Yoga 4 Pregnancy

Last Updated 17th January 2012

About Me

I first practised yoga in my twenties but gave it up when my children arrived and life became busy, busy, busy. 

Eventually I came back to yoga and attended classes three times a week run by the formidable Miranda Michaelides, a renowned yoga teacher in the South of Manchester. It was Miranda who encouraged me to become a teacher and  recommended that I study with Swami Premananda (an excellent teacher). I qualified by obtaining my British Wheel of Yoga Diploma in 2005.  It was whilst studying for my diploma I became interested in Pregnancy Yoga. This sounded wonderful to me because my own experience of giving birth to my three children was to lie on the bed on my back and "hope for the best".  It was an eye-opener for me that ladies were allowed to walk and move freely, and I thought how wonderful. I knew that I wanted to be able to teach this and so as soon as I had passed my diploma I completed the British Wheel of Yoga's Pregnancy Module  The module was delivered by Wendy Teasdill, author of YOGA FOR PREGNANCY and one of the UK's pioneers of this specialized form of yoga. 

Soon after I completed my Diploma, Miranda retired from teaching at the grand age of 78 and went to live in Canada. She  passed on two of her general yoga classes to me which I am still teaching. I didn't have a pregnancy class of my own but covered classes for other teachers in the area when they were ill, on holiday or having their own babies.  My first pregnancy class was teaching pregnant teenagers at a specialized school in the North of Manchester which was very challenging but most enjoyable. Then in 2008 a colleague of mine Ted Marshall, AKA 'Yoga Ted' emigrated to Spain and offered me his pregnancy yoga classes which I was thrilled to accept.

I have no idea how many ladies have attended my pregnancy yoga classes in the past two and a half years, one week I counted a total of 76 students in the classes that week.  However many there have been, I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting them all, I simply love teaching the classes and it is a bonus when I receive e mails from them after they have given birth.  Not everyone has the perfect birth, but most of them do and whatever their experience, they all say how the classes helped them stay relaxed.

Teaching the pregnancy classes that has given me the opportunity to sell a short relaxation CD, and all the money raised has been donated to Francis House, the children's Hospice in Didsbury, which at the moment has reached a total of over £300.00.

I am a qualified Emotional Freedom Technique practitioner which I often teach to the girls in class, to help with heartburn, pain and anxiety about birth.  I trained and graduated under one of the leading authorities of EFT, Helena Fone, author of the acclaimed  EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUES FOR DUMMIES.

I have also qualified in Laughter Yoga which although strictly speaking is not yoga as we all know it, but exercises designed to make us laugh and as everyone knows laughter is the best medicine. I currently run a laughter session once a month in aid of St Ann's Hospice at the The Tatton Studio in Gatley.  

I would like to finish this by thanking everyone who has ever attended my classes, Thank You for making my job so wonderful.

Love, light and Laughter

Anna xxx

Please note: I am fully CRB checked and public liability insured. I hold a first aid certificate and as a teaching member of the British Wheel of Yoga must accrue 15 CPD (Continuing Professional Development) points per year by attending regular in service training days and events.