BIOGRAPHY For as long as I can remember, putting my body into motion has been a fundamental way for me to know myself and discover what it means to be alive. I have had a long involvement not just with yoga but also with dance, moving from ballet and contemporary dance techniques to meditative and somatic approaches. Since 2001, I have been practising Gabrielle Roth’s Five Rhythms dance.

I did my first yoga class in 1981, initially practising with Iyengar teachers; later I explored Sivananda and other hatha yoga styles. In 2001, I came across astanga vinyasa and became a dedicated practitioner, finding in this intensely physical, moving form of yoga a deep sense of spirit immanent in the body. While astanga remains my core practice, the needs of my body have led me also to adopt other more eclectic ways of practising, choosing forms and approaches that enable me to work most constructively in the moment. I have been fortunate enough to study with many wonderful teachers over the years, both the sung and the unsung; however, my main teacher currently is my body on the mat.

I trained to teach astanga vinyasa with Abby Daniel in 2002, and completed a second astanga teacher training with Tim Miller in 2003, becoming registered as a yoga teacher with the Yoga Alliance in 2004. In 2003, I also undertook the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy training in the USA and am now one of a small number of certified Phoenix Rising practitioners in the UK.

For me, however dynamic its form, yoga is first and foremost a meditation. Its particular strength and beauty as a tool of awareness is that it works through (rather than around or in spite of) the body and therefore has the potential to move us directly into states of consciousness that exist beneath the level of the cognitive mind. Central to this process is the ongoing enquiry into what it means to be ‘on the edge’, perhaps best described as a situation in which we can expand our understanding and gain greater insight into the nature of our being.

My relationship with yoga has been both challenged and enriched by the fact that I have Ehlers Danlos (hypermobility) Syndrome, as a result of which I have a particular interest in teaching people with hypermobility issues. (If you have the advantage of a less flexible body, though, don't worry, you are equally welcome to my classes!)

I have refuge with the Karma Kagyü school of Tibetan Buddhism and am currently working on the ngöndro (a three-year Tibetan Buddhist practice). I am 46 years old and live with my nine-year-old son in south-east London.

I feel privileged to be able to pass on the little I have learnt of these wonderful transformative practices and hope that you will be as blessed by them as I continue to be. Om shanti.

(Ali's practice blog is at http://practiceblog.blogware.com/blog.)

Last updated 29/06/09