Sophy Hoare

'Based in Clapham South, I organise regular classes and courses in London. I also teach yoga workshops and retreats in various venues worldwide'.

Sophy Hoare : Yoga Teacher

I went to my first yoga class in 1970, at the former Dance Centre in Floral Street, Covent Garden. I was already attending acrobatic dance classes there and I saw a notice about a yoga class and was curious. The teacher was Penny Nield-Smith, a dedicated student of B.K.S. Iyengar. She was an exceptional person whose values and ideals were expressed in the way she lived, and teaching was her vocation. In the first class I was struck by the way body and mind were involved together and I knew that yoga would always be part of my life.

I worked with Penny for six years and was encouraged by her to start teaching. At this point I felt I needed to deepen my practice and I attended classes for many years with several advanced Iyengar teachers, always searching for the key to unlocking my body and finding freedom. For although I enjoyed the practice and benefited from it in many ways, the essence of what I was hoping to find continued to elude me; intuitively I knew I was missing something, that there must be another way. During this period I wrote three books on yoga. The earliest one, published by Macdonald, was one of the first books available in general bookshops which summarised the historical and philosophical background to yoga, as well as providing a guide to practice.

Following the Spirit of Vanda Scaravelli

In 1991 I had the good fortune to meet Vanda Scaravelli, author of 'Awakening the Spine', who invited me to become her student. At the first meeting, which was the first lesson I had with Vanda, I knew immediately that I had finally found and experienced what I had been looking for. Once or twice a year for eight years I went to stay with Vanda at her house near Florence to learn from her. This contact, though brief, was intense and life-changing, and through it I met and started working with Diane Long, who had been Vanda's student on a weekly basis for twenty-three years, and was able to deepen my understanding of this subtle and profound way of working.

My yoga partnership with Diane continues and we run workshops together several times a year. I have also collaborated with John Stirk and Mary Stewart in running teacher training courses. I teach small groups and private lessons at home in south London, as well as travelling to teach workshops throughout the U.K. and abroad.

About this yoga . . .

In this practice the emphasis is not on achieving postures as a goal; rather we use the postures as a basis for exploring the relationship between the parts of the body, undoing tension in order to find greater integration. We also discover how our movements relate to our breath and the ground and the space around us; to experience our bodies in this context is the way we find wholeness and its profoundly relaxing and freeing effect. With continued practice a new network of muscles is brought into use. Then our movements come from the spine and lead us back to the spine and the whole body is involved in every movement. We train our attention so that we can feel more, do less, and allow the body's own intelligence to express itself spontaneously.

To read more about this way of working, click on the Articles link.