New Dawn Yoga

About Dawn
NEW - Fire Walk with Me - Click

Dawn is an experienced BWY teacher and a continuing student of yoga philosophy. She has been practicing yoga for ten years and teaching for the past five years.  She is currently training with the British Wheel of Yoga to become a teacher trainer (DCT), delivering the BWY's three year diploma course. Dawn is also qualified in body massage, Indian Head Massage and Crystal Healing.


Dawn’s Teaching

Dawn teaches hatha yoga in an intuitive and inspirational way, creating a unique class every time she teaches.  She works with themes and ideas to provide a focus and purpose to her yoga teaching, whether these are drawn from yoga philosophy or from life in general. 

Whatever particular groove Dawn is working in, her teaching always has two qualities:-

1. What is taught is aimed at helping students cope with the challenges that life throws at them.  Yoga is a fantastic toolbox of practices and skills to help us find our centre in a busy and, at times, chaotic world.  Dawn believes passionately that yoga should be relevant to how we live our lives and aimed at improving our quality of life.

2. It is fun!  Life is serious enough without making yoga another millstone around our necks.  Dawn teaches with humour, lightness and a sense of joy and, sometimes, mischief!

Dawn trained with the British Wheel of Yoga so she is not aligned to any particular or fixed system of yoga teaching.  Instead she has experienced a wide range of senior teachers from many traditions and learned things from them all.  She teaches from this wide range of experience, using what she has found to be of most benefit to herself and to her students.

Dawn’s other interests in body massage and crystal healing feeds into her yoga teaching, giving her the skills to adjust students in postures and the sensitivity to see, hear and feel what each student needs.
 

My Background in Yoga

I first came to yoga as a young child as my mother used to practice in her bedroom (from a book. Richard Hittleman, possibly).  Being only 5 I was very good at the asana but did not share my mother's desire for peace which is what she wanted. My constant talking meant I was often sent back downstairs after practising for a short while with her.  As I grew older and found my own friends I moved on and was no longer involved in any yoga.

At the age of 23 I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and, remembering how yoga had helped my mother cope with this illness (she too was a sufferer),  I decided to take up yoga.  You may be aware that doctors do not know what causes this illness but that it is often brought on by stress.  My lifestyle was (and sometime still is) quite stressful as I work in commercial finance so I started to attend a weekly yoga class.

My initial thoughts were that it wasn't making any difference as I didn't notice a change from when I turned up at the class to when I went home but, remembering what my mother had said, I persevered.

After about two years something suddenly happened and I felt as though a door had opened for me. It was one of a number of "lightbulb" moments I have had which gives me that fleeting experience of what yoga is all about.

I continued to practice yoga on and off for about the next 10 years, sometimes attending a class and sometimes practicing at home.  Sometimes I left yoga behind altogether to pursue other interests but I always found myself being drawn back to yoga.

After a while I wanted to obtain a deeper understanding of yoga and its
philosophy. At that time there was no foundation course and the only option seemed to be to begin the teacher training course as this would deepen my understanding in a way that weekly classes were unable to.  It was never really my intention to teach. However to be able to complete some of the work it was necessary to run a class and my local gym asked if I would like to do a class for them, so it began.

Once I began to teach I felt that I had "come home".  The joy that I get
from taking a complete stranger and seeing them develop cannot be put into words.  I particularly like to teach those students who are "stressed to the point of breaking" as I was, and seeing them begin to soften and relax and let go. I often share with my class how "bad" a yoga student I was when I started to show them that it doesn't matter where we begin our journey from. The important thing is to begin and to practice and experience the peace that yoga brings.

Dawn

Dawn recently took part in a charity firewalk, raising nearly £300. Here she is walking over the burning embers. This photo appeared in a local paper in the East Midlands.