Hi, I'm Ayesha

As a teengaer I didn't really know what yoga was. I knew it was from India, and that there was something special about it. Despite struggling to connect with the practice, it kept drawing me back to it. 

From a young age I was drawn to India. As a child I dreamt of the great palaces and temples, and the bright, joy-filled festivals. Aged 21, having completed my undergraduate degree in Religion Philosophy and Ethics, I followed the pull on my soul, and went to volunteer on a community project in Pune, India. On my weekends and holidays I would jump on a long haul bus or train and visit holy sites across the country. Over that six-month period I made it up to the Himalayas, down into the slums of Calcutta, along the river Ganga, and south to the beaches of Goa. The trip changed me. Whilst I'd experienced poverty, religion, spirituality and disease before, it was nothing compared to the intensity of life in India. It was all and nothing. It was the best and worst of what it meant to be human. It made me feel alive, in the fullest sense of the word. Danger and death were often close by, on a hairpin bend in a road, or in the people I saw struggling to survive. I understood the reality of the human condition in a real way for the first time. 

As it turned out, Pune is the seat of Iyengar yoga and this was my first experience of Indian Yoga. One of the teachers once smacked my foot with a bamboo cane and told me to make it like a puri, not a chapati. I didn't know what a Puri was but did my best to do what I was told! At that time the strict Indian approach was difficult for me to engage with. The idea of discipline, even when something didn't come naturally was somewhat alien to me. I was a person who pursued what I was good at, and abandoned everything else. I didn't go back.

This wasn't my first experience of yoga, I had attended several classes at local gyms and church halls as I grew up but I wasn't ready. I couldn't commit. A couple of years after returning to London from India, my flatmate recommended I try Stillpoint Yoga in London bridge - a Mysore style Ashtanga shala. Finally I found my way in. The fire, strength and heat mirrored my own nature. The intensity matched my own. Age 23, these practices brought me home to myself for the first time.

From the rigour of Ashtanga I was drawn to the freedom of vinyasa. The flowing movements and lack of perceivable structure was addictive to me. I felt graceful and feminine in a way I hadn't before. I practiced mostly with a brilliant teacher called Christian Salton and Katy Appleton who I went on to complete my first teacher training with. I fell in love with Shiva Rea who had been particularly influential in western vinyasa yoga, but who still held to the roots of India in her personal practice and studies. For many years I floated in this world. Between brilliant teachers and classes, beautiful soundscapes and strong embodied practice.

But, something was missing. Whilst my physical practice flourished, my spiritual practice was stuck. I had long-signed up to the western post-lineage mantra - that one didn't need to be a student of any teacher or lineage in particular and that it was the inner guru that was key. But part of me knew I needed a teacher who could show me the way and I kept searching. 

In 2017 my mum and I took my sister to New York as a special treat for her 30th birthday. Whilst I was there I wanted to take a few classes at famous studios and especially at two schools of yoga - Jivamukti and Dharma. I visited the Jivamukti studio first. It was a beautiful space, and I took a lovely class there, but it didn't strike me in a different way to any class I'd taken before. Three days before the end of my trip I walked into the Dharma Yoga studio. That moment changed my life. It was as though I found everything I'd been looking for in that first class with Sri Dharma. A teacher, a mentor, a master, an expert. He read from the scripture, we chanted. The practice included asana, pranayama and meditation. The practice was slower than I was used to but there was an intensity that drew me in. There were many asana that I'd never practiced before or that were very difficult for me. The practice was confronting, but in a kind way. Between that first trip and the lockdown in 2020 I visited the studio ten times and completed my 500 hour training with Sri Dharma. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, studios closed and I was no longer able to travel. It was painful to be physically separated from the community, but the Dharma Yoga centre took their classes and trainings online which has given me the opportunity to practice with Sri Dharma at least once a week. In 2020 I completed the 700 hour training and in 2021 the 1000 hour training. I am in the process of completing internships for both these courses.