I started practicing in 2004 and qualified with Yogacampus in London in 2014. I spent several years assisting experienced teachers such as Gingi Lee (the Shala London), Susanne Lahusen (Life Centre) and Norman Blair before establishing a regular Yin and Restorative class from 2014 to 2022 at the Shala in West Norwood.

Over the years, I’ve taken many intensive trainings to expand my learning and understanding of yoga in all its aspects. These include: Norman Blair's Yin workshop (2014), Judith Lasater's Pranayama intensive (2016), Birthlight Pregnancy teacher training (2016), Yogacampus's History of Yoga course (2020), Tias Little's SATYA 1 (Sensory Awareness Training for Yoga Attunement) - 2021, Anne Malone's Sound Bath training (2021), Special Yoga for Autism and ADHD (2022).

In April 2022, I enrolled on a 4 year Feldenkrais Method training with the Feldenkrais International Training Centre in Sussex. This reflects my interest to explore somatics as a form of awareness training and a potential tool for healing and realising one's potential.

My yoga training

For me, every class I teach is a new learning opportunity. Since I believe yoga is a practice for every body and every mind, I always seek to make my classes accessible to anyone who would like to learn.

My story

In the meantime, I had my two children, which changed my whole world. I trained as a pregnancy yoga teacher with Birthlight, but, most importantly, I learnt to slow down, to listen and to move with a body for two. I navigated the postnatal surge in happy hormones and another postnatal free fall due to sad hormones. Teaching yoga kept me afloat. And then I hit the pandemic, when I lost myself, my teaching, my bearings. During the pandemic, I hung onto my yoga, but I also found the Feldenkrais Method. This is a somatic movement practice designed by Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984), who saw movement as the key to accessing the nervous system and to helping the brain learn, change and heal. I am now training as a Feldenkrais practitioner and am slowly rethinking my ways of approaching movement in general and yoga specifically. I am joyfully learning again!

I was born in Romania and came to study in the UK in my twenties. Both my parents used to coach athletics, so I grew up at a stadium, playing while my mom worked, helping her measure out running tracks, joining in with warm ups and generally being part of her work. Although nobody in the family wanted me to coach or train as an athlete, movement became a life necessity. I ran, danced and, while I was study for my degree, became quite seriously involved with a bunch of very creative and exciting contemporary dancers who were redefining their field in the early 2000s. Yet, I decided to do a Masters in the UK, so I left dance and found yoga. I enjoyed yoga as movement and I saw it as a way to explore myself beyond the thinking mind.

While doing my PhD in History, I kept myself sane by practicing Astanga yoga on a daily basis. When I trained as a yoga teacher, I thought I was going to teach the fast-paced Astanga style I practiced. Yet, life took me to the other end of the spectrum. After attending Norman Blair’s yin yoga classes at Yogacampus with my husband, I decided to train in this method as well. Not long after, I got an opportunity to teach a regular yin yoga class that I called ‘deep release’ at the Shala in West Norwood. I taught there from 2014 to the end of the pandemic.

© 2023 Raluca M Yoga.