2019 Yoga Highlights

2019 was my third year of teaching yoga and it has been a great year! As we reach the end of the year I wanted to share a round-up of some of the exciting things that I have been lucky to be involved with this year, as well as some exciting events in the Sarah Lucy Yoga community.

300h Advanced Yoga Teacher Training

The year got off to a great start with spending four weeks in Goa, India to complete my 300-hour further yoga teacher training with Sampoorna Yoga. I learnt so much and my love for yoga grew more through immersing myself deeper into the studies and being taught by inspiring teachers. I met some amazing people and couldn’t recommend Sampoorna more. I feel more confident as a Yoga teacher and I believe I am able to pass on the things I learnt in my teaching.

You can read more about my experience on the yoga teacher training in a series of blogs that I posted earlier this year:

https://sarahlucyyoga.wixsite.com/yoga/single-post/2019/03/31/300h-Yoga-Teacher-Training---Final-Thoughts-and-Reflecting-on-my-Experience

India Travels

After completing my yoga teacher training, I was joined by two friends and we travelled the Golden Triangle in India together. It was a fantastic experience and we saw so many places including Delhi, Agra, Ranthambore and Jaipur. The highlight for me was the Taj Mahal. As many of you know, I fell in love with India on my first visit three years ago, when I did my first yoga teacher training in North India, in the Himalayas. I feel so lucky to have been able to return and explore more of this fascinating country.

You can read more about my tour of the Golden Triangle in my blog: https://sarahlucyyoga.wixsite.com/yoga/single-post/2019/02/17/Golden-Triangle-India

New Classes

When I returned from India I picked up some extra classes. I started teaching three additional classes for the More Yoga Lewisham Yoga studio this year and some new private clients. I continued to teach classes for Nuffield Health Covent Garden, the Nuffield Head Office Epsom, The Gym Group and Chapter student accommodation. Having a full schedule with around 8 classes a week was great but it is also a lot on top of a full time job. I starting a new job at the end of the year I have had to have a review my teaching schedule which meant unfortunately giving up some of my classes. It breaks my heart to have to drop classes and I would love to grow the business further but whilst I am working full time, I have to be sensible about how much I can take on. I want to be the best yoga teacher I can be for you all and if I am exhausted when I come to teach you then I can’t give you 100%. I have therefore decided to separate work life and yoga teaching by focusing on teaching yoga mainly at the weekends. I have been so happy that this didn’t mean saying goodbye to some of my very loyal students who have followed me and joined some of my new classes.

New Students and more men!

It is always a pleasure to welcome new students to our classes and great to see popularity has grown with men. When I first started teaching I would tend to get around 1 or 2 men in a class and now this can often reach around 50% men in the class and I have even had odd classes this year where there have been more men than women. Great to see men are realising yoga is not just for women and they are experiencing the benefits as well.

I have met some fantastic people through yoga this year whether it is students, teachers and those I had the pleasure of training with. After being in London for 10 years, I am grateful that it is a place where I feel a sense of community and can definitely call it my home.

Babies!

We also had some new additions in the form of baby yogis! It was a pleasure to guide you through your yoga practice in pregnancy and celebrate the arrival of your healthy babies.

Growing the community

As well as new students in the classes we have grown the Sarah Lucy Yoga social media network. I have continued to be active on Facebook and the Instagram platform this year. We reached over 2000 followers this year which is an additional 1000 followers compared to last year! Amazing!

Advertising

It has been great to use this social network platform to help other small businesses with advertising and introduce you to products that I have recommend. Check out my Instagram @sarahlucyyoga for details of current offers.

Blogging

I have continued to enjoy blogging as it is a good opportunity to research yoga topics I am interested in and share my findings with you. I have published lots of new content in my own blog this year including articles on different yoga poses, yoga philosophy and anatomy. I continued to contribute to the Sampoorna Yoga blog and enjoyed writing the series of blogs about my experience on the 300h teacher training course. Sampoorna is an International Yoga school with a fantastic reputation so it is a real privilege to have worked with them and have my content published.

If you are interested in doing a course with Sampoorna you can get a 100 Euro discount by entering my name (Sarah Williams) as your referrer on the application form. More details available on the Sampoorna website: https://www.sampoornayoga.com/

Self Practice

I really enjoy the challenge of self-practice and enjoy working towards being able to do new poses. I feel my practice has got a lot stronger this year and I have tackled some poses I never imagined I would be able to do. The advanced teacher training course really pushed me to progress my own practice.

Yoga in Greece

I love that my friends love yoga and it was great to teach yoga to the girls on my friend’s hen party in Greece. It was such a fun few days together.

Retreat

Yoga seems to take me to fantastic places and I am excited to have been asked to teach a yoga retreat in Italy 1-5 July 2020. The retreat will be held in the Abruzzo region where we will stay in a beautiful villa with a pool, enjoy two yoga classes a day with optional yoga workshop and meditation sessions. There will be lots of free time to relax and explore the area and of course delicious Italian food. If you are interested there are still some places left (at the time of writing) and you can find out more on the Retreaty website: www. retreaty.com/event/the-italian-escape

Thank you!

Thank you to all my yoga students for making me love what I do so much and I am always learning from you! Thank you also to all the companies I have had the pleasure of working with this year. The social media network has also grown, and it has been great that you have been interested in following and hopefully you will follow me to Italy and more in 2020!