My Yoga Story

Hello, I'm Karen, and I want to tell you something nobody in the wellness industry says often enough:

You don't have to have it together to walk through my door.

I teach yoga - but probably not the way you're imagining! There are no impossible poses, no pressure to perform, no expectation that you'll arrive calm and centred and ready. My sessions adapt to you: where you are, what you're carrying, and what you actually need that day. Sometimes we move. Sometimes we breathe. Sometimes something else entirely needs to happen first.

I came to yoga sideways - not through a love of fitness, but through a desperate need for connection. I'd moved to Chicago for work, knew nobody, and walked into a class to meet people. What I found changed the direction of my life. 

I spent years as a Chemical Engineer - someone who loved the logic, the problem-solving, but above all, the people. Yoga gave me all of that in a completely different way. When I trained as a teacher, I realised I wasn't leaving the world of rigour and precision behind, I was applying it somewhere more human.

Yoga has carried me through postnatal recovery, grief, transition, and every ordinary Tuesday when life felt like too much. I firmly believe it has kept me from losing myself more than once. My husband used to kick me out of the house on Friday evenings, saying he preferred the version of me that came home from yoga class. I understood what he meant.

I call myself a reverse voodoo doll! I tend to get the same issues as my clients, and I use myself as the experiment. I employ my engineering background to work out how to support you the best way I can. What helps me, I bring to you. And what I'm still working through, I bring to you, too. This is not a performance. This is not about perfection. It is a practice, and we are both in it.

The people I work with are capable, caring, and quietly running on empty. They're not broken - they're just at the bottom of their own list and they've been there a while. They come to me carrying stress, anxiety, physical tension, and negative beliefs about what they're capable of. They leave feeling lighter. Shoulders lower. Breath deeper. More like themselves.

They never feel like clients. More like friends.

If any of this sounds like you - or like someone you recognise - I'd love to hear from you.

My teacher training is recognised by the British Wheel of Yoga, Yoga Alliance and The Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (CIMSPA). I am also fully insured.

My classes incorporate the philosophy of hatha yoga with the asana (postural work) and prananyama (breath control).  I teach mixed ability yoga classes, and private on-to-one yoga. I also run The Anchor Method - a self-paced programme aimed at busy people looking to find some peace and improve mobility. (Please check out these pages for more details.)