Our Teachers
Matty
Matty, the founder of City Yoga, has practised yoga for seventeen years and has been teaching since 2009. He teaches with a unique style, blending the dynamic flow of Astanga with the deeper practices of Sivananda and Sun Power yoga.
He believes that Yoga is for all, so whether a complete beginner or regularly practising yoga there will be something for each person. Patience and understanding of individual’s needs are at the heart of his teaching.
He was taught to be a sympathetic practitioner of this wonderful craft. His style is to be supportive and affirming so each person can develop at their own pace.
Above everything he loves yoga and passing on his skills and knowledge to those wanting to learn, discover and develop themselves.
Richard
Richard has been teaching yoga since 2006, and has trained with many different schools and styles.
He completed his British Wheel of Yoga Diploma in 2008, and has since completed a 2-year diploma in Yoga Therapy. He has also studied intensively the soft architecture of the body, known as fascia. He continues his study of the mind, body and spirit through intuitive movement and shamanic practices. He is also recognised by Yoga Alliance as a Senior Yoga Teacher.
Richard’s classes are fun and creative, and cater for all individuals needs, regardless of experience or ability. He is brilliant at explaining some of the most complex philosophies in a simple and understandable way.
Anna
Anna completed her yoga teacher training in Sun Power Yoga in 2015, after finding herself drawn to this unique style of practice. Anna is a great believer in the holistic benefits of yoga, and through her teaching aims to support emotional and mental wellbeing as well as all the benefits of a strong physical practice.
Her recent yoga training includes teaching yoga for PTSD, and outside of her yoga teaching she has worked extensively with those experiencing depression and anxiety. Anna sees yoga as an incredibly empowering practice, giving us many of the necessary tools to manage our lives away from the yoga mat, and allowing us to build both our inner and outer strength.
Sophie
Sophie started practicing Yoga in around 2012, after looking for a fun and creative way to move her body. Over the years she learnt the true values of Yoga and deeply felt the emotional, mental and spiritual benefits that it brings. In 2018 she qualified as a 200hr Hatha Yoga Teacher and since then has trained in Yoga Nidra, Children’s Yoga and Tween Coming of Age Yoga & Mindfulness, to be able to share the benefits with a wide range of people.
Sophie is also a professional illustrator and uses this alongside Yoga to provide Yoga Nidra & Art workshops and Mindfulness through Art. Yoga has enhanced Sophie’s creative practice and she believes everyone is creative and can use art as a tool for mindfulness.
Sophie’s aim through Yoga & Art, is to help people dig deep and uncover their true sense of self and find inner peace through creativity, playfulness and connection.
Sophie‘s Vinyasa classes are imaginative, playful and (sometimes) dynamic, with plenty of options to empower students and help them discover what feels good to each individual.
Sophie’s Essentials classes are slow paced and also offer a range of options; moving with integrity through postures, taking time to connect with the breath and find what works for you.”
Gayatri
About Gayatri
I’ve been practising yoga since 2005. My first teacher was a very special person who showed me that yoga is there for everyone, no matter how old you might be or what kind of body shape or condition you might have. Later, I received further training from a teacher of the Bihar School of yoga while I lived in Kolkata, India. She taught me how yoga gives people happiness. I then did my formal training to become a yoga teacher at Shivananda Ashram in Kerala, India in 2011.
I’ve been in the UK since 2011 and have taught yoga in different places before coming to Birmingham in 2017.
I teach two types of yoga class:
I am also a newly qualified Yoga Therapist and can assist people in one–to–one sessions in order to develop self-efficacy.
Cat
Lis
Ten years ago Lis found herself craving something more than strength, endurance and adrenaline, and rediscovered her love for yoga. As well as freeing up her tightly wound muscles and allowing her to (finally!) touch her toes, Yoga gave her the mental and emotional space and balance to stay grounded in a very busy and high pressured environment.
Yoga has not made her a perfectly contented and flawless person – she still drinks too much caffeine, watches too many murder documentaries and is usually late – but it has made her much happier and healthier. Despite all those murder documentaries.
“We practice not to make ourselves perfect, but to make ourselves whole”
Michela
Michela did her first 200 Hour Teacher Training with Yoga Somatic Movement in Bali in March 2018, when she spent a transformative and intense month deepening her practice and learning from amazing and incredible teachers.
Michela felt a strong need to find a place to ground and be still earlier in her life and she found this place in Yoga, where Michela can share and create space for others to come to and experience the magic of “Being”.
She teaches vinyasa flow classes that create space for you to explore your breath and body together through conscious movement; finding lightness, joy and ease in a challenging practice.
Eban
Eban began his yoga journey in 2018, resolving to be able to touch his toes by the end of the year. After journeying through YouTube tutorials, home workouts and in-person classes in many different yoga styles, he discovered a particular attraction to dynamic vinyasa-based practices. He completed his Vinyasa/Hatha teacher training in 2020 and used the lockdown to develop a home Ashtanga practice and deepen his understanding of yoga philosophy.
Eban believes that a yoga practice is a tool to put one’s own being under the microscope, in order to uncover the best version of oneself. His goal is to use yoga to become more compassionate and to better serve others, and be a positive force in the world off the mat.
