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By Katie Courts
“How would I describe my class?” laughs Natalie when I put the question to her. “Well, I suppose it’s Dynamic Hatha, but really I customise the class depending on the needs of my students, so it’s difficult to pigeonhole my style to one type.”
Natalie is one of the Centre’s newest yoga teachers, but she is certainly not new to teaching yoga. She first practised yoga with her mother as a child, and yoga has really been with her throughout her life. She began to seriously practise around 7 years ago and has now been teaching full time for the past three. Over the years she has practised many different styles of yoga, including Iyengar, Sivananda, Bikram, Anusara, Shadow and Astanga, and she incorporates these different styles in her own unique blend when she teaches. She is now offering a dynamic ‘flow’ class on Wednesday lunchtimes. And the class has proved so popular that she is starting a Tuesday morning class at 09.15am.
“Fluid and flowing are good words to describe the way that I teach, but it will depend on the needs and the bodies of the students in front of me as well as what they themselves are looking to get out of the class. If they want to work on certain aspects of the body then I’ll build that in to the flow – like hip opening, back bending or more dancey-style postures. This makes the class accessible to students of all levels, except perhaps absolute beginners. I also like to give my students a lot of freedom to move in their own way during the class, guiding them to move with their own flow, which is easy once you let yourself go!”
She left behind a career in the advertising industry to pursue her life’s passion. “It was the best decision I ever made,” she told me. “It really suits me and my personality, and I feel like I can control my own destiny.”
Natalie teaches classes all over London, including in gyms, with private individuals and in corporate classes.
“Why do I do it? Well, that’s easy! Because it’s fun and because it makes me happy, and hopefully because it makes my students happy and have fun too. And strangely, I think that what I can offer them best is the reality of imperfection – to help them to see beyond the superficial. I hope they see me as I see myself – as fun and approachable – willing to have a laugh with my yoga. And I’m by no means perfect and I try to show them that yoga is not about perfection. We all make mistakes and we all have to learn in our own way, as part of a process. And that’s when they realise that if they can lose their inhibitions and their disbelief then the magic can really happen!”
Natalie teaches at the Light Centre on Tuesdays at 09.30am and Wednesdays at 1.15pm.
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