Tending The Flame
an Open Floor Dance Workshop
with Sacha Paddy
19th-20th July 2025
Christchurch
ALIVE
a Conscious Dance and Yoga Retreat
with Sacha Paddy and Neal Ghoshal
at Mana Retreat, Coromandel
29th - 31st August 2025
iRest Yoga Nidra Level 1 Training
Palm Beach, Waiheke Island
31st Oct to 5th Nov 2025
with Fuyuko Toyota
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Yoga Teacher Training
In-person and Online
with Contemporary Yoga
Open Floor Movement | 5Rhythms
with Sacha Paddy
Auckland, Waiheke and New Zealand
Yoga with Neal
Yoga Teacher Training
on Waiheke, Auckland and New Zealand
Inspired by Yoga, 5Rhythms dance, Open Floor, somatic and functional movement … and sometimes just pure simple kindness 🙂
These are our passions and they fill our lives. Our vision is to share what we love out to our community and out into the world.
Blog Posts / Articles / News
TED Talk: Happy Brain – How to Overcome Our Neural Predispositions to Suffering, with Amit Sood
I recently came across this TED talk by Amit Sood and wanted to share it here. I love the combination of neural science, coupled with super simple but really effective everyday practices for kind, compassionate living and connection. Check it out here: ...
Waiting In The Wings
I am not talking about some distant dream or fantasy.
This is more intimate, close in.
You can feel it, sense its nearness. Hear it,
Waiting in the wings for you,
Ready to be beckoned on to your stage.
This unlived part of you,
A vital, known, missing piece of your life
Is reaching out to be welcomed.
Building Resilience – an interview with Donna Farhi
In November 2020, in preparation for her January 2021 workshop in Auckland, Donna Farhi and I talked about resilience. We share the highlights of this interview below in a few shorter extracts.
What is resilience?
Resilience, self-love and care
Resilience and vulnerability
Resilience tools
Kindness, an iRest® Meditation
We hope you enjoy listening to and practicing this iRest Meditation on Kindness.
For many years, simple yet meaningful Kindness has been completely central to my Yoga practice and my life. It has been at the very heart of my practice, guiding me in my Yoga practice and teaching, and in how I live with my family and friends and community.
Kindness has so many facets – generosity, love, friendship, healthy boundaries and much more. It is the great connector. It is what will help us survive and what will help us thrive … and ultimately, it is who we are.
Mindful Self-Compassion, a course review
From August to October, over eight 3-hour sessions, every Wednesday evening, including a day retreat, I attended a course on Mindful Self-Compassion, led by Mara Elwood.
This is a review of the course. And let me say right up front that I absolutely loved the course – all the material and the skilled, compassionate facilitation from Mara too.
Stepping Over
This poem speaks to the unknown pathways which at times in my life I must take. Anxiety often arises as I face the hidden journeys ahead - sometimes when I step into a teaching space, in my relationships, parenting, and also in my life as I come to certain thresholds....
The Friend Arrives
It's strange the way a poem arrives - I can never know when the writing muse will come, and then I need to remember or be awake enough to write some ideas down. On Christmas night this year I woke around 3am, some words started arriving, something about friendship and...
Half Moon to Child’s Pose Flow
We’re gearing up for playing more with video – it’s a great medium for showing movement as opposed to a static photo of a posture. There is so much that may be explored in the transitions between postures, in how we flow, in how we move.
Sun Salutation, Yielding and Sequencing Through Movement
I was just hanging out at the studio with my friend and teacher Karla Brodie and we had time to play with shooting a quick movement video - just a couple of minutes. So exploring fluidity and the movement principle of Yielding within a Sun Salutation sequence. Each...