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My name is Caroline and I was born in Ireland. My husband and I moved here in 2002, following the footsteps of my family, most of whom now live in Auckland. So for me, New Zealand is like a home away from home. In fact, it’s a lot like Ireland, but the climate is a lot nicer here!
I live in Orewa with my husband and our two young children. Although I’m relatively new to yoga and only started "Yummy Yoga" in September 2013, I’m not new to teaching. I'm a qualified Secondary School Teacher and I have been teaching since 1998. I’ve taught Physical Education and English to Secondary School students, and I also spent many years teaching English at University level.
Throughout the years, I always liked the idea of doing yoga myself and I'd done it
on and off for years, but never consistently. However, in 2007, I gave birth to our miracle daughter. She was born with a very rare genetic condition, which has affected her physically. It became immediately clear that a lifetime of stretching and strengthening would help reduce her aches and pains and help provide her with the ability to function as normally as possible.
Although my daughter was also benefiting from other therapies outside the home, I started doing some yoga therapy with her at home, researching and studying stretching options that seemed do-able for her. She immediately responded to the therapy. But more importantly, she enjoyed the fun element as well as the stretching and relaxing at the end. It has now become something which we consistently do together
and she looks forward to it.
So I guess I could say that my new passion or love – that of yoga – has grown more from a need, rather than me following a particular dream. However, it has turned out to be something which I’m now extremely passionate about and something which I really want to share with others. Since embarking on this yogic journey, I have studied a lot and have successfully completed many Yoga and other related courses.
These have included:
1. Byron Bay Yoga Teacher Training
2. Rainbow Kids Teacher Training
3. Yoga Therapy Teacher Training (Including Special Needs )
4. Restorative Yoga Teacher Training 1 and 2
5. Swedish Massage Course and a short Thai Massage Course
6. The Art of Breathing Course and an introduction to Buteyko Breathing
7. Child Connection Course - "Children Massaging Children"
8. Brain Gym 101 for Brain Integration
9. Butekyo Practitioner
10. Mindfulness Courses
11. Yoga For Mental Health trained
All of this learning has been incredibly useful in my day to day life and has become something which I find easily applicable and valuable in our own family life.
In fact, it’s taken me a long time to fully understand the benefits of yoga and I still discover more benefits all the time! But for our family, it has helped us enormously in many ways, and this is why I would like to bring more yoga into people’s lives. Since I started teaching Yummy Yoga in 2013, I have had numerous people tell me of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual benefits that they experience every time they get on their mat. I feel incredibly blessed to be part of this amazing journey to self discovery and true happiness.
For me, yoga teaches me to take time for my body because otherwise, I live my whole day in my busy mind, which is mentally exhausting. It also helps me to feel less achy, more flexible and it really amplifies my emotional well-being. I feel calmer and I have learned to breathe more slowly and more correctly since I started doing yoga regularly. In fact, I’ve retrained my breathing pattern from being a full time mouth breather (which has chronic affects on health) to a nose breather. I’m currently encouraging this with my asthmatic daughter through the help of the wonderful Buteyko Breathing Courses available. After all, correct breathing is as crucial to our lives, as movement is to our bodies.
My next goal in fact, is to become a fully qualified Buteyko Instructor and so I started this training this year and hope to qualified by Christmas 2019
(Yip its 2020 and I am now qualified!).
Yoga is often defined as the integration of body, mind and breath. And for me, it is exactly that. One of my more senior teachers once defined yoga practice as a means of growing old gracefully. I love this description too because we often forget that the basic movements we need – keeping our core stable, maintaining good pelvic floor stability, having correct posture etc, are all paramount to our on-going and future health.
With all that in mind, I hope you can find yoga somewhere - you can join us in any of the weekly classes that are available to you. Alternatively, there is plenty of Yoga also available in gyms, other studios or even just following a Yoga DVD at home works really well. Whenever you decide to place you mat, I wish you peace and ease!
I live in Orewa with my husband and our two young children. Although I’m relatively new to yoga and only started "Yummy Yoga" in September 2013, I’m not new to teaching. I'm a qualified Secondary School Teacher and I have been teaching since 1998. I’ve taught Physical Education and English to Secondary School students, and I also spent many years teaching English at University level.
Throughout the years, I always liked the idea of doing yoga myself and I'd done it
on and off for years, but never consistently. However, in 2007, I gave birth to our miracle daughter. She was born with a very rare genetic condition, which has affected her physically. It became immediately clear that a lifetime of stretching and strengthening would help reduce her aches and pains and help provide her with the ability to function as normally as possible.
Although my daughter was also benefiting from other therapies outside the home, I started doing some yoga therapy with her at home, researching and studying stretching options that seemed do-able for her. She immediately responded to the therapy. But more importantly, she enjoyed the fun element as well as the stretching and relaxing at the end. It has now become something which we consistently do together
and she looks forward to it.
So I guess I could say that my new passion or love – that of yoga – has grown more from a need, rather than me following a particular dream. However, it has turned out to be something which I’m now extremely passionate about and something which I really want to share with others. Since embarking on this yogic journey, I have studied a lot and have successfully completed many Yoga and other related courses.
These have included:
1. Byron Bay Yoga Teacher Training
2. Rainbow Kids Teacher Training
3. Yoga Therapy Teacher Training (Including Special Needs )
4. Restorative Yoga Teacher Training 1 and 2
5. Swedish Massage Course and a short Thai Massage Course
6. The Art of Breathing Course and an introduction to Buteyko Breathing
7. Child Connection Course - "Children Massaging Children"
8. Brain Gym 101 for Brain Integration
9. Butekyo Practitioner
10. Mindfulness Courses
11. Yoga For Mental Health trained
All of this learning has been incredibly useful in my day to day life and has become something which I find easily applicable and valuable in our own family life.
In fact, it’s taken me a long time to fully understand the benefits of yoga and I still discover more benefits all the time! But for our family, it has helped us enormously in many ways, and this is why I would like to bring more yoga into people’s lives. Since I started teaching Yummy Yoga in 2013, I have had numerous people tell me of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual benefits that they experience every time they get on their mat. I feel incredibly blessed to be part of this amazing journey to self discovery and true happiness.
For me, yoga teaches me to take time for my body because otherwise, I live my whole day in my busy mind, which is mentally exhausting. It also helps me to feel less achy, more flexible and it really amplifies my emotional well-being. I feel calmer and I have learned to breathe more slowly and more correctly since I started doing yoga regularly. In fact, I’ve retrained my breathing pattern from being a full time mouth breather (which has chronic affects on health) to a nose breather. I’m currently encouraging this with my asthmatic daughter through the help of the wonderful Buteyko Breathing Courses available. After all, correct breathing is as crucial to our lives, as movement is to our bodies.
My next goal in fact, is to become a fully qualified Buteyko Instructor and so I started this training this year and hope to qualified by Christmas 2019
(Yip its 2020 and I am now qualified!).
Yoga is often defined as the integration of body, mind and breath. And for me, it is exactly that. One of my more senior teachers once defined yoga practice as a means of growing old gracefully. I love this description too because we often forget that the basic movements we need – keeping our core stable, maintaining good pelvic floor stability, having correct posture etc, are all paramount to our on-going and future health.
With all that in mind, I hope you can find yoga somewhere - you can join us in any of the weekly classes that are available to you. Alternatively, there is plenty of Yoga also available in gyms, other studios or even just following a Yoga DVD at home works really well. Whenever you decide to place you mat, I wish you peace and ease!
This is me with my two yoginis, Ashling and Jamie :)
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Just thought I might as well add our wee "Patch" here too cause she also likes yoga!
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