About me, Leah
Hi there, I am Leah and I have been on this moving, stilling, holding, touching journey for a while now
I have been teaching yoga for over 20 years after training with the Inner Yoga Trust back in 2001. At the time I was working as a human rights and refugee lawyer for a big charity in inner London and used my yoga training to help me stay grounded and relieve the stress levels which at times would become intense.
Although it was never my intention to teach yoga I did in fact begin teaching my colleagues (a bunch of very stressed out lawyers living 99% of the time in their heads!). This began my teaching journey and has led me to change my life considerably, moving from my head and into the body, a journey I so needed to take – and am still on!
After giving up my legal career and spending some time abroad I returned to the UK, trained in the ‘Yoga for the Special Child’ programme in 2009 and began teaching and working as the training coordinator at the Special Yoga Center, a center which specialised in yoga for children with special needs. I emersed myself in exploring yoga with these children and young adults for a good few years and still do this work privately.
In 2011 I undertook some further training in the Krishnamacharia tradition in the UK and India and qualified as an advanced teacher with the BWY (British Wheel of Yoga). I also completed the BWY ‘Yoga for Cancer’ training with Julia Friederberg in 2014. Over the years I have also studied with Donna Farhi, Mathew Sanford, Angela Farmer and Fiona Agombar with whom I have co-taught retreats and training programmes.
For the last 10 years I have been teaching yoga classes, one to ones and retreats specialising in working with people with chronic illness including fatigue conditions (ME/CFS/Long Covid) MS, cancer, arthritis etc as well as those with anxiety disorders, PTSD and complex trauma. I have also worked with populations who would not usually be able to access yoga and taught yoga to refugee and asylum seeking women for 'Ourmala', a charity offering free yoga and other support to this client group between 2014 – 2019.
In addition to teaching weekly classes and private sessions I also run training courses for yoga teachers focusing on how to best support students with stress, burn-out and fatigue conditions including ME/CFS & Long Covid.
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