Tell us a bit about yourself…

I’m a yoga teacher, movement artist and mother, with a background in dance and a deep love of music, nature and ritual.

Movement has been part of my life since childhood, beginning with Cecchetti ballet and later developing through contemporary dance and yoga. Over time, sound and ceremony have found their way more deeply into my work too — through mantra, guitar, gong and other instruments, alongside my relationship with plants such as the Rose, Cacao and Blue Lotus.

I’m fascinated by the meeting place between discipline and creativity: how structure can give us the foundations from which something freer, more intuitive and expressive can emerge.

Much of my work now explores this relationship through Vinyasa Yoga, movement, breath, sound and ritual. I love creating spaces where people can experience their bodies not simply as something to exercise, but as a place of inquiry, beauty, spirituality and transformation.

What does a typical day look like for you?

My days begin and end with mothering. Caring for my son and our Tonkinese cat keeps me very connected to the simple rhythms of life — preparing food and water, tending to our home and trying to create an intentional space in which we can live well.

My own practice moves between yoga, meditation, reading, writing and time with music. I love playing guitar and singing mantra, as well as exploring gong and sound. These practices continually feed into one another and into what I teach.

There is usually some part of my day devoted to imagining or preparing classes, workshops and ceremonies, often working with the Rose, Cacao and Blue Lotus. And then there is teaching — sharing beautiful practices with the wonderful community and friends I have come to know through Yogasara in Bristol.

Whenever I can, I am outside. Trees, rivers, the sea, animals and ancient places are incredibly nourishing to me. Nature continually brings me back into relationship with something larger, older and quieter than myself.

How did your yoga journey begin and what inspired you to become a yoga teacher?

Yoga was present in my childhood through my father, who practised and taught Iyengar Yoga, and I remember his singing bowls being around us too. Alongside this, I studied Cecchetti ballet, rode horses and learnt piano.

They may sound like quite romantic elements of a childhood, but each required discipline — returning regularly, paying attention, practising, caring for something beyond yourself and learning to stay present when something was difficult.

When I grew older, I went to dance school and movement became my central focus for almost a decade. I eventually came more deeply into yoga following a knee injury. What initially supported my body gradually opened an entirely new way of understanding movement and being.

After around ten years of yoga teaching, I began dancing again. Rather than taking me away from dance, yoga seemed to give movement back to me differently. I began developing my own movement enquiry, called Movement Alchemy.

A couple of years into my yoga teaching journey I entered into ceremonial spaces that introduced another layer — prayer, devotion and service. Interestingly, this also brought me back to music. I began playing, singing and working with sound again after years in which movement had occupied almost all of my attention.

Yoga has been one of the greatest gifts of my life because it continues to evolve with me. It reminds me that practice is not separate from living: it is how we breathe, relate, create, serve, awaken and, ultimately, how we meet the whole cycle of being alive.

What inspired you to specialise in your practice?

I’m not sure I ever consciously decided to specialise. It has felt much more like a natural progression — teaching consistently and allowing the work to unfold and evolve in its own time.

People kept coming to class, I kept teaching, and through that reciprocal relationship I kept growing as a teacher. Some students have practised with me for many years; some leave and return at different chapters of their lives. There is something very beautiful about that ongoing dance.

Gradually, the things that genuinely belong to my life began finding their way into my teaching. Vinyasa, dance and movement were joined by mantra, drum, guitar, gong, ritual and periods of stillness. Rather than feeling like separate practices, they began to form one language.

I have seen how deeply people value having a sanctuary in their week — somewhere they can move, breathe, feel, listen and reconnect with themselves. That has encouraged me to keep refining the craft while remaining curious about where it wants to evolve next.

How have you seen your practice benefit your students?

Over the years I have witnessed many different kinds of change — greater openness and ease in the body, happiness, confidence, emotional release, physical breakthroughs and people discovering possibilities they didn't know were available to them.

I have watched students deepen their practices over many years, and quite a few have eventually become teachers themselves.

But some of the most meaningful changes are quieter. Someone arriving burdened by their day and leaving with more space around them. A person suddenly finding ease in something they have struggled with. Someone allowing themselves to rest. A smile appearing unexpectedly in the middle of a practice.

I think what I hope to offer most is a space in which people can encounter themselves differently — and perhaps remember some of the beauty, intelligence and potential that was already there.

What’s coming up for you for the rest of 2026 and into 2027?

Towards the end of this year, I’m beginning to gather and write more deeply about the way I teach — exploring how the different threads of yoga, movement, dance, sound, ritual and embodied enquiry that have shaped my practice might begin to take form through writing, a book and future trainings.

This feels like a beautiful point of crystallisation for me. After more than twelve years of teaching yoga, and a lifetime of enquiring into movement through yoga and dance, I feel ready to look more closely at what has emerged through all these years of practice — to articulate it, continue discovering it, and eventually share it in new forms.

There is something very precious to me about this: the understanding that what has moved through my own heart can be given form and passed from one person to another, continuing to evolve beyond my own lifetime.

Our practice can help us meet and heal what has come before, open more fully to the present, and become conscious participants in the future we are creating. The way we meet this moment becomes part of what we create next. To have a human life — to navigate its suffering, beauty, mystery and peace — feels like an extraordinary privilege.

Yoga has opened the way into so many other beautiful experiences and forms of expression for me. Alongside the teacher training, I want to continue developing my music and dance work, and in time I would love to write and establish a dance and movement training of my own.

I’m also looking forward to gathering these gifts in ways that place reciprocity more deeply at the heart of my work, including working more directly with charities and communities where these practices can be of service.

And another seed beginning to grow is the creation of a ceremonial music collective — bringing musicians together to honour and give life to the beautiful songs I carry, while creating new music together for sacred and ceremonial spaces.

It feels as though many strands are beginning to meet: yoga, movement, music, ceremony and service — each becoming another way of listening, creating and sharing what feels most precious. 

What is your favourite quote?

This is a quote I first encountered during my yoga teacher training, and it has stayed with me ever since. It speaks to something that feels deeply coherent within the way I experience yoga, movement and life — to listen, to pay attention, to be curious, and to recognise the sacred within both the extraordinary and the seemingly ordinary moments of being alive.

For me, practice is a way of becoming more intimate with this mystery: inhabiting the body, awakening the senses and learning to listen to what is already here.

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
— Frederick Buechner, Now and Then (1983)

You can find me online for classes, workshops, ceremonies and upcoming trainings at fayrosamond.co.uk, and follow along through my social channels Instagram fayrosamond_