I want to help you to be the best version of yourself: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, each and every day, because I know that yoga works profoundly on all these levels in making positive changes and improving lives. My first experience of yoga was with Katy Appleton’s, Geri Halliwell DVD at age 15, that my mum gave me! Being a competitive swimmer at the time and completely focussed on my sport, I wasn’t impressed — I found it slow and boring. It wasn’t enough of a work out and I didn’t see the point (sorry Katy, I think you’re amazing now!). Oh, young Helen, how little you understood! Although I didn’t ‘get’ it at the time, I firmly believe that this was still a poignant introduction to yoga, something that would change my life in just a few years to come — thanks mum! Fast forward a few years, when I was 23 and teaching english as a foreign language in Japan. I started Karate lessons with one of my students and realised just how incredibly inflexible I was. One of my other students was training to become a yoga teacher and my interest was sparked. I started practising in my 11th story apartment (overlooking Mt Fuji nonetheless) several times a week to a Bryan Kest DVD and I became hooked on his Power Yoga style. This was more like it. The same year, one of my flat mates gave me a copy of The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, and for me this was a turning point in my way of thinking, literally. I realised that we can be in control of our minds and that our minds should not control us.
