Atmavidya

Yoga Alliance E-YRT 500 Registered Teacher; B.Ed. (NZ); M. Ed. Admin (NZ)

I am breathing gratitude for being steeped, through decades, in ancient practices of Hatha Yoga and Meditation given by my great teachers.  

Yoga is a magnificent key for appreciation and enjoyment of the life we have, and to living from the goodness, beauty and authenticity of our being.

I came to yoga in my early 30s when the practices helped me find the way back to wellbeing, in the face of challenging circumstances.

Yoga gave the strength and courage to face my problems and a way forward with healthy life choices.

Over the years I have explored many spiritual and personal development pathways, looking for a way that includes everyone.

Yoga is a way, that includes all.

I delight in the yoga that can be practiced by every body, irrespective of the level of mobility or apparent capacity to practice.

I have been teaching yoga since the 1990s and affiliated with the Bihar School of Yoga.

I was gifted the name Atmavidya to live into - Atma relates to the essence of being or ‘light of consciousness’ and Vidya is a wisdom to be understood, imbibed and expressed in life.

I have been able to give service and enrich my learning in Yoga and Meditation ashrams in New Zealand, Australia, Munger and Rikhia in India and continue where i am able, to contribute in my community of Ihutahi Southshore, Otautahi with regular classes and over the years to the work of the Anahata Health and Education Trust and Retreat in Golden Bay.

Since 2017 I have contributed in various Yoga teacher training programmes including through Anahata Yoga Retreat, Golden Flow Yoga and in 2021 as a lead trainer in the Yoga Education Teacher Training Programme based at Kawai Purapura.

After deepening understanding of ways to live closer to the rhythms of Mother Nature and in more harmony with her, in 2008, I established the Parito Yoga Retreat near Raglan with my husband Pete and ran this until 2013 when I spent 9 months imbibing yogic lifestyle in the Bihar School of Yoga ashram in Munger, India then returned to New Zealand to direct The Vishuddhi Yoga Centre in Christchurch from 2014-2016. At the end of 2016 I assisted the establishment, direction and management of the Yoga For You Collective of teachers and in 2018 established Atmavidya Yoga and Meditation to embrace and express more fully, the concept of Atmavidya. I am also delighted to support the work of Uprising Yoga Studio in Waltham, Otautahi, teaching and facilitiating wonderful Kirtan practices there regularly.

I have received training in Pregnancy Yoga and also Trauma Sensitive Yoga and am affiliated also with NZ Yoga Education in Prisons Trust, appreciating the opportunity to work with men at Odyssey House Trust in Christchurch, during 2014 and 2015, in their the transition to life in the community, free from drug and alcohol addictions. I have also had some experience offering yoga and relaxation to inmates of Christchurch Women’s Prison.

My previous professional life, for over 20 years, has been in teacher education in the School of Education at the University of Waikato School of Education and in schools and educational institutions mainly in the North Island of New Zealand.

I am deeply grateful for practices which are a source of balance, strength and connection in my life and have been carried by great teachers from the ancient traditions of yoga including Swami Kailash Saraswati and Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati.

For the freedom, happiness, and consciousness of all beings, I am able to gently support the discovery of the different ways that practices can be experienced, in order to liberate energy that may be locked up in tension, so that well-being of body, mind and spirit can be experienced.