India

My interest in yoga began when I was in my twenties looking for an alternative to aerobics and sports. I had always been drawn to the mystery of the East and yearned to go to India and experience some of the strangeness of mysticism for myself. My chance to go came about once I had become a student and had the time carved out for me to travel during the summer holidays. I had been going to yoga classes regularly for about a year and I felt ready for a five week trip to Northern India. I planned to go for two weeks to Kashmir with my cousin and stay on a houseboat on one of the lakes in Srinagar. Based on the experiences of various friends who had "done" India I decided it would be a breeze to travel around India on my own and explore for the remaining three weeks alone... the only problem was that I hadn't factored in a shoot on sight curfew in Kashmir the day we arrived, due to the sudden death of President Zia of Pakistan who had just been assassinated.

Nothing prepares you for the chaos of India and had I known quite how mind blowing it would all be maybe I would have planned it differently. Anyway that first time in India taught me to learn to work with adversity if I still wanted to experience the highs and lows of being in such an extraordinary place. Although India could feel quite desolate to me at times there were also exquisite moments of stillness, beauty, richness and warmth. I think that's probably what drew me there. I wanted to feel the intensity of the place.

The snapshots above show the range of my experiences in India but I can't pretend I wasn't relieved when I stepped onto the safety of the British Airways plane on my way back to England. After three weeks on my own in such a strange land I felt I had had enough of the extremes and was ready for a little more normality again. Little did I know that that would be quite hard to achieve.. but that's another story. I don't know whether that first trip to India helped my yoga practise at the time but over the years I've been able to draw from my experiences there to shape my understanding of yoga.

The reason I'm writing about this now is that I've decided to teach yoga again. For the first time I feel that I'm ready to give much more of myself as a teacher and can enjoy the experience. When I first trained as a yoga teacher I felt as though I was winging it slightly and I never felt totally prepared. My knowledge and understanding of yoga seems to have deepened recently and I actually feel as if I can offer my students something quite worthwhile. Details are below for anyone interested in coming to my class

Lunchtime Yoga

Mondays from 1.00 to 2.00pm

St. Peter's Hall, 59a Portobello Rd, London W11 2DB

We are above Charlie's Cafe situated in a pretty courtyard on Portobello Rd in the heart of Notting Hill.
6 Classes £55 - Drop in £10. Beginners welcome