Teachers

Charlotta Martinus (Chandrika)

Becky (Saraswati)

Becky is teaching the Tuesday 6pm evening class and the WEdnesday 10am class. She has over 12 years experience of working in both caring and teaching roles. Her background is working with people who have learning disabilities, using dance and drama to develop creative communication opportunities.

More recently Becky has been drawn to work with holistic therapies and is trained in massage, Indian head massage and reflexology. She works intuitively enabling people to access their own healing ability.

Becky has been practising yoga for many years, which has brought her much inner peace and stillness enabling her to deal with the ups and downs of life more consciously. This path has led her to complete the Sivananda teacher training programme in 2009, where she was given her spiritual name Saraswati.

As a yoga teacher she works intuitively aiming to allow people to unlock their potential through a deep meditative practise, which allows one to enter into a place of stillness and inner knowledge.

Tricia (Abhaya)

Abhaya’s classes are at 11:30 on Mondays. She started practising yoga in 1978. She took mantra initiation in 1997 and completed her Integral Yoga Teacher Training in 2001. Since then she has taught Extra Gentle Therapy Yoga classes at Doctor’s Surgeries and in the community, for students with health problems such as Arthritis, ME, Fibromyalgia, and Bad Backs. She also teaches beginners classes in Gyms and Sport Centres.

Abhaya teaches with Love and Compassion, and, having had health problems herself, has a lot of empathy with people. She is committed to helping other people and her gentle nature inspires and motivates her students. “I learn as much from them as they do from me”.

With Extra Gentle Yoga, yoga poses are adapted and modified to help people with specific or persistent health problems. The postures are kept very simple. Most postures are done lying down on the floor to encourage the whole spine to release and relax.

Sitting in chairs is encouraged for those who cannot sit on the floor with ease. Cushions and blocks can make poses comfortable so that people can relax and feel an easeful, gentle stretch.

Kathryn Chandler

Kathryn teaches the mums and babies class on Tuesday mornings. She has been practicing yoga for over 10 years and has a warm and down-to-earth teaching style combined with a deep belief in yoga’s ability to transform our lives.

Kathryn’s teacher training diploma is accredited by the British Wheel of Yoga and registered with Yoga Alliance, she has been fortunate to study with many inspiring teachers. Kathryn is a massage therapist and reflexologist and teaches developmental baby massage and movement.

Kathryn loves teaching yoga to adults and children. She feels that teaching yoga is a special gift to share with all and that pregnancy is a unique time to share and connect with your baby through yoga. She’s excited to be teaching at Universal Yoga – come and join her for a class!

Kesty (Kanti Devi)

Kesty teaches the Thursday evening 730pm class and the 10am Friday class.
Kanti Devi trained In Madurai in South India. She teaches Yoga as part of Coexist at Hamilton House in Bristol and also with The Create Centre, Bristol. She is the news editor for Ecojam, Bristol’s environmental and ethical website. She has a background in Theatre and working with young people and loves to encourage joy and vitality through her classes. She is a member of The Yoga Alliance UK.

Sue
The first of nine, this Tibetan Heart Yoga Series reveal the foundations of Yoga as practiced the Lineage of the Dalai Lamas. Tonglen; loving kindness (maitri) meditations are weaved into asanas which are each used to cultivate spiritual attitudes to life: giving, kindness, patience, joyful effort, concentration, and wisdom which are seen as the causes of happiness. This is a deep practice of beginning to relate with equanimity (upeksha) to friends, enemies, and strangers with an ultimately compassionate (karuna) and joyful (mudita) mind. Using this “inner method” of the four sublime attitudes as mentioned in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, your yoga practice will evolve it from merely a physical into a reflective and transformative spiritual practice. Tibetan Heart Yoga is completely inclusive of all yoga practises. You are all welcome and cordially invited; do come and experience this for yourself.

Atiya

Atiya teaches the 6pm pregnancy yoga class followed by the 7.30pm general class on Wednesday evenings. Atiya also teaches at the Artspace Lifespace College in Bristol.

Atiya has been practising yoga regularly for many years. Atiya completed the one year British Wheel of Yoga Foundation Course in June 2011 and completed the Sivananda teachers training course in Austria in August 2011. She is a member of the British Wheel of Yoga.