Tulsi - My Yoga Journey

I was introduced to yoga in my early 20s.  I attended my first term of yoga classes with two work colleagues when working in a very stressful supported housing project for vulnerable people.  The class was run by an ex-army PT instructor and is far removed from what subsequently became my yoga practice. That first experience, however, made a big impression; I was in awe of the two old (probably in their 70s) women who were far more flexible than I was at that time and could easily do a number of rounds of Surya Namaskara, and I went home and slept well every week.

Soon after this I started classes with my first Satyananda/Bihar Yoga teacher, Swami Satyar Atnananda and was introduced to the wide ranging practices taught within that tradition.  For a number of years in her classes I explored a whole spectrum of asana and pranayama practices and also became familiar with strange words like bandha and mudra. One of my earliest recollections from those classes is working with a mala and counting rounds of breath and mantra - at that time a very alien experience. There were also monthly yoga nidra and pot-luck supper evenings in her garden studio where we were packed in like sardines.  Not so pleasant was an introduction to the shatkarmas (yoga cleansing practices which involved lots of salt water).  The value of regular home practice was often discussed in classes and getting my mat out became part of my daily routine, one which has stayed with me for the past 35 years or more.  It was in these weekly classes that I was introduced to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Upanishads which were seamlessly woven into each class and the post-classs discussions that took place over cups of herbal tea.

I had been brought up as a church-going methodist but as a young adult became very uncomfortable with organised religion and these Satyananda yoga classes felt like a coming home - a way to feel comfortable with who I was with a group of broad minded people, but at the same time the practices created a constant questioning of what more was I and what more could I become?  I felt challenged in a supportive and healthy way that complemented rather than opposed my church background.

During that time I signed up to do the FRYOG Yoga Teacher Training with Swami Satyar Atnananda but unfortunately my dad was taken ill and died suddenly the week the course started.  It was another 5 years before I revisited the journey to become a yoga teacher.  By then I had moved and had 2 young children and a fabulous Iyenger trained teacher who also had great depth in her own spiritual practice.  She persuaded me that Yoga Teacher Training would be a way of progressing my own increasing questioning about the wider aspects of yoga beyond the mat and weekly classes.

I qualified as a yoga teacher with FRYOG (Friends of Yoga) in 2001 and then spent a number of years gaining additional qualifications in advanced pranayama practice and meditation.  It was during this time that I first met Swami Pragyamurti when doing her 6-month Yoga Nidra Training course in London.  Once more I could reconnect with the Satyananda yoga family and in addition to attending some of her Friday afternoon yoga classes (when time, children and work permitted) I regularly attended her courses including 2 six month meditation courses, the tattwas and the chakras.  I was also lucky enough to attend a number of Satyananda Yoga Symposiums throughout Europe hosted by Swami Niranjananda (head of Bihar School of Yoga).  It was at one of these events that I took Diksha (initiation) with Swami Niranajanda and was given the spiritual name Tulsi. I then completed my Satyananda Yoga Teacher Integration training with Swami Vedantanada to become a qualified Satyananda teacher.  This ensured that my teaching qualification reflected my own long-term practice and truly acknowledged the authentic, traditional and integrated practices that were important to me.

Around this time I took Karma Sannyasa with Swami Niranjananda while at the Ashram in Munger, India.  This felt like a massive step - a commitment to myself to follow the need to know more about who and what I am at a fundamental level, a commitment to regular practice, a recognition of having a faith in something so much bigger than myself.  Over the years this has sat at my centre like an anchor, something unseen by others but a fundamental part of who I am and providing a direction and purpose in life.

In 2010 I made my first visit to Mandala Yoga Ashram in Wales- an independent Ashram but greatly influenced by the teachings of Bihar Yoga.  For a number of years my mum, as a Christmas or birthday present, would kindly pay for me to attend courses here including; Tattwa Shuddhi, the Chakras, the Vigyana Bhairava Tantra, Prana Vidya and the 10 month Kriya Yoga course.  On completion of the Kriya course in 2019 I moved to Mandala Yoga Ashram as a tutor on their Yoga Teacher Training course.  Over the next 6 years I taught on many of their courses and developed a Further Yoga Teacher Training course and a 28-day residential Developing Sadhana Course.  It was a time of great personal growth, challenges and consolidation of many years of yoga and meditation practice.  I continue to visit Mandala Yoga Ashram as a course tutor.

More and more I am brought back to the value of simple, profound, traditional practices.  These practices have helped to develop and mold the person and teacher that I am today, they have seen me through many of life’s challenges but more importantly they give me the opportunity every day to recognise that within me there is something so much more fundamental than this physical existence.  Today, I live in Norfolk where Nick (Sw SatyaDaya) and I have spent the last year developing Essential Nature Yoga.  As I grow in my own practice, Essential Nature Yoga offers the opportunity to share these valuable experiences and teachings with others through online classes and in-person retreats.  It is a truly blessed way to be able to spend my life.