Jenna Blair is calmer, happier, and now running her own studio

I started going to classes regularly five years ago as I had finally found a form or ‘exercise’ that I enjoyed! I was on a bit of a mission to become healthier, but yoga was the only one thing I kept going back to consistently. It didn’t take long for me to realise the reason I felt amazing after every class wasn’t just that I had moved my body…it was the mood-altering effect of working with my own breath, the quiet inward-facing time away from the stresses of the world, computers and phones, and ultimately, the beautiful, calming connection I was finding with something much bigger than I had ever experienced before (some might call this god, others would call it the universe, nature, the self or the divine).

Yoga has changed my life in every way possible. I am calmer and happier and have kicked many undesirable habits that I had in my 20s and 30s. Yoga helps me cope with the strains of this challenging world, in a way that nothing else ever has. I completed a 200- hour yoga teacher training course in 2019 and started teaching two nights per week at my local church hall. On completion of the course, I quickly found myself teaching five classes per week on top of a full-time office job. Something had to go…and it wasn’t going to be the yoga! I left my full-time job in January 2020. Last year was challenging for obvious reasons as my busy timetable came to a grinding halt at the start of the first lockdown. I navigated the pandemic by teaching online, in gardens and in parks, and resumed small, socially distanced classes when I could. My own practice got me through as I returned to my mat over and over.