My name is Kat and I am so excited to be part of Yoga Local. It is such a beautiful space to practice, share yoga and continue to learn. I feel honoured to join the team and tribe.
I began practising yoga around 6 years ago. I would say I had no interest in the spiritual or lifestyle side of yoga. I was never sporty but stumbled into board sports in my late thirties and whilst my ego encouraged to push myself my body suffered injuries that as time progressed meant I could no longer wakeboard or snowboard. I felt like I was losing a sense of belonging within a community that enjoyed thrill seeking. When I was advised to take up yoga to promote some recovery and management of my injuries I laughed. I thought of yoga as incense and dinging bells and was very closed off to it as a practise and saw it as another form physiotherapy. How wrong I was!!!
Though somewhat closed off I could not help but begin to find a holistic benefit from attending my weekly yoga class. I was and still am a full-time specialist mental health nurse and noticed this practise helped me manage workload, my work life balance and most importantly I started to take notice of myself, my needs and my bodies desires rather than what I thought I should do. What my ego desired of me to validate myself. I was hooked and began exploring different forms of yoga.
I decided to do my yoga teacher training initially to deepen my own experience and had intended to use it solely within my clinical practise. Providing my clients with more than just the medical model of treatment and traditional psychological treatments and felt yoga would be a useful adjunct to therapeutic interventions I was already engaged in with my client group. I still work full time as a specialist mental health nurse practitioner and my yoga practise and yoga sharing (teaching) is a wonderful adjunct to this role and enables me to continue to offer the time to my clientele.
I recognised how much sharing yoga with others was a way of my own ongoing development. I see myself as the constant student, forever learning. I approach my mat daily as though it’s the first time I ever practised. we can all benefit from yoga, the union of mind and body/breath and body in this world we live in.
I enjoy an energetic practise and my main training and practise is in Ashtanga Vinyasa Flow. However I value all forms of yoga and my classes are very much geared to those attending and their needs, wants and desires with a primary focus on the breath.
I would not believe 6 years ago that I would have actually written the above and it be written from my soul. I can honestly say that the holistic practise of yoga has changed my outlook on the world and my approach to myself and others.
I am so pleased to have the opportunity to share this with you all in an environment that is conducive to the practise of yoga alongside the beautiful and wonderful souls of Josie and Maz.
I look forward to seeing you all on the mat.
