My Yoga Place
Come as you are: Yoga for every body.
CARLO
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I have been practicing Yoga and Buddhist meditation since 2008 and have personally experienced the transformational benefits of both practices.
I came to these practices quite late in life, at 49, shortly after having a hip replacement to alleviate years of chronic pain brought on by the consequences of a car accident.
Yoga and meditation had a huge positive impact on my life and I have been practicing virtually every day ever since.
After three and a half decades spent building a career in IT, volunteering with Samaritans made me realise that what I really wanted to do with my life was to help others directly, so in 2014 I made the decision to dedicate my life to sharing these practices.
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I have qualified both as a Yoga and a Mindfulness teacher and furthered my personal development with courses on Yoga and Mindfulness for Addiction Recovery, Pain Science, Yoga for Anxiety and Depression, Trauma Sensitive Yoga, Yoga for Palliative Cancer Care, Yoga for Chronic Pain and Fatigue and Adaptive Yoga for people with disabilities.
I have taken the Buddhist Precepts at Samye Ling monastery where I received my Buddhist name of Karma Sonam Gonpo.
My classes are very open and approachable and for those with physical disabilities, I have co-founded Yogable, a not-for-profit offering chair-based adaptive yoga.
I have been vegan since 2011 and am happy to help anyone wanting to explore the joys and benefits of this compassionate lifestyle in a safe and nutritionally valid way.
VHAIRI
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Around 15 years ago I joined a yoga class at the gym to stretch. It quickly became a regular part of my life. I had gone to the gym to lose weight to feel better about myself, but yoga taught me how to accept myself.
I began practising meditation and reading about Buddhism and ever since have been on a journey of self inquiry.
In 2017 I trained in Hatha Yoga with the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre in Thailand. There were many things I learned there, like finding control in headstand, but most the important was how to share my yoga practice with others.
In 2019 I gave up my job in the Communications Department of the NHS to teach yoga full time and to work with Carlo at My Yoga Place.
Throughout my own practice, I fell in love with Vinyasa Flow and in 2019, I completed my Vinyasa Teacher training with Arhanta Yoga. When I immerse myself in a flowing physical asana practice, my body, mind and spirit feel at home.
I have trained in Yin Yoga with the Kali Collective, and Adaptive Yoga with Mind Body Solutions. Together with Carlo and Pauline Brennan, I run a C.I.C. called Yogable, offering chair-adaptive yoga for people with physical and mental conditions.
Adaptive Yoga has opened my mind to who can practice yoga and how they practice it. I let go of any assumptions I have about what people can and can’t do and encourage everyone to do the same and instead to simply move and breathe and see what happens.
My hope is that my classes provide the space and opportunity to all to enjoy the benefits and experiences of yoga.