Case Studies
Here are some very amazing stories about my students, who have kindly given me permission to share this moving experience with you.
Anne Hoffman
Ann was recommended to come to me by her Doctor at the Stanmore Orthopaedic Hospital, because she had severe scoliosis and could not sleep at night with back pain and other discomforts. That was over 5 years ago, she now has an almost straight spine and has grown another 7cm.
Anne can now do shoulderstand (Halasana) with support, without any pain and actually enjoys it!
Here she is doing a headstand using
bricks which gives her a wonderful stretch
for her neck. (right)
Hayley Richardson - The Importance of Yoga in my life
I knew in my 1st Yoga class about 12 years ago that Yoga would forevermore be a part of my life. To start with I thought about being a yoga teacher. However after completing my 1st teaching training module, I realised I had lost the joy of my practice and teaching was not suitable for me and my lifestyle. So I went back to regular classes and the joy returned. After taking a career break and travelling for a few years, then returning and setting up my own business I now felt it was possibly time to leave Barnet where I had been living for about 7 years. I was single girl in her mid, ok late 30’s and had never found a good Iyengar Teacher and was fed up with the same boring social life.
I believe that, meeting Elaine a few months before meeting my future husband was the universe providing me with all the energy I would need for the coming years. My life changed for the better and since then I have not had time to look back. I remember thinking in my 1st class with Elaine, how could I have not found her before. She is the most inspirational teacher I have met, and I have practiced yoga all around the world. Elaine’s classed are never the same and never feel planned or flat. Elaine has the magical ability of being able to make you feel secure and be able to push yourself further into the postures and to be able to feel the inner peace and balance that Yoga gives us.
I practised Yoga throughout my pregnancy. In my 1st scan they discovered a 15cm fibroid over the top of my cervix. I grew to an enormous size, it was like carrying twins. Yoga helped keep me supple I felt it gave me and my baby more room, regular deep breathing also must have helped both my baby and me. Due to the fibroid I had to have a caesarean and when the chap administered the epidural he said my spine was in really great shape. There was so much space between each vertebra which makes it much safer for me and much easier for him to administer.
A year after my daughter was born, I was diagnosed with a very aggressive breast cancer. I had a lumpectomy and all my lymph glands removed from my armpit. At 39 and being a new mother I didn’t and still do not want to except the risks involved with breast cancer and the extra precautions I now have to take. I feel Yoga has helped in my recovery and will prevent any of the uncomfortable symptoms that can occur.
I practiced Yoga with Elaine throughout all my chemo and radiotherapy and truly believe Elaine’s energy, healing and spiritual presence have without a doubt helped me get through the many different experiences, that I have faced in the last few years.
Yoga used to be a class I would attend to ground myself from the busy life I led. I felt the others in the class where there on their own journey. Now we are a strong group that have all come together for our own reasons, but over time have given each other strength and support.
I know I will be practising Yoga with Elaine for many years to come, her understanding, and her knowledge of how our bodies work, her healing, and giving nature along with her wonderful classes are in my life to stay.
The thing I will always need to work on at home is the posture I find the hardest ..... GETTING MY MAT OUT!
Hayley now has a yoga lessons every week with her beautiful daughter Ruby who is 2 years old (in this photo).
Bernard Hennin
My earliest experinces of yoga was female friends telling me about it and showing me some postures. at the time (over sixteen years ago) I just thought it was for girls.
After trying Tai Chi a few years later I was beginning to understand the importance of body alighnment, balance and breathing.
It wasn't really until I took a trip to india in 2000 that I really began my own yoga practice, beginning with a school aimed mainly at Western travellers there in Rishikesh and run by a group of Romanian yogis who taught an invigorating and uplifting form based in the Tantric tradition.
My passion for yoga grew and continued after the month-long intensive course and when i returned to london in the Spring of 2001 I sought out the local branch of this school to continue this practice. It was only later when an Iyengar teacher friend of mine pointed out some flaws in my physical practice that I realised that although I felt I had achieved some degree of spiritual development with a style which focussed on chackras, raising energies and harmonising yin and yang, my body posture was not ideal especially considering that i already had a spinal injury before I had even come to yoga.
A chance meeting with an old fiend from the Indian school and the advice of another encouraged me to try out Astanga Yoga which was very energetic but also helped me focus on correct posture. After a while, however, I found this dynamic style, a little too demanding and this lead me to search for an Iyegar teacher.
Elaine was exactly that! Her classes were local and the atmosphere was so much more relaxed than anything I had been used to. I found myself gradually easing into asanas rather than hammering my body into shape (unsuccessfully) as I had done previously. This style of yoga is definitely the one that suits me best now and Elaine has encouraged me to think about the 'getting there' a lot more than just the 'end product' of yoga which has made my journey a lot more relaxed and rewarding. I am now focussing on areas specifically aimed at loosening parts of my body which were previously so rigid that some postures would be virtually impossible for me.
Carol Smith
(this is more a story of my situation)
At the beginning of the year (2010) I was suffering from sciatic pain that had become so intense that I could hardly walk (which was making my journey to work every day difficult). The pain was spreading all the way down to my toes and I had been to both physical and massage therapists who had worked on my buttocks until they were sore. It was then a friend who recommended yoga and then I found Elaine. The classes were slow but precise and easy to follow. Her simple instructions of moving slowly and also focus on my breathing helped to bring awareness inside my body, for me -my hip and to the place where the pain was originating. My natural desire was to push hard, similar to the way I ran marathons. With each breath I asked my body to release both fears and tension. Within 6 months my sciatic pain had dissapeared and I enjoy going to yoga every week.
