using and developing the more micro musculature to improve alignment and reduce unecessary stress on the large muscles.

I distil a lot of my teaching to three key elements:

Breath – keeping a calm, centred breath throughout the practice to keep mind and body linked.

Bhandas – a Sanskrit word meaning ‘energy locks’ that has found lots of support in contemprary work on fascia (c.f. Tom Myers’ Anatomy Trains) and leads to a whole body engagement in poses.

Back – A placing of the spine at the centre of all poses. Rule one in my first teacher training course was the need first and foremos to maintain “a calm mobile spine”. I view pretty much any yoga pose as being a variation of one of the five movements of the spine: flexion (forward bend), extension (backbend), rotation (twisting the spine), lateral bending and axial extension. Involvement of the limbs within poses just provides extra context and challenge to each pose.

This approach helps to remove the idea that the aim of yoga is about flexibility and puts greater harmonisation of mind and body as central to all asanas.

All classes involve elements of meditation and breathwork (pranayama) ad there is frequent mention of the philosphy of yoga (covering Samkhya, Buddhist and Advaita Vedanta teachings).