My journey

I was born with a heart defect that meant my body didn't get enough oxygen. It healed on its own as I grew up, but I always told myself I was "not made for sports".

I became a translator, spending whole days sitting at a screen and moving less and less every year. The nagging back, the knotted shoulders at the end of the day: I've been there.

When I was 27, overweight and depressed, I decided to change my lifestyle. I quickly realised nobody is "not made for sports": you just have to find the kind of movement you enjoy.

I found yoga through strength training, as a way to stretch after lifting, and soon fell in love with the whole practice. After a lifetime of thinking I was too weak, too fat, too lazy, I was amazed at what my body could do. I also found the simple joy of breathing freely and the calm at the end of every practice.

2021: my wrist

In 2021, I hurt my wrist. It was just tendinitis, and I made every mistake in the book.

I became afraid of every movement. I rested my wrist completely, thinking it would heal on its own. I paid €265 for an MRI that told me nothing. And I kept hearing "we can't find anything", to the point that I wished my wrist were broken so someone would finally take me seriously.

The pain lasted more than two years. The hardest part wasn't the pain itself: it was the stories I told myself, the fear that it would never stop, that I'd have to give up teaching.

What got me out was understanding how pain works. A body in pain needs to feel safe, not pushed. And even when you hurt, there's still so much you can do. That became the heart of how I teach.