Urban Balance Yoga

Urban Balance Yoga Hatha yoga teacher I struggled through my first couple classes with my anxiety, but soon found that I was able to relax more quickly each time I got on the mat.

I started practising yoga in my mid-twenties and soon found myself wanting to go just for the feeling I would get at the end – the thought of 10 minutes of peace and relaxation in savasana, and leaving the class in a feel-good bubble - would get me there even on the days when I really didn’t feel up to it! I dipped in and out of classes over the next few years, and it wasn’t until I moved to New

Zealand that I started to build a more regular practice and love for yoga. I have suffered with anxiety and panic attacks through most of my adult life, and during a particularly difficult time with this when I was first living in Auckland, I remembered that yoga classes would often help bring me a bit of calm when I was extremely anxious. From then on I made yoga a more frequent part of my life. Because for me, yoga brings me out of my head and into my body (something I desperately need!), and it encourages me to tune in to myself and listen to what my body is telling me. By focusing on my body, movement, and my breath I am able to connect in with my body and let go of a busy mind – at least while I’m on the mat!

✨️ Picture this. It's Wednesday morning..half way through the work / school week - a damp though bright start. If you're...
02/06/2026

✨️ Picture this. It's Wednesday morning..half way through the work / school week - a damp though bright start.

If you're anything like me you had to drag yourself up and of bed this morning. These winter energies are hard....it's finding the balance between rest, and doing - the stuff your body will thank you for. I went for the half way point- snoozed the alarm, had a bit more sleep, but still up with enough time to gaze out over the sunrise this morning with my first coffee of the day and check in with myself 💛

The alternative was a longer sleep in and then a frantic morning with no time for pauses or coffee ... and at this stage of life I can no longer handle that!

The balance between doing, and rest. It's an ongoing practice to figure out where that lies on any given day.

Wednesday nights are where I bring together a bit of both. Some flow, some mindful movement, some challenge if you choose. And then always, some rest. In a candlelit space with a gorgeous group of yogis.

✨️ Book your space now. Your later self will thank you for it ✨️

www.urbanbalanceyoga.com/bookings

✨️Space to slow down, breathe, and reflect✨️That’s exactly what our next journal circle is for. Sunday 14th June @ the l...
02/06/2026

✨️Space to slow down, breathe, and reflect✨️

That’s exactly what our next journal circle is for. Sunday 14th June @ the log cabin

We start with a short relaxation, before I introduce our theme for the evening. Then there’s time to journal alone, together. There’s tea, and cake, some gentle background music, and sharing if you choose.

Expressing ourselves through colour, through words, through marks on a page. Showing up exactly as we are, being heard, and being held.

💫 Book in for some time for yourself on our next circle. Space to pause. 💛

🔗 www.urbanbalanceyoga.com/bookings

✨️This month in our Wednesday hatha flow classes I'll be building in some practices to develop both our proprioception -...
01/06/2026

✨️This month in our Wednesday hatha flow classes I'll be building in some practices to develop both our proprioception - our sense of where our bodies are in space, and our interoception - recognising what we feel internally, be it our emotions, our breath or our muscle sensation.

Some moments of slowing down so you can feel a little more. So you can check in, and be with yourself as you are.

This month also brings our women’s journal circle on Sunday 14th, in which we'll be thinking about how we might pause in the winter seasons of our lives, and how that can resource us.

It also brings another opportunity for Sunday Stillness - on the afternoon of 28th June. If you need deep rest, join us.

Looking forward to a month in which we allow whatever needs to come up, as we approach the shortest day of the year at the winter solstice. Let's resource ourselves together though these wintry days. ❄️

Grace, help us to live slowly:To move simply:To look softly:To allow emptiness:To let the heart create for us.Adapted fr...
28/05/2026

Grace, help us to live slowly:
To move simply:
To look softly:
To allow emptiness:
To let the heart create for us.

Adapted from Michael Leunig

✨️ Tuesday mornings in Maraetai - join us from 6 weeks post-natally or 8 weeks for c-section deliveries. A gentle, nurtu...
25/05/2026

✨️ Tuesday mornings in Maraetai - join us from 6 weeks post-natally or 8 weeks for c-section deliveries.

A gentle, nurturing yoga practice which ends with restorative yoga. Followed by hot drinks, cake and connection with other local mums.

You are always welcome to message me before joining us for the first time - but we have a wonderful group of local mums ready to welcome you 💛

✨️ This week has been a beautiful one for me so far, doing work I'm passionate about, through yoga and my studies, and l...
21/05/2026

✨️ This week has been a beautiful one for me so far, doing work I'm passionate about, through yoga and my studies, and lots of valuable learnings and realisations. There have been a few chances for me to sit back and just notice how far I've come, and to acknowledge that with some pride. We talk about this often in our journal circles - how important this is. To recognise our strengths, what we do well, and for me there's also a recognition of how aligned I feel with my values.

It's easy to recognise the stuff that's hard. And I do that too - this is also important. But there's a balance, and an awareness that in life there is constant movement.

Some days are hard, some are exhausting, some are full of joy and connection. I believe we have to make space for it all, and find places where we can do that safely.

In yoga, we practice noticing it all, and allowing it. This is my guiding principle for practice, and for teaching. I trained in the hatha yoga tradition - a quite traditional form where there's a real connection between breath and movement. And for me there's a lot from that foundation that continues to inform my yoga. But it's shifted slightly too - to guiding a focus on our own internal experiences.

We don't use our body to get into the pose. The pose helps us to get into our bodies. And this is a key value for me that I've been noticing amd practising this week. Not only through yoga and movement, but in a multitude of ways. The noticing, and getting back into my body and how it feel.

It's an ongoing practice and I'm not yet master of it by any means, but I will keep on practising and showing up - for me, for you, and with you 💛

As I sit on my couch on a Sunday morning looking out at the ocean after a blissful (and rare!) long lie in, I feel – wit...
16/05/2026

As I sit on my couch on a Sunday morning looking out at the ocean after a blissful (and rare!) long lie in, I feel – with huge joy and huge emotion – that sense I have been feeling almost daily over the past couple of months since moving to the beach and starting my studies, of feeling like I’m in exactly the right place, where I am meant to be right now. It’s a thing I feel somatically – a felt sense in my body, a landing and a fullness.

The emotions and instincts we feel in our bodies are not always something we can easily explain to others, but for me – after years of retraining – I know now to trust myself when something feels right. It doesn’t always feel easy or simple, but it feels right.

Right now feels right. It feels like home. And that’s a powerful and meaningful feeling.

The weekly offerings I have right now are ones that feel right. Spaces I am so grateful to hold for you. Tuesday mornings for mums & babies – to nourish and support, and then to connect. Wednesday night for a mid-week reset – some strength and some spice before some rest.

I’d love to see you this week ❤️

✨️Over the last couple of months I've introduced something new to Wednesday night yoga. There's still strength, and chal...
12/05/2026

✨️Over the last couple of months I've introduced something new to Wednesday night yoga. There's still strength, and challenge, and flow. And, there's also softness and rest.✨️

We finish now always with a restorative practice- a moment to pause. To honour what’s been accomplished. To integrate.

Join us on a Wednesday at 715pm for some strength and softness.

And then, if more softness is what you are craving, join me on Sunday 28th June. 2-4pm at Maraetai Community Hall. An afternoon of restorative yoga.

To prepare for the deep nourishment of winter. Restorative yoga offers you a deep exhale.💛

Another world is not only possible — she is on her way. Settle in, soften down, and feel her moving closer.

Save your space, for tomorrow, for next month. www.urbanbalanceyoga.com

🌿 I don't know about you, but this year has been big for me. And one of the things that's come up in our journal circle ...
09/05/2026

🌿 I don't know about you, but this year has been big for me. And one of the things that's come up in our journal circle a few times is our human tendency to gloss over our achievements and fixate instead on our failures.

To counter this, I believe in making deliberate space for ourselves. This is what works for me, and I'd like to offer it to you too.

As we celebrate what we’ve moved through over the last 12 months and lean towards winter, restorative yoga becomes a place to land. A space to slow down, reset, and listen in. To acknowledge where we've been, and to listen out for what’s arriving next.

Sunday 28th June. 2-4pm @ Maraetai Community Hall

Reserve your mat at www.urbanbalanceyoga.com

✨️ Come rest with me. Your nervous system will thank you. ✨️

As the weekend is once again in sight, I am grateful for the opportunities I have had this week to rest a little. At tim...
08/05/2026

As the weekend is once again in sight, I am grateful for the opportunities I have had this week to rest a little. At times my body craves strength and challenge, and at others it needs sleep and nourishment and a pause. I’ve come to recognise its not an either/or. It’s an ‘and’. Sometimes I need strength and yang energy. And sometimes I need the slowness, and the yin. (This week, definitely the latter).

We don’t have to define ourselves in only one way. We can be strong, and gentle, and resilient, and emotional. We can be people who love a challenge, and also a rest. Why should you have to choose just one way of being?

I’ve been sitting with this idea over recent months and what I love most is the realisation that we don’t have to choose between tidy binaries or force ourselves into being one thing or another. We’re allowed to hold contradictions, to be a little messy, to live in the grey rather than pin everything down in black and white. There’s something really freeing in that spaciousness, and I’m finding that it lets me show up as a more honest, more authentic version of myself.

And I think the more we show up like this for ourselves, the more others begin to recognise that it’s safe for them too. When we allow our own complexity, we quietly give permission for others to honour theirs. You are more than one role, one version, one tidy category — and so is everyone else.

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Maraetai
2018

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Monday 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Sunday 9am - 9am

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