I began my yoga journey at Drama School, in between my first and second year, when it was pointed out to me that I couldn’t spend 3 months of the summer holidays doing no exercise whatsoever. Anyone who has been to drama school will know; movement classes are exhausting, and you’ve got to keep fit to keep up.
Youtube yoga videos quickly became my go-to, and I found that it was the only form of exercise that occupied (or rather calmed) my overactive mind that quickly became bored on a treadmill. At some point in my second year, a regular yoga practice became a staple for me. It was mostly at home, but suddenly I felt compelled to get on the mat several times a week; at this point it was still what I thought was a purely physical practice. However, that began to change, as I entered the final year of my degree I found myself leaning on my yoga practice more and more; I liked that it kept me grounded, I liked the perspective it gave me, I liked the presence I felt afterwards. I liked that rather than feeling exhausted after class, I felt rejuvenated. At this point I moved to practicing in studios as well as at home. I began to use yoga in my warm ups before shows, breathing techniques to calm myself down before auditions, and I began to recognise the similarities between yoga asanas (postures) and pranayama (breathing), and the techniques that I was taught at drama school in movement and voice class. Post- graduation, yoga has continued to be a constant in my life when Acting unfortunately hasn’t been (for anyone who cares to know, only 2% of actors are said to be ‘working’ at any one time).
Two years in to my career as an Actor, after one particularly bad rejection, and months of working a low pay job and feeling that I had no way out, I realised that something needed to change; that I needed to take control of my own happiness, that I needed a way to make a decent income when I was 'resting' as they call it, and the the pipe dream that had been a 'one day' thing became a reality: I signed up for Yoga Teacher Training.
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