Welcome to Ann Pyne Yoga.

I am a Hatha trained yoga teacher, from the Sam Rao TeacherTraining School in Berkshire and have been practising yoga since 2011. I teach in and around the Crowthorne, Bracknell and Wokingham area and my style of teaching is Hatha interwoven with some Vinyasa flow and mindfulness.

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If someone had said to me in January 2017 that I would be a yoga teacher I would have laughed at them. At that time I was an out and out 'Gym bunny' - 6 out of 7 days - Body Pump, Body Attack, TRX, Treadmill, X-Trainer but to name a few.

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My first experience of Yoga started with sitting cross legged, eyes closed, focussing on my breath for 15 minutes - they felt like the longest 15 minutes of my life, I almost got up and walked out - my body needed to move or at least that is what my mind was telling me. Suffice to say, I didn't go back to that class and didn't think I would ever be going to another yoga class!

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So what changed my mind?

In 2011 I experienced my first ever panic attack while driving on the motorway. To cut a long story short this was followed by further attacks, developing a health anxiety and adrenal fatigue. This just started to wipe me out physically and mentally. It was my Dr who recommended I tried yoga to de-stress. It wasn't the easiest journey -my mind was so oversensitive to the physical sensations in my body, that my flight and flight responses would frequently be triggered and I spent most of the time in class feeling tense and NOT relaxed.

However, I was determined to find my way through this 'fog' in the most natural way possible. I should note here, that I did try antidepressants for a short period of time and was prescribed diazepam, but they all made me feel worse and not in control. So I continued to do yoga, but also went to see a nutritionist who helped me with the adrenal fatigue via diet ,and who introduced me to Reiki. I went on to train as a Reiki Practitioner up to Level 3.

After this time I also started to get interested in Mindfulness - read a number of books by Jon Kabat-Zinn and John Williams and started to realise that I had spent a large part of my adult life either thinking about past experiences, or the 'What if's 'of the future - neither of which I had any control over. I wasn't living in the 'here and now'.

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In 2015 I enrolled on an 8 week Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy Course (MBCT) at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre - this really did teach me to 'live in the moment', to appreciate my life as it is, to be grateful for everything that is around me, to not to compare myself with others, to accept how I feel at any time, not fight it and just acknowledge it, and more importantly to love myself for who I am. One of the biggest things I learnt is to be able to use my breath to know how I am feeling and to help encourage me out of the negative mind chatter.

I also started to realise that by using this approach whilst practising yoga, I could really take myself into my own 'bubble of tranquillity' - moving away from my ego of wanting to 'be as good as other's in the room or even better' and be totally content with what I achieved.

Now I am not saying that this is easy and I am perfect at it (remember , there is no perfect), I am a 'normal' 21st century mum of 2 young children, who like many people, male/female, parents or not, spend their lives constantly juggling, trying to manage the external noise of the technology, social media driven world that we live in today.

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What happened next?

In early 2016 I realised that I couldn't be the only one, who had or was experiencing these types of challenges, so I decided that I wanted to train to teach yoga, not only to deepen my own practice and knowledge, but so that I could share this with others.

My solution is a combination of yoga and mindfulness and most importantly FUN! and I aim to bring that to every yoga class that I teach - whatever level, whoever is in the room.

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It would be a pleasure to see you in one of my classes. If the above resonates with you why not take a look at the 'classes' section and come and give it a go. Alternatively you can always contact me for further information or a chat.

From me to you

Ann x