February 2018

When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Will Appear

Buddha said “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” and those words have rung true throughout my life and yoga journey.

For seventeen years of my adult life I practised yoga on and off (definitely more off than on) and despite being fully aware of it’s healing benefits, I didn’t feel I had enough room to give it space in my life.
Two years ago not only did yoga re-enter my life and become a permanent fixture, but it changed it forever after I completed my initial training to become a yoga teacher at Yoga London. That 200 hour training enabled me to complete specialist training to teach yoga for cancer which was to be my end goal…but oh no, my inner student has a thirst for knowledge that wasn’t yet satisfied. Any yoga teacher worth their salt diligently adheres to the requirement of continued professional development and being a stickler for the rules, I am obviously no exception. I have always had a real interest in the workings of the human body so it made sense that my CPD embraced this and every few months I attend training with Andrew McGonigle (known as Doctor Yogi), which helps me to keep my students safely aligned. In addition to this I completed another teacher training in Yin, a type of yoga that has always been a personal favourite so you would think that this would be enough wouldn’t you, but oh no!

To try and settle the need for more and more information once and for all, I bit the bullet and enrolled on another full 200 hour teacher training, this time studying Yin and Yang yoga with Simon Low of The Yoga Academy in Thailand. My internal eternal student well and truly got her fix as this was intense and extremely hard – a third of the students attending the course either didn’t pass at all, or were advised that more training was required. Despite passing the course, being away from home for a month and being rigorously tested and examined, and having my mettle tested to the max I found a teacher who really resonated with me. This course was supposed to quell my need for learning and instead of drawing a line under further training, having found Simon and The Yoga Academy I find myself signing up for my five hundred hour teacher training.

I am eternally grateful to the teachers that have appeared for me: Corrie McCallum of Yoga London, Helen Keates of Yoga Bright, Doctor Yogi and of course Simon Low of The Yoga Academy, all of whom have helped to shape the teacher that I am today. Most of all I am grateful to my inner teacher, who has taught me that Yoga isn’t a destination, it’s a journey that I will be taking for the rest of my life.

 

December 2017

To Blog or Not to Blog…. That is The Question!

For some time now I have been pondering as to whether I should write a blog or not; it is something that has been suggested to me by fellow teachers and some students on several occasions, but I have cast the idea aside until now.

I am not a great one for self promotion and have indeed only ever taken one selfie in my whole life and that was because I was being teased on my YTT (Yoga Teacher training course), for never having taken one. Bullet well and truly bitten and having decided it isn’t about me it’s about Foxwood Yoga, here it is, my first ever blog.

Now I know I said that it isn’t about me, but I do think that I should perhaps introduce myself?

Hi anyone out there in cyber space currently reading this, I am Alison, a middle aged yoga teacher with a less than perfect yoga practice and a body that is definitely less than perfect. I have practiced yoga on and off (more off than on until the past few years if I am honest) for seventeen years and I am a full time yoga teacher. I am married to Andy, I scuba dive (but only in sunny climates as I feel the cold), own four Dressage horses who I compete occasionally and a Boxer dog named Dexter, I love roller-coasters, I am eternal student (I have spent most of my life studying) and up until eighteen months ago I had a sister, Sam. It is important to talk about her as she is the reason that I teach yoga at all and because of her, I now devote much of my time teaching yoga to people living with cancer. I am extremely compassionate and have decided that I want to make yoga as inclusive as possible, especially for those people who may feel that they are too old/ stiff/ inflexible/ broken/ fat/ skinny (delete as applicable) and to that end I am currently building a Yoga Studio in my back garden especially for those people.

So if you are interested in hearing the ramblings of a real yoga teacher the wrong side of forty, who has her feet on the ground as well as her head in the clouds…. watch this space.