my story

Teaching is in my blood and is something that has always come naturally to me. My parents were both keen teachers during their working lives and I remember early on in my life setting up an after school homework club, where I helped younger students with their studies. My love of interacting with people in a meaningful way combined with a passion for science drew me towards a career in Medicine. I was honoured to attend Medical School at The University of Newcastle Upon Tyne but I struggled with the non-holistic approach often adopted by western medicine. I graduated in 2005 at the young age of 23 and worked for a brief period as a junior doctor in Sunderland Royal Infirmary. However, for many reasons I knew that this career was not suited to me and I finally made the decision to leave the medical world. This was not an easy feat as I had been on that trajectory since the age of 15. I drew my attention to all the transferable skills that I had developed and focused on what I was most passionate about at the time.

I began a new life in Sydney in 2006 working for the British fashion brand Paul Smith. It was so refreshing to be part of a dynamic, creative industry and I loved working in a small team looking after many aspects of the brand in Australia and New Zealand. I had started to practise Transcendental Meditation back in 2004 as a coping mechanism for stress and this had opened a gateway into spirituality for me. In Sydney I regularly attended hatha yoga classes and after a few years of dedicated practice I decided to embark on an Ashtanga Yoga teacher training course at Yoga Thailand with Paul Dallaghan.

Having moved to London in 2009 I started working at the triyoga headquarters where I remained in a Managerial role for almost 9 years. I began to set up my own small yoga classes in a local church hall and completed a holistic massage diploma with Quantum Metta in London. I was assisting on one of their massage courses when a student casually asked me why I wasn’t teaching anatomy. The thought had literally never crossed my mind - a true light bulb moment for me!

From this point onwards I focused all my attention on establishing a career as an anatomy teacher. Although I had studied anatomy in great detail during Medical School I now needed to look at this incredibly vast subject from a completely different angle and create ways to make it relevant to yoga. I enrolled in hands-on dissection classes that focused on fascia (a word that I had never come across at Medical School!) and spent all of my spare time re-reading anatomy books, listening to podcasts and talking about anatomy to anyone who would listen.

In recent years I have become a keen writer contributing chapters to the popular Yoga Teaching Handbook: A Practical Guide for Yoga Teachers and Trainees and Yoga Student Handbook: Develop Your Knowledge of Yoga Principles and Practice. My new book, Supporting Yoga Students with Common Injuries and Conditions, was published in March 2021. My second book, The Physiology of Yoga, was published in June 2022. Sign up for my newsletter to stay updated about these projects.

It is a privilege to combine all of my skills and passion to teach anatomy and physiology on many Yoga Teacher Training courses and lead my own workshops and trainings across the UK and internationally. My goal is to make anatomy applied to yoga fun, practical and inclusive. In 2020 I finally launched my Yoga Anatomy Online Course.

I am indebted to my teachers who include Hamish Henry, Paul Dallaghan, Eileen Gauthier, Kristin Campbell, Anna Ashby, Richard Rosen and Sally Kempton.