Boost your confidence to share the gift of yoga with others!

Who is this course for?

For those who have undertaken the Yoga Immersion Course, or those who have already undertaken other yoga teacher training courses and are struggling to get going with teaching, or simply those who wish to further immerse themselves more in practice and deepen their understanding of how yoga might be shared.

I will try to mentor you as much as I can, encouraging you to teach others if that is your wish, or simply further your own awareness of yoga in the time that we have together. This is ideal for those who need a boost in confidence. 

The Teacher Mentoring Course will take place over three Sundays at Cobo Community Centre and will look a little bit like this:

9.30-12.15pm – Asana, Pranayama and meditation

12.15-1pm - Lunch and walk

1-2.30pm - Teaching/personal practice guidelines

2.30-3pm - Vedic chanting

3-4pm- Teaching practice/asana exploration

4-4.30pm - Yoga Nidra

Please note

I don’t believe yoga should be viewed as a career option. It is a life discipline, a way of being and relating in this world. One can certainly earn money from teaching yoga, but it is my experience that this should not be the primary motivation. There is a difference between the notion of career and livelihood, and as a livelihood, we are immersed in the teachings and allow those- and Source - to guide us, rather than us directing it through will alone. Unfortunately, yoga has been sold as a career option, which has discredited some of its application – I don’t wish to further perpetuate this. 

Are there additional requirements?

Each month you are encouraged to see me personally for Reiki, to support your healing and personal and spiritual development and to give you the opportunity to discuss whatever is arising for you individually (this at additional cost).

There is an encouragement to embrace Ayurveda if that feels aligned but no pressure if not (a consultation and medicinal herbs are at additional cost).

Students should be familiar with Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and a separate group or private session can be arranged for those who have not yet studied this ancient text (at additional cost). 

A daily home practice will also be encouraged during the course, and beyond. Certainly, for those who intend to teach then it is imperative that a daily practice is established to support teaching. Students may find it beneficial to see me privately to help establish a home practice (at additional cost). 

Will there be online content?

No, but there will be some written material and reading recommendations, which may add value, there will be no online content beyond what is already available on the website. Questions and note taking is encouraged.

Will the course be certified?

I am not affiliated to any governing body, and this course is also not affiliated to any governing body. Regardless of whether you choose to teach or not, I will happily issue you with a certificate confirming the number of hours you have studied with me during the period we are working together. This will include the hours that you see me for private yoga, Ayurveda, Vedic chanting, philosophy sessions, plus general classes, retreats, other courses and workshops. You will be responsible for keeping a record of your hours – I will provide a schedule, which can be initialled by me each time we meet.

What about anatomy & physiology?

While I have studied various online anatomy & physiology courses over the years, in addition to the information provided on my teacher training course, I have always found it very dull. It wasn’t until I started practising the Scaravelli-inspired yoga that I suddenly wanted to know more about the anatomy & physiology because of my increased interest in the anatomy & physiology of my own body, which this approach to practice encourages. It is my experience that this is the best way to learn – when we are interested – and so we will learn anatomy & physiology through our own bodies during the course.

What happens if I can’t make all the sessions?

As the course is not certified it doesn’t matter from that perspective if you miss a session. However from a healing and growth perspective, your attendance at each of the sessions is encouraged. Please note the sessions are non-refundable and non-transferable.  

DATES: Sunday 17th May, Sunday 14th June, Sunday 12th July

TIME: 9:30am - 4:30pm

LOCATION: Cobo Community Centre (upstairs)

COST: The cost is £842, this includes the cost of the Sunday sessions, accompanying paperwork and certificate. A monthly payment plan can be put in place to spread the cost of the course over many months - please email Emma to discuss.

Please note this does not include any Reiki, Ayurveda and/or Private Yoga sessions

SPACE: Limited to 8

Why am I offering this course?

Yoga, together with Reiki (and later Ayurveda), literally saved my life and I am passionate about sharing these spiritual practices with others so that they may experience the many benefits for themselves. 

I never intended to teach yoga, I was merely interested in immersing myself in yoga and this is what motivated me to sign up for one of the first yoga teacher training programmes of its kind in Australia back in 2005, this for 260 hours over a 6.5-week period. 

However, I was deeply inspired not least in the teacher training course but in an apprenticeship of sorts with another teacher for a few months afterwards also in Byron Bay. I had already established a daily yoga practice, within weeks of discovering yoga, but now I was practising up to six hours a day over a five-month period and the positive effects were very much felt.

So, when my initial teacher recommended, I return home and start teaching, I did exactly that, keen as I was by then to share what I had experienced/embodied so that others could benefit. This was 2006, the last time we experienced the major lunar standstill, which happens every 18.6 years. This is when vinyasa yoga and teacher training courses exploded in the western world.

This was also a time before social media, so I spread the word through word of mouth and email, but even then, no one turned up to my first class. I remember crying on my dad’s shoulder, but amazingly I was not deterred. I think even then, on some level, I knew that yoga needed to be shared and that when the time was right, students would find their way to me and me to them. 

Incidentally, this was despite my lack of confidence and insecurity, at least in my relationship with myself. I am naturally shy and have always experienced some social anxiety, I also relish solitude. I don’t like people watching me, and I also had several hang ups about my body from years of an eating disorder. But something about the spirit of yoga and the way it had helped my life, and the debt I owed it, was greater than my own inner demons! 

So, I persevered, and people started turning up at class and telling their friends and family. Meanwhile I kept up the daily practice and attended courses off island when I could, with many experienced teachers who had started travelling the yoga circuit by then. 

Throughout all this I continued working as a company secretary within the finance industry, on an increasingly flexible and part-time contract, to supplement my income and afford me the opportunity to continue my studying. I offered Reiki too and later, Ayurveda. In the end I didn’t even have a contract, that was the extent of the flexibility. 

Then the universe intervened during the pandemic and I somehow managed to keep going solely with Beinspired, despite the big shift that the pandemic brought to the yoga ‘industry’, with many classes now going online, causing many studios to close. Plus, there was now the proliferation of yoga teacher training courses meaning that yoga is awash with teachers, many now choosing yoga as a career /business option rather than an offering from the heart.

It is worth adding here, that both of my initial yoga teachers told me not to give up the day job when it came to teaching yoga, and they were right. I don’t encourage people to give it all up either; sometimes we must make sacrifices and keep feet in two worlds until we are stable and ready for the leap. My experience taught me that spirit always has a more expansive plan than our limited mind, so we need to keep getting out of our way and flowing through the doors which open, even if they don’t look like the doors we anticipated. 

Inevitably, there have been times when I have experienced the dreaded imposter syndrome and felt insecure about whether I could really teach yoga. There have been days where I have felt anxious standing in front of people, especially when pre-menstrual and just wanting to curl up in a ball in bed, and many stressful times running retreats, worrying far too much about getting it all right and holding it all together. 

Now I see what a waste of energy that was; how there is no perfect. I am also conscious that you can’t really be trained to teach yoga. Sure, you can be taught various guidelines, but really, teaching comes from the heart, it is a passion, which comes from deep inside; a desire to share something that has helped you so that others may benefit too. 

I find that I have learned so much about yoga just from sharing it. The sharing of it encourages me to go deeper still. Not simply by reading books, although I have done my fair share of that, but from getting on my mat each day, learning from my teacher, exploring, and then sharing that with others and learning more from their response. 

Maybe I’m lucky, I come from a family of teachers and healers, it seems to be in our blood, and I have been supported by spirit to share what I love. This hasn’t come easily though. Sometimes we must fight for our alignment with heart and soul as others don’t always understand the choices we make and can question the way we are choosing to live our life, increasingly out of the mainstream.

This is because yoga helps to expand our awareness and slowly, we start to see through the limited conditioning of our mind and the illusion of the collective perception of reality. It helps then if we have a community of like-minded people who can help support each other not only in living more of our potential, but in breaking free from our programming which keeps us trapped in limited perception and seeing.  

I have witnessed for myself the powerful combination of yoga, Reiki and indeed Ayurveda in helping to set people free and helping them to re-align themselves and their life with their truth.

This is really what this course is all about. I don’t believe in training people to be something they are not. Instead, I believe in supporting people to be everything they are and more. It is my intention that this course will help you delve deeper into the truth of you, through the embodiment of yoga and the support of Reiki and Ayurveda too. 

For those who don’t feel the pull, I will share guidelines with you so that you can better understand how to structure your own home practice.

For those who are keen to teach, then I will do all I can to support you, ensuring that you feel comfortable in teaching beyond the asana, and that your own practice has a philosophical underpinning, often lacking in mainstream yoga, where often teachers are merely teaching yoga as a form of exercise devoid of historical or indeed spiritual context. 

I have never offered this course previously so have no real idea what might happen, but spirit appears to be encouraging it and I am a great believer in co-creating when the nudge is there. One thing spiritual practice teaches us is to become increasingly comfortable with the uncertain and the unknown. Often it is in this liminal space of non-knowing that true magic arises. I am keen to embrace more alchemy in my life - are you ready to join me and see what magic we can create?