The practice
Yoga is larger than the postures.
What I teach, where it comes from, and what the research shows.
What is different about my classes
Many yoga classes today are a flowing sequence of postures, often set to music. That can be good exercise. It is a different practice from the one I trained in.
In a classical Hatha class the breath comes first and the postures follow it. They are held, and I will tell you the reason for each one. There is nobody to keep up with.
When I ask you to stay in a forward bend longer than you would like, I will tell you what it does to your spine and your nervous system. I was a researcher before I was a teacher, and I still want to know why.
Breathing comes before the postures.
Kapalabhati and alternate-nostril breathing follow the opening rest, and the postures keep the breath's pace.
Postures are held.
Long enough for the muscles to let go, with rest between each one.
Rest is taught.
Savasana gets the same attention as the headstand.
Two teacher trainings.
Sivananda, 200 hours, Kerala, 2015; the Isha Foundation, Kuala Lumpur, 2025.
Teaching since 2015.
In Germany, Cambodia and online, and in English, Spanish, Portuguese and German.
For families.
Prenatal and postnatal yoga, the baby sleep workshop and coaching, and family yoga for children of nine and over.
Where this comes from
Yoga is older than any single book about it, and younger than the five-thousand-year figure you will see on studio walls. The practice I teach has a traceable line.
One of the earliest clear descriptions of yoga as a discipline is in the Katha Upanishad, composed somewhere between the fifth and first centuries BCE. It calls yoga "the stillness of the senses, concentration of the mind". That definition still holds.
Some centuries later, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, variously dated between the second century BCE and the fifth century CE, gathered the teaching into eight limbs: ethical restraint, personal discipline, posture, breath control, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation and absorption. Posture is the third limb of eight. Breath is the fourth. The limbs after them turn inward, towards the senses and the mind.
Hatha yoga, the school that works through the body, took shape in medieval India and has its best-known text in the fifteenth-century Hatha Yoga Pradipika of Svatmarama: a chapter each on postures, breathing practices, the seals called mudras, and samadhi, the absorption the whole practice aims at. The body was prepared so the mind could be still.
The modern form reached the world through two teachers in particular. In Mysore in the 1930s, Krishnamacharya trained the students who shaped postural yoga as the West knows it.
In Rishikesh, Swami Sivananda, a physician who became a monk, founded the Divine Life Society in 1936 and taught a yoga in which the postures were one part of a whole life. His disciple Swami Vishnudevananda carried that teaching west from 1957 and condensed it into five points.
I trained in that tradition in Kerala in 2015, and later with the Isha Foundation, a different school. The five points are how I organise every class.
The five points, and what they mean
Five things, practised together.
Proper exercise, asana
Postures held slowly and precisely, chosen to move the spine in every direction and to work the major joints, with rest between each one.
Proper breathing, pranayama
Breathing practices that slow and lengthen the breath and, with practice, give you a direct way to settle your own nervous system. It is the part of a class most often cut short, and the part I never cut.
Proper relaxation, savasana
Complete rest, lying still, with the body released part by part and the mind kept awake. Many people find it harder than any posture.
Proper diet
Simple, fresh, vegetarian food, eaten with attention and without extremes. I will never tell you what to eat; I will tell you what the tradition advises and leave the rest to you.
Positive thinking and meditation
A short sit at the end of practice, and the habit of watching where the mind goes. Trained, like everything else here, a little at a time.
What the research shows
Yoga attracts large claims. I prefer the ones that have been tested. Three findings are solid enough to stand on.
For chronic low back pain, a 2013 review by Cramer and colleagues of ten randomised trials with 967 patients found strong evidence that yoga reduces pain and disability in the short term, and moderate evidence that it still helps months later. For depression, a review the same year of twelve trials with 619 participants found yoga reduced symptoms more than usual care, and on fewer trials more than relaxation or aerobic exercise.
For stress and anxiety, a 2023 review by Fincham and colleagues pooled twelve stress trials and twenty anxiety trials of breathing practices. The gains were small to medium, the risk of bias was moderate, and the authors asked for larger and better studies.
The trials measure change over weeks. What students tell me after one class is smaller and simpler: the back is looser and the breath is slower. I write about each finding, with its limits, in the Journal.
What happens in ninety minutes
A classical Hatha class has a shape, and the order matters.
Arrival and rest.
We begin lying down, so that the class starts from stillness rather than in a hurry.
Pranayama.
Two classical breathing practices: kapalabhati, a cleansing breath that wakes the body, and anuloma viloma, alternate-nostril breathing that settles it.
Sun salutations.
Six to eight slow rounds that warm the body and join breath to movement.
The twelve postures.
Headstand or its preparation, shoulderstand, plough, fish, seated forward bend, cobra, locust, bow, half spinal twist, crow, standing forward bend and triangle, each with rest between.
Deep relaxation.
Ten to fifteen minutes of guided release, lying still.
Gentle classes follow the same shape at a slower pace with fewer postures. If you do not want to do a headstand, you will not be asked to.
Come and practise it
A class in Siem Reap, a private session at your hotel, or a session online. Message me and we will find the right one.