Hello there, I’m Leonie (they/them).
I am a queer, non-binary, neurodivergent yoga facilitator based in Bristol. My work dances around the yoga or ‘yoking’ of spirituality, social justice and community care. I offer weekly classes, workshops, 1-1 therapeutic yoga and transformative retreats.
Things that are important to me in this work:
Honouring the roots of yoga and the vastness of yoga as a practice for liberation which is therapeutic and radical at its core
Making my spaces as accessible as possible to different brains, bodies and beings
Being trauma-informed in my approach
Facilitating through the lens of a decolonial & anti-oppressive practice
Being authentically human in the way I facilitate. I bring myself, my queerness, my neurodivergence, my unfolding knowing of myself.
Dismantling power & hierarchy in yoga spaces, creating leaderfull spaces where we are all the experts of our own experience
My journey with yoga…
I started practising yoga at the age of 18 years old, in order to support lower back pain. I found yoga books in charity shops and in my family home in the hills of Mid Wales, I put together routines of yogasana (physical yoga postures) and began a daily practice. Like many, the physical practice of yoga was my way in. As I continued to practise and dip in and out of classes, I noticed how my daily practice was supporting my mental and emotional wellbeing, as well as my physical wellbeing. It has supported me through some very challenging and transformational times, evolving with my life to incorporate meditation, mantra, yoga nidra and all kinds of ritual.
Alongside my personal practice, my work as a community & youth worker has been central to my unfolding yoga journey. Since 2011, I have worked with groups around gender-based violence in rural communities in Oaxaca (Mexico), after school clubs with young women in South-East London, provided advocacy for young homeless people across London and worked with adults with complex needs in the streets of Bristol. In 2014, I decided to take my first 200hr teacher training in India at Yoga Vidya Gurukul. From here, my practice deepened and my journey to teaching unfolded, interweaving itself with my community work.
In 2017, co-founded Bristol Yoga Roots Project alongside Megan Cowles & Hazel Bugler.
My yoga practice these days feels completely interwoven with my day-to-day life as a spiritual practice of liberation and freedom. Since I started teaching in 2016 and then took the step to dedicate my life fully to my work as a yoga facilitator in 2021, I have got clearer on my purpose. Focussing on – radical rest, therapeutic yoga, grief tending, ritual and creating yoga spaces for queer & trans folk. The journey continues….
A little more about my practice & approach…
At its core, my work strives to be radical in its nature. By radical, I mean ‘getting to the root’. Holding space for individuals & communities to explore and reconnect to what resides at the root, what we find when we strip back the layers.
I welcome you in your wholeness along this journey – the joy, the love, the grief, the pain, the apathy, the discomfort, the beautiful messiness of what it means to be a human. Holding this process with intentional love – for ourselves, for one another, for the world.
With love, we spiral in and out of how our individual experience maps onto the collective, and how this individual choice to love and keep loving, can disrupt the violent and harmful systems of capitalism, patriarchy, cis-heteronormativity and white supremacy.
I facilitate spaces where we can dive into this work, with all its edges and challenges and have fun in the process. My offerings are rooted in the teachings of tantric yoga philosophy and the inherent wisdom held in the cyclical rhythms that exist outside and within us. Solar, lunar, seasons, menstrual, life, the breath…each cycle spirals into the next, offering the opportunity for reflection, learning and healing.
For me, this is brave, vital and deeply spiritual work. This is YOGA. Everything I offer is grounded in my own daily practice and experience, guidance from teachers and personal study. It is a never ending journey of unlearning & learning.
“The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth… Love is as love does. Love is an act of will-namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
Who am I to share the teachings of yoga?
It is an undeniable truth that most people who attend and practice yoga in studios in Bristol are white, middle class, cis-women, able bodied. I acknowledge the identities I hold within and outside of the dominant culture, as a white, non-binary, queer, neurodivergent, able-bodied, middle-class, university educated human. I continue to lean into and learn from how my intersectional identities inform how I move through the world with privilege and survivorship, sharing an ancient practice which is not from my cultural heritage. Reflective practice has been central to my community work and I am constantly applying this to my yoga teaching, engaging in discussions about how to honour and not appropriate the practice of yoga and fumbling my way through trying to teach in a way which aligns with my values and strives to respect yoga and each individual that enters my class.
My teachers & support
I am truly grateful to the many teachers who have and continue to support and inspire me on my journey as a yoga practitioner and teacher. My teachers at Yoga Vidya Gurukul introduced me to the philosophies of ashtanga and hatha yoga. Under the guidance of Sarah Harlow & Christopher Gladwell, I went deeper into this journey and connected deeply to the teachings of krama vinyasa tantra yoga at Yogasara. Interweaving with my work as an anti-oppressive community worker, my practice & study have continued into areas such as: presencing race & gender in facilitation, women’s health, trauma-informed yoga, yoga nidra and decolonising yoga with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli,Yoli Maya Yeh Joseph, Sophia Ansari & Alex Cat. In 2020, through the magic of Zoom, I have been blessed to continue my studies across the globe with Lama Rod Owens, Yoli Maya Yeh Joseph, Leila Sadeghee, Tristan Katz & Luvena Rangel, deepening my practice of mantra, meditation and the wisdom of Celtic rituals and elemental cycles.
To resource myself as a facilitator, I currently receive regular supervision from Holly Stoppit & spaces for mentorship/peer reflection with DEIcipher, Bristol Yoga Roots Project and Lou Thomas.
Qualifications & Training
300hr Advanced Teacher Training, Krama Vinyasa Tantra – Yogasara, Bristol / 2016 – 2017
200hr Teacher Training – Yoga Vidya Gurukul, Nasik, India / November 2014
Yoga for All – Diane Bondy & Amber Kearnes / 2020 – 2021
Total Yoga Nidra Facilitator Training – Uma Dinsmore-Tuli / 2021 -2022
Tantra, Sacred Cosmology of the Body & Decolonisation Studies – Yoli Maya Yeh Joseph / ongoing since 2021
Creative & Intuitive Approaches to Yoga Nidra – Uma Dinsmore-Tuli & Yoli Maya Yeh Joseph
Facilitation to Meet the Moment – Michelle C. Johnson, Stephanie Ghoston Paul, Tristan Katz, Rebby Kern & May Nicholson / 2023
The Art of Skilful Facilitation: Presencing Race & Gender – Michelle C. Johnson, Stephanie Ghoston Paul & Tristan Katz / 2021
Vessel of Worth & Fill the Vessel – Leila Sadeghee, Kimiko Tao Fujimoto & Mara Livermore / 2020 – 2022
Mantra & Meditation – Luvena Rangel / 2020
Understanding Cultural Appropriation, Sophia Ansari / 2020
60hrs Hands on Anatomy – Yogasara, Bristol / 2019
21hrs Anatomy in Motion – Anatomy Trains, London / 2018
15hrs Decolonising Yoga – Sophia Ansari, Cardiff / 2018
20hrs Trauma Sensitive Yoga – The Yoga Clinic London / July 2018
45hrs Well Woman Yoga Therapy – Yoga Campus with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli / 2017
15hrs Anatomy for Yoga Instructors – Trika Yoga, Bristol / 2018