Emma is away on holiday, surfing, this week so I'm taking over her newsletter!
I’m Sarah. You will probably have only ever seen me online because I live in Paris.
I've been doing yoga with Emma since 2020. I found her through six online classes that were offered as part of my company's membership towards the end of the pandemic. I’d been doing in-person Hatha yoga in Paris, without ever really seeing much change. Discovering Emma was a true revelation for me: I found that you can progress and build strength through online classes. And it’s lovely to do yoga in English!
I started attending more of the online evening classes and did a few online 1-2-1s with Emma. I soon began to pick up tons of tips and techniques, and really started to see progress in my body and my practice. It’s helped with my running and general wellbeing.
I make the most of my membership. I attend about two 60-minute online sessions a week. I do the 15-minute Core Strength classes just about every day, usually off the library or on catch-up. Sometimes I connect “live” (when Core always seems to be more difficult). And I try to do the morning classes if I know that I won’t have time for other yoga classes during the day.
But my favourite is Ashtanga, on a Tuesday evening. I join online and Emma runs the class in person in Chester. Ashtanga has become totally addictive for me: I love it that we do the same routine every week and that you can really see the progress as the Primary Series becomes more and more accessible. Five years into it, and I’m still learning! And I do feel like I’m part of the class: I can hear everything that Emma says through her microphone, as she works her way around the room, and I adjust my own posture as I hear her say “try pushing that knee out… there…” to someone or “do you think you can pull your right hip back?” to somebody else.
Even though I’m online at home on my own, there's something great about knowing that you're practicing with other people too. I’ve been lucky enough to attend two of the weekend retreats - one in the sun and one in the rain - and they were both amazing. It was great to finally meet Emma in person and do a full reset on my practice. I also got to meet some of the other members, which increased my sense of community. Emma’s WhatsApp groups help with that too.
We’ve just bought a house in the Loire valley, and one priority was to set up a space for yoga there. I travel quite a lot and I’m often in the UK visiting family. One beauty of online yoga is that you can do it anywhere – if I can set up outside in a garden or on a terrace or by a pool, then I do!
Disaster struck in July: I broke my wrist with a fall and was immediately gutted about the idea of not being able to do yoga. I reached out to Emma and we did a quick 1-2-1 online. She showed me how to adapt my Ashtanga practice with standing Sun Salutations, and suggested Down-Dog on my elbows instead of my hands. She encouraged me to carry on with the Core Strength classes. She even designed an online class just for me: one day in July the whole group did “No hands” morning yoga. Emma put that session in the library, and I went back to it so many times. It became a benchmark for my progress over the summer.
So, with Emma’s help, the wrist fracture wasn’t so disastrous – I’ve built strength in my shoulders and hip flexors to compensate, and haven’t lost any core strength. I’m very confident that I’ll be back to full speed in a couple of months.
I’m also ever hopeful that one day I’ll show up at the Soup Studios in Chester on a Tuesday and do Ashtanga in person. In the meantime, if you’re in Paris, feel free to contact me via Emma. I can point you in the direction of a nice restaurant (even a vegan one) or an exhibition. We can even meet for coffee to discuss the merits of online yoga.
It's worth trying out Emma's classes. Be sure to sign up for her newsletter as she's running a free week of 7am - 30 minute Yoga Monday 9th to Friday 13th November.
