09.01.2026
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"Where do we start with inversions"​​​​
At the beginning.
Where fear is met gently.
Where body awareness grows.
Where intention becomes clear.
Where technique is built—step by step.
To practice, you don’t need experience.
You don’t need to be fearless.
You don’t need a bendy body.
All you ever need in yoga is your body and your breath.
What does matter is a supportive environment, a teacher who can truly see different bodies, and guidance from someone who understands the barriers along the way.
Inversions are not about copying shapes. They’re about learning how your body moves—rediscovering the playfulness, freedom, and curiosity we had as children.
For the longest time, I thought I “wasn’t good” at inversions.
In reality, I just needed to learn how to do them for my body.
Copying the teacher never worked—and it doesn’t have to.
Different bodies will need different instructions.
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We are all stronger than we think. Our biggest limitation will always be our mind.
Carmen
07.01.2026
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"The intention at the beginning of the practice and the gratitude at the end"​​​​
In Yoga we often set an intention for the practice or dedicate it to something or someone else. This drives the attention away from the ego and helps us focus in the present moment.
At the end of the class, I will often ask students to reflect and feel how the practice served them on that day, to notice what has changed, what feels different, because you cannot be grateful for something if you don't know what it is doing for you.
When we chase and become attached to poses or results, the practice is rigid. However, when we let the practice flow as we move and breathe, we find softness in the body and stillness in the mind.
As a yoga teacher my purpose is never to preach, it is always to guide. The practice is truly yours.
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Did I know all this when I started yoga? No.
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I always noticed the feeling of stillness and peace, the difference is now I know this is exactly what the present moment offers.
How do you feel at the end yoga practice in your body and your mind?
Carmen
02.01.2026
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"What to expect in my classes"​​​​
​Slow enough flows so that you have time to breathe and feel your body move - time to ADJUST and REFINE so that you LEARN something in each single pose every time you step onto the mat.
Relaxation? - Not quite - I am here to offer you MIND TRAINING, which is the purpose of yoga.
If you want to relax, book a massage. Yoga will make you face your fears, your limitations and your ego and ask you to still breathe through it all - not as simple as it sounds, right?
It should not be.
If it is too easy, you are either not growing or you are missing the point - if it is too fast you will not be able to FEEL anything. Take your time, move with intention and challenge yourself, I promise it will be worth it in the end :)
And remember “challenge” will mean different things for different people, both mentally and physically.
What is your latest challenge in your yoga practice?
Carmen
26.12.2025
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"Fear and attachment to the outcome in inversions"​​​​
​Looking at the end result is easy, what you don’t often see is the time invested, the “failures”, the set backs and the unwavering consistency.
We all start somewhere. I started yoga with a racing mind, a shallow breath and a non-flexible body and I didn’t stay because it was easy, I stayed because I could see and feel the inner and outer transformation.
15 years later I can say many things have changed, mainly due to a consistent practice and a willingness to always go deeper.
The practice is a constant balance between facing fears and practicing non-attachment.
If we let the fears win or let attachment drive our practice, the ego is winning, the very thing we are trying to transcend in yoga. Therefore, our focus should be on finding that middle ground, where we push past fears, yet we don't get attached to a specific outcome.
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This is especially true for inversions, where either fear shows up or the opposite happens, a strong desire to conquer the pose prevails. As long as we listen to neither, fear or desire, we will be practicing with the freedom that a truly open mind allows.
Carmen
17.12.2025
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"Why do we do inversions in yoga?"​​​​
​Why not?! Physically they are fun! They build strength (when done correctly), improve blood pressure and circulation and can help us see life from a different perspective.
However, overcoming fear is often the bigger reason why we do inversions.
Inversions can be a liberating journey to understand ourselves in fearful situations. They test how we act and react to stressful circumstances, so that we learn how to overcome them. We are then able to apply those lessons off the mat too.
Understanding and working past fear is the first step in our inversions journey.
I do believe we also do inversions for the following reasons:
To play like a child
To learn consistency and commitment
To fail and realise we can get up and try again
To perfect, refine and discover
To learn our limits and move beyond them
To get to know our bodies better
To experience that hard things do not come easy
To keep the mind so focused that only the present exists
To find ourselves beyond doubt and fear
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If you do not like inversions, fantastic! There are so many other yoga poses to practice, however make sure your dislike is not rooted in fear or lack of self-belief, as those are the two things that stop us in our practice and in our lives.
Carmen
12.12.2025
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"Yoga trains mind and body, flexibility and strength"​​​​
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Yoga’s main purpose is training the mind to be present in the Now. Simple yet powerful. Easy yet challenging.
But yoga trains the body too, both in flexibility AND strength.
It all depends how your practice. It’s not easy because gaining body awareness and proprioception takes a lot of focus, a lot of intention, practice and the right instruction.
If we know or feel how the body moves, what is contracting what is stretching, how to deepen muscle engagement and breath, then a very simple pose can turn into a challenging one.
Let’s take the time to build awareness in the simple poses, so we can use it in the more complex ones.
A yoga pose will always be different from one practitioner to the next, as we all have different bodies, but how much you are strengthening or lengthening is also up to you.
This kind of awareness is not built overnight, but taking the time to find a stronger connection with the body will deepen your practice both physically and mentally.
Very flexible practitioners will need to back off their end range and focus to build strength, stronger practitioners will need to develop more ease in the practice when working against their own body’s resistance.
Yoga is challenging and if you practice properly it will be intense.
If we just follow along, copy poses without understanding our body’s movement and our compensation patterns we are missing the point. Instead, focus on building awareness and your practice will grow, regardless of the poses you think you can or cannot “achieve”.
Carmen
08.12.2025
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"My favourite quote on the breath"​​​​
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In yoga, we use the breath to anchor the mind to the present moment.
Your breath is a powerful tool, always with you, and truly the only thing you need to practice yoga.
Through the breath, we begin to experience a deeper connection with the body, its sensations, its signals and its wisdom. It becomes a pathway inward.
My favourite quote on the breath is: "If you own your breath nobody can steal your peace"- for me, it captures the essence of what yoga is really about.
For students experiencing anxiety or trauma, focusing on the breath can sometimes feel overwhelming. In those moments, we gently guide attention with kindness and care, always holding a safe space and whenever breath feels like too much, we can turn our awareness to the body instead: the sensation of the ground beneath you, the stretch or engagement of a muscle, all those feelings that transport us to the Now, just like the breath does.
Have you got a favourite breath quote?
Carmen
05.12.2025
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"Second chances"​​​​
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When I first tried yoga many years ago I didn’t like it: too slow, too boring. The only recollection I have is being “bored” and my now husband falling asleep and snoring during the final relaxation.
Years later I gave yoga another chance and absolutely fell in love with the practice. It showed a side of me that had been hidden for the longest time.
I practiced mainly Vinyasa and then started Ashtanga but didn’t like it, too many binds, too many lotus/half lotus poses 😂 but again I gave Ashtanga a second chance and I grew to love it.
My yoga practice has evolved with time and it will keep changing, however this is a great reminder that first impressions are often wrong and in life everything and everyone always deserves a second chance.
Is there anything that you have ended up loving after giving it a second chance?
Carmen
28.11.2025
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"Yoga butt injury or hamstring tendinopathy"​​​​
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This is a very common injury in yoga, and one that, unless you know how and why it happens, can prevail for a long time.
Yoga is very good at stretching the hamstrings but not so good at strengthening them, so often we do overstretch and cause the high hamstring pain that we often refer to as “yoga butt”.
To get into a deep forward fold we need an anterior pelvis tilt, this is a TRUE and DEEP forward fold, however if you practice a lot of yoga and do too many forward folds and not enough hamstring strengthening, you may be heading towards the above injury. Personally, I have stopped practicing my forward folds that way.
Instead, I do all my forward folds with an slight posterior pelvis tilt, meaning I engage the glutes slightly so that the tailbone gently tucks in. If I am doing sun salutations I will also gently bend my knees on the way down and on the way up, specially if I am doing several rounds.
Therefore, unless you counter your forward folds with lots of back bending, make sure that you slightly engage the glutes and tuck the tailbone in any forward folding movement.
If the injury is already present, instead of SLIGHTLY tucking the tailbone, you will need to STRONGLY engage the glutes so you go into a DEEPER posterior pelvic tilt and also bend the knees generously. You will also need to focus on strengthening both glutes and hamstrings through mindful backbends.
Happy healing,
Carmen
21.11.2025
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"Why I will not teach fast flows"​​​​
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The West loves fast flows however …
I learnt yoga in the East, and Vinyasa (Flow) specifically from an Indian teacher.
In Vinyasa we hold poses anywhere between 3-5 breaths and to me that means anything between 30 seconds to 1 minute or longer.
Contrary to what many students and even teachers think, the difference between Hatha and Vinyasa Yoga is NOT speed.
The West loves to rush, the East does not.
But more than that, speed and momentum will never cultivate strength and awareness as they are complete OPPOSITES.
The West loves fast results, the East values the journey.
We can only work past the ego when we value patience, effort and consistency beyond rushing results.
Therefore my flows are fast enough and slow enough to facilitate the building of ever growing awareness which along with consistency is, in the end, the only facilitator of growth.
Carmen
07.11.2025
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"Teaching from the heart"​​​​
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John Walker was the first yoga teacher that inspired me to commit to a practice. He instilled in me the love for yoga and started me on my path. I came to yoga completely unaware of my body and breath. In my mind it was a temporary activity while I recovered from a running injury.
John made me face my ego when doing poses that seemed simple yet I struggled with. I wanted to learn his elegance of seemingly floating into a headstand. But the practice had a much deeper effect than that. I found an inner stillness that I had not experienced before.
I am a perfectionist, I like the details, I wanted to learn more about the poses and about the practice. I took my first 200 hour yoga alliance training with John and later completed his advanced yoga teacher training, another 300 hours.
John was a very caring and passionate teacher, I took up yoga because of him, he really showed me how to teach with dedication, patience and care. He would say “Teach to what you see” (teach what students need) and “Get out of your head” (i.e. teach from the heart 💖) both I try and do.
Carmen
17.10.2025
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"Training the mind"​​​​
This may not be for everyone. If you are only interested in the physical aspect of yoga, this may not be for you. I get it. I was one of those people. It’s perfectly fine, whatever gets you into yoga is fantastic.
However, sometimes students ask me for a book recommendation to get deeper into yoga philosophy or the “essence” of yoga so I thought I would share.
The obvious choice is The Baghavad Gita, but the simple one is The Power of Now. Anybody with an interest in mindfulness will have read this book. No, you don’t have to be spiritual to read the book and yes, the clue is in the title.
As you probably know Oprah, Chris Evans and Dr Julie are fans, so not much more to say.
I read both books during my first teacher training, The Gita at the beginning and the Power of Now at the end. From the latter, the sentence that really got to me was “Have you found the off button” (to the thinking mind).
I own two copies of The Power of Now, the second one being the 20th year anniversary edition.
Yoga is so much more than just stretching.
Yoga is about training the mind. It’s about using the body and the breath to bring the mind to the present moment, again and again and again. Yoga is meditation in movement.
The peace or stillness that you feel in yoga comes from being present and in those moments when you are fully present, you have switched off the thinking mind.
Carmen​​
19.09.2025
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"Yin and Yang"
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What’s the Yin to your Yang?
If you are a gym goer and focus mainly on strength, if you are always on the go and your mind knows no stop, if your pace is always fast, you need a yin to your yang.
My yang is definitively handstands.
My yin is the rest of my practice, sometimes more fluid, sometimes slower, sometimes very slow.
We need that balance between “masculine” and “feminine”, between light and dark, between strength and fluidity, between creativity and analysis, between the sun and the moon.
As a close friend used to say, I came from the Yang, but I have definitively found my Yin. Both within my yoga practice.
Again, what’s the Yin to your Yang?
Carmen​​
29.08.2025
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"My kids and yoga"
When they were little my kids practiced quite a lot of yoga with me, however as they have grown older they no longer do. But you can only lead by example, right?
I started yoga when my youngest was just a baby. They have seen me practice and teach A LOT. The house is full of yoga mats and yoga props.
When they were younger they were off school and I had to teach a class, I used to take them with me to the studio and they would play in the room next door with the yoga ropes, until I finished teaching. They have practiced yoga with me and with my teacher Raj.
Now I have three teens and a young adult. I have a gymnast, an “I only like to do my own stretches”, a tennis player and a footballer. However, yoga is all around them, and I know that, if some years down the line, life catches up with them, as life does, they have this amazing tool that they may not have practiced much but they have grown up with.
Carmen​​
16.07.2025
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"In Balance - Music for Yoga by Chris Conway"
The only track I have ever played in a yoga class.
MUSIC. This is something I get asked a lot. Why don’t I play music during my classes. I will tell you how it is for me, my personal experience.
In my trainings and teacher-led practices, we never used music. We just listened to the breath.
In my self practice I can focus on my breathing more when there is no outside tune. At the same time, when I am practicing with others it’s beautiful to hear the breath sounds fill the room and I can let it be my soundtrack. Hearing someone breathe next to you will remind you to deepen your breath or to just breathe, if you’d lost that connection.
Some people may find it nicer to move through a yoga sequence with music, for me it’s the opposite.
Sometimes sound is a mood lifter, sometimes silence is peace, and other times silence is just plain hard. All depends on the state of our minds in that moment.
I remember when, during my first yoga training, we had to do the first teaching rehearsal, some trainees talked non stop, others were not saying enough, it was very difficult to judge the gaps of silence.
However, as one meditation teacher once told me, we have to learn to be comfortable with silence. He would suddenly stop talking half way through a guided meditation and would hold long periods of silence, you wouldn’t know when he was going to speak again.
On a practical note, my voice is not the loudest and sometimes I just seem to be fighting with the music.
I used to teach in a gym where it was suggested that I play background music. I thought I would try, as all other classes did.
I had it as a soft background tune to allow everyone to be able to hear me. I ended up playing the same soundtrack for almost three years. Nobody ever mentioned anything, students kept coming. Maybe they were quietly bored with it, maybe they associated the soundtrack with my class, maybe they were more concentrated on the sequence than the music. I never asked neither did they. The students just kept coming to that class with the same music track, week in, week out.
After that I thought, no more. Back to my roots, just listen to the breath.
Carmen​​
18.06.2025
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"Yoga is the practice of non-attachment to the outcome"
My Indian teacher Raj took my practice to the next level.
He was a very dedicated and demanding teacher with the kindest of hearts.
He would often demonstrate an impossible pose and then say - “Try” - if he saw doubt in your eyes he would say - “Trust yourself” - and for a moment doubt would indeed creep into my mind - “I know I can’t do it, surely he knows I can’t do it “ - but then those thoughts would vanish and I would always, always try.
Those are important lessons that apply on and off the mat.
Yoga is the practice of non-attachment to the outcome. You do your best and work towards your goals but with no attachment to the results. At the end of the practice, you are just as content whether today you managed to touch your toes or not. That in itself is the actual practice.
Raj would always pick a few students after each of his teacher trainings and give them the opportunity to start teaching in his studio; I was one of them. I often think to myself, I am not sure why he chose me, but I never dared to ask, in case he changed his mind. I was honoured to try.
His teachings will forever stay with me and inspire my own teachings and my love for the practice.
My own practice also remains a great teacher.
I feel the deepest sense of gratitude to Raj for always inspiring me on this journey.
Carmen​​
21.02.2025
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Myth No. 3 - "Yoga is for women"
Yoga was primarily a male practice in India for thousands of years. Nowadays the element of flexibility puts men off yoga, but actually in general men come to yoga with more upper body strength and they find inversions and arm balances easier. Yoga is a lot more than being able to touch your toes. Yoga works on strength, posture, breathing and on a deeper level the mind, that’s why it’s so valuable for mental as well as physical health. In general men like to work on strength, but it has to be balanced by flexibility, otherwise you will surely and progressively lose range of motion.
Yoga provides excellent cross training for any sport.​
Carmen​​
16.01.2025
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Myth No. 2 - "Yoga is slow and boring"
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To be honest with you, that’s exactly what I thought about my first few yoga classes. Gave up for years until eventually yoga found me again.
Let me just tell you, yoga is HARD. It takes a lot of work and discipline to learn and improve. It takes time. Having said that, yoga is not a destination. You will feel many of the benefits of yoga almost immediately.
However, sometimes you just have to start slow because there is so much to learn. You need to learn how to breathe (first remember to breathe, which a lot of people who first come to yoga forget, once you remember to just breathe, you need to use a different type of breath depending of what kind of yoga you are doing and how fast you are moving), you also need to train strength and flexibility, you need to learn the poses, you need to learn to transition in between the poses, you need to learn to use your hands and your feet effectively as well as your core, the list goes on … Isn’t it better to take it one step at a time, so you can later put all the pieces of the puzzle together?
Or you could do it the other way, go through many fast classes and eventuallly figure it all out. That is not safe, the first method is far better. Once you know what you are doing, you can go through a fast demanding sequence, but you will be able to do it properly and most importantly safely.
The other question is what do you want to get from yoga?
If yoga is your cardio workout, then you will want to go a bit faster or a lot faster, hold each pose for one or two breaths and move onto the next, if you want to relax and restore, then by all means go slow. Yoga can be practised in so many ways, it depends what you want to get from it.
Last but not least find a teacher that you connect with. There are no two teachers the same. Enjoy your practice.
Carmen
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15.11.2024
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Busting myths about yoga
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There are many myths around yoga: it’s just stretching, it’s for women, it's for flexible people, it’s slow and boring (this was me), etc, etc. Having practised, trained, and taught in Asia, I was shocked upon coming back to the West as to how yoga is sometimes misperceived here. Over the next few posts, I will share my thoughts on some of these myths. Enjoy!
“Yoga is just stretching”
Just as an example, you can’t hold a headstand without strength. Most yoga postures - even seated postures! - require a perfect balance of strength and flexibility.
Flexible practitioners need to learn how to correctly engage muscles to protect and stabilise the joints and not get to the final version of the pose just with flexibility – that would not be yoga, apart from the fact that you would be just waiting for an injury to happen. Practitioners who are strong need to learn to use the correct muscles and the right amount of strength to allow the body to stretch and open.
Everybody must learn proper breathing techniques to be able to get to and hold the poses efficiently and progressively for longer periods of time.
Yoga has many balancing postures that train core strength and develop focus, and as mentioned, proper breathing. Some of the more advanced balancing postures require you to be able to lift your entire body weight. This requires strength, flexibility, and correct breathing too: you can’t separate the three in yoga.
Yoga combines different elements of fitness into a varied workout and therefore offers countless benefits. You will develop strength and stamina, learn to stabilise your core, improve your mobility, deepen and control your breathing and of course increase flexibility. All of these will enhance your performance in any sport.
More importantly, aside from the physical benefits, yoga will also, undoubtedly, improve your mental resilience and therefore benefit your mental health.
In other words, no, yoga is NOT just stretching.
Carmen
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5.11.2024
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My Teaching Style
I just wanted to talk a bit about my teaching style as yoga is so vast, both in the number of poses and styles and there are so many kinds of teachers. My way is certainly not the only way or the best way, it’s just my way. It won’t resonate with everyone and that’s ok. I will tell you what you can expect from practicing with me. How I teach is how I like to practice and how I like to learn. For me teaching is a self practice out loud.
If you are looking for a very gentle and straight forward class, that’s not me - I like to play with poses and sequences, give you a little bit of a challenge, keep the class reasonably dynamic and I always always change my sequences.
If you are looking for someone that tells you to relax and expect it to happen, again not me - I don’t play music, I will get you deep into the movement and the breath, relaxation will come as a by product. I try to transmit what I feel when following through a sequence.
If you want to just get the job done, do poses without understanding what you are doing - again not me. I like attention to detail. I feel you will get so much more out of your practice if you feel and understand where the poses are trying to take you. The more complex poses are rooted in the basic poses. Don’t try to build the roof before the foundations are solid.
If you are not humble/accepting of what your body cannot do yet, I am not your teacher - like I said many times, yoga is hard, it requires practice and discipline. I am a very caring teacher, however I will try and take you a little bit out of your comfort zone.
The poses are complex and we all have limitations, work with them. If we struggle, we don’t make excuses, we don’t get bruised egos, we just keep showing up.
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The yoga practice is all about the path, never about the destination.
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​Carmen
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