Welcome! My name is Blanka Priddle, and I am a fully qualified Hatha Yoga teacher certified by British Wheel of Yoga . My qualifications include British Wheel of Yoga and Yoga Alliance USA certified 200hr Yoga Teacher Training, 390 hour Yoga Teacher Training Diploma with Triyoga in London UK. I have recently completed the Embodied Relational Yoga Therapy teacher training with Kate Ellis bringing a deeper focus to teaching in 1 on 1 environment with application of yoga therapy elements. I continually take part in ‘anatomy in motion’ immersion workshops to ensure I can guide students safely through their yoga practice. I also hold 200 hour Kundalini Yoga teacher qualification from Rama Lotus Yoga Centre in Canada.
I first tried yoga back in 1996, soon after I arrived in London. Until that point all I knew about yoga came from books, and like many others I felt I could never achieve those pretzel postures, however good this ‘yoga stuff’ was supposed to be. The only thing I remember about my first class was that I struggled to follow the instructions, as my English was still a bit basic, but thanks to the teacher’s guidance I still enjoyed the class and kept coming back. Over the years I have experienced and played with a wide variety of yoga styles, from Kundalini yoga, focusing on the health and vigour of our spine and nervous system and involving lots of meditation, mantra and long held static poses, to a purely physical and sweaty Bikram yoga classes while living through the tough Canadian winters a few years back. I have trained as a Kundalini yoga teacher while living in Canada, but felt a bit restricted by the pre-designed Kriyas given to Kundalini yoga teachers, and so, a few years down the line, I have decided to train as a Hatha yoga teacher. I was lucky to have studied for my diploma with Mimi Kuo-Deemer and Jean Hall at the Triyoga teaching academy, and my teaching style has been further influenced by other wonderful teachers, among them Leila Sadeghee, Tara Judelle and Kate Ellis. I teach slow flow Hatha yoga classes with a strong focus on healthy alignment and individual students’ needs, on respecting the needs of your body rather than on achieving the ‘book-perfect’ pose, to ensure a safe and enjoyable practice for the student. I love designing my classes with the students in mind, working with students on a more personal level enabled by keeping my classes relatively small, and guiding students trough the class in a way that leaves them feeling lighter, brighter and more open then when they arrived at the studio. My personal practice is constantly evolving, depending on how my body and mind feel, what is happening in the rest of my life, and also due to implementing the newest approach to physical asana I have learned as a teacher. I am fascinated by anatomy and am continually learning how the body works, and how to bring it into or keep it in balance using yoga, meditation and nutrition. I often practice a particular Kundalini meditation for 40 or more days at a time, I love to journal, and sometimes I arrive at my mat to lie peacefully blissful in supported child's pose, letting delicious scents in teh diffuser fill the room and my body mind and soul rest. Apart from my big love of yoga I am passionate about healthy diet and nutrition, with a special interest in raw living foods and their effect on our overall well-being. I am also a qualified aromatherapist and an aesthetician with deeply ingrained belief that we should not put on our skin what we would not eat or what we cannot imagine. I have been writing articles for an online magazine Balance Garden, and you can find my musings there. |
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