A Deeper Study of Yoga and What it Means to be Human

Yoga and Ayurveda were part of my story long before they became the centre of mine.

I am half Indian, with East Indian roots through my father's side. My great-grandfather was an Ayurvedic doctor, and there is a lesser-known lineage of yogis in my family.

That connection was a beginning. I have spent decades developing my own relationship with these teachings through study, practice and the guidance of my teachers.

I have been fascinated by the human mind from a very young age. At fourteen, I was already trying to make sense of experiences that had profoundly shaped me. At eighteen, I made a conscious decision to begin the work of understanding myself and changing the patterns that had been formed.

I began with Western psychology, studying the mind, behaviour and the ways our experiences shape us. Eventually, that enquiry led me towards Eastern psychology and yoga. 

My past taught me that even our deepest wounds can become our greatest teachers. Not because what happened to us was necessary, but because of what we choose to do with what we have been given. 

I could remain defined by what happened to me, or I could rise beyond it. I chose to do the work.

Yoga gave me a language for the work I had already begun, svādhyāya

: turning towards oneself, with honest enquiry. Through that enquiry, and through the discipline of sādhana, I began to recognize the patterns I held without allowing them to dictate who I would become.

My own healing has become part of my purpose: to continue doing this work within myself so that I can support others in theirs.

Yoga also gave me a much broader framework for exploring the relationship between body, breath and mind, as well as the deeper dimensions of human life.

My life before and beyond yoga has also shaped the way I see people.

I trained as a chef and studied nutrition, spent 20 years in high-end corporate hospitality leadership, and explored various healing modalities, including Reiki, sound healing, shamanic work, and other approaches. I have also spent many years volunteering with vulnerable young people.

These experiences taught me to look beyond a person's surface and gave me a deep respect for the complexity of human life.

I have been practicing yoga for twenty-three years and teaching for eighteen.

What began as a physical practice became a search for the full breadth of yoga. I wanted to know what lay behind the postures, and what yoga had to say about the mind, the breath, behaviour, suffering, and the possibility of personal change. 

That search took me to India.

I spent several years living and studying in Mysore, immersed in the Ashtanga tradition under R. Sharath Jois and R. Saraswathi Jois. I was authorized Level 2 and spent four years assisting at the main shala, working with hundreds of practitioners each month.

Those years shaped the way I teach. They taught me the importance of observation, consistency, relationship and time. 

They also made one thing very clear: there was always more to learn.

My studies continued into the wider teachings of yoga. I completed nearly a decade of study of the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, including all four chapters, within the Krishnamacharya tradition.

I continue to study Antaraṅga Yoga with Raghu Ananthanarayanan, whose work has influenced the way I approach the inner dimensions of yoga: patterns, behaviour, relationships and the movement towards greater self-awareness.

I have spent many years with texts including the Bhagavad Gītā and Upaniṣads, returning to them repeatedly as my own practice and perspective develop.

My Vedic chanting and mantra studies have developed through my long-term relationship with Dr Vigneshwar Bhat, a Vedic scholar, teacher, and author of The Splendour of Mantra.

Ayurveda has been another important thread in my life. I have studied and immersed myself in Ayurveda for more than twelve years, continuing a connection that reaches back into my family history.

I became a certified yoga therapist within the Krishnamacharya tradition because I wanted to understand how these teachings can meet an individual person, rather than asking each person to fit into the same practice.