Being active has been a common thread since being a baby. I used to cartwheel and fall into splits around the house wearing my favourite leotard. I remember being so pleased with myself when I beat the fastest boy in my class during sprints. I was a young frequenter of the gym, taking intimidatingly routined aerobics classes and LBT sessions with glaring techno music playing.
My love affair with yoga started in 2009 in a hot yoga room, when my practice really became part of a healthy routine. I had a full time job but I started working on Saturdays at the reception of my local studio at the time. I didn’t mind working 6 days a week; I loved being surrounded by the yoga community and in exchange I could practice as much as I wanted.
I considered a teacher training some 3 years later but the right opportunity for me came along in 2015 when I trained at Fierce Grace Yoga with Michele Pernetta. Doing my 200hrs teaching set sequences, helped me to focus on the bodies and on the students’ practice without having to think about sequencing.
My natural inclination to practice movement with breath and exploration of the body through intelligent and creative sequencing, led me to deepen my knowledge in Vinyasa yoga with Jason Crandell, with whom I recently completed my 300hrs.
In 2017 whilst I was pregnant, I also furthered my training with Yogamama to teach Pre and Post Natal yoga. I kept practising throughout my pregnancy and I cannot recommend yoga enough during those 9 months. I am honoured to be able to share my passion and bring the benefits of yoga to expectant and new moms.
Despite all the yoga, I’m not as bendy as you might think. If I am able to find a balance between strength and flexibility, it is down to yoga. I’m a big advocate of any kind of movement that makes your body feel good; I compliment my yoga practise with weight training and working out which together have made my body strong and helped me recover postpartum.
What else is there to know about me?
I was born in Rome, I am half Filipino, half Italian and moved to London when I was 19. I have lived here ever since, met my husband and we had a son in 2018. I love writing, healthy food and have a very eclectic taste in music. Since becoming a mom, I left my full time office job to focus on my family and my teaching. I like training at the gym and staying active whenever possible. I have an addiction to dark chocolate and trainers, I prefer to sit on floors than chairs, I work better late at night than early mornings. I also fit the usual cliches: love movies but little time to watch them, love to read but I can only do audiobooks, I consider myself a creative but never had a creative job. Things I would like to do before I die: learn how to DJ, write a book, live close to the beach.
15 April (Day 1) I missed being with Luca and Leonardo on our first night as 4 but I was discharged this evening and Leonardo welcomed me behind the hospital doors with the biggest smile. It hit me as we were driving home that we are now a family…
Welcome to the light Tommaso I’ve always secretly believed I had a lot of beginner’s luck; that anytime I would do something for the second time, it would be a little bit more challenging, if not a disaster. Be it teaching a new class, baking something, going…
I’ve written posts for each of our wedding anniversaries but I never wrote about our wedding day. I hadn’t watched our wedding video in ages and to get inspired for my writing, I had a look at it and it made me emotional. Definitely the hormones, but it…
Aside from being a brilliant show, if you’ve not watched it you should, in fact I think everyone should watch it as it’s a real eye opener into the world of women. But let’s talk working moms. I read something that almost made me cry because work and mom are…
Often in my pregnancy classes when we introduce ourselves, I ask my mamas if they have practiced yoga before and often we have referred to any other yoga class, other than pregnancy yoga, as “normal yoga”. And we didn’t mean it in a negative way or to say that…
No it’s not a typo. Breastfeeding is an entirely different beast, alas one we do not hear enough about. I remember my first meltdown took place a couple of days after returning home with our baby. We couldn’t settle him at night and we weren’t sure if I had been…
Dear Mom who is still carrying life inside, there is groundwork to be done in these 9 months; whilst your body, mind blowingly, and without you needing to do much, is creating a human inside, your mind may need more reassurance, more comfort, more effort, more time to let everything…
“Why? Why would you do that?” That’s what I asked myself and many other people to whom we hinted we might film our birth. As I became more educated and confident about birth, I realised I wouldn’t ask myself why would I have a beautiful and happy moment on record.…
One of my birth preferences was opting for birth centre. I toyed with the idea of having a home birth but since it was our first baby, Luca felt more confident having the hospital close by just in case. As you may know by now, I am a big advocate…
Everything I knew about giving birth before I actually gave birth was an unfortunate production of media misrepresentation, blurry tales of past generations and a sense of emergency that could only be possibly resolved by someone wearing scrubs. I have always wondered out of the “emergency Caesarean” how many were…
It had never crossed my mind; the possibility of not being able to fall pregnant had, even the worry that the baby could not be healthy, but not the thought of miscarrying. Simply because I didn’t know much about it and didn’t know how common and frequent miscarriages were until…
On the back of practising creating mental images of your birth, I would like to talk to you about watching birth videos. Yes, the ones that if you are not pregnant or remotely squeamish you wouldn’t want to watch even if they paid you.. I was one of them. A…
Whether you are aware or not about the power of visualisation, I am here to tell you how this could help you throughout your pregnancy and to prepare for birth. We might have been using our visualisation skills without us even realising and toward the wrong outcome: imagining worst case…
I had a good first birth and the superstitious secret side of me thinks it might not happen again when we decide to have another bambino (Anxiety? Yes, and I’m acknowledging the hell out of it). I’ve shared my birth story some months after Leonardo’s birth and I was all…
I kept a journal about my Pregnancy Teacher training, and I feel I couldn’t do otherwise with my advanced teacher training. I started today my 300hrs with Jason Crandell and though the doubt of spending a large sum of money for this training kept me from signing up for it…
Inspired by the “Getting to know each other” 1st episode the new #yogalandpodcast season, I thought I would share with anyone who is curious to know something about me and my yoga journey. I tried my first ever class in my early 20s, probably out of curiosity. I had heard…
Uncommon pairing, but not if UFO stands for Upright, Forward and Open. Three important actions for the pregnant body. Prenatal yoga brings focus on these aspects and so much more. The parallels that one can draw between yoga and pregnancy and childbirth are countless. The breath, the physical and mental…
I never knew I would be sitting here a week from our birth, with my little boy peacefully lying down on my lap wanting to write my birth story. I write “our” because one of the most beautiful things I read during my pregnancy is that when a baby is…
I’m on the tube on my way back home after my first Pregnancy Yoga teacher training day. I know as soon as I’ll meet Luca I’ll shower him with the uncontainable excitement that I’ve built up throughout the day. I jokingly summed it up to him over the phone in…
I don’t generally like to post so much skin on social media; not because I am a prude but rather because I wish to use this outlet in better ways. What looks like a very widely seen comparative picture is actually much more than that. Also yoga and anything to…
I wrote this post together with Marta De Oliveira for her Pelvic Talks. To read her blog click here: “I’ve been practising yoga for 9 years, teaching for 2 and I can honestly say that injuries are often one of the best teachers; it sets your practice back to make…
I’ve always admired people who have the innate power of being always happy and positive or if anything, the ones who just have the ability to offer an optimistic prospective to most situations. Some people just have it in them and make it look effortless. I wouldn’t say it comes…
If you are thinking of trying a hot yoga class and are unsure of what to expect, read along to be prepared and make the most out of your class. Listen to your body – As a first timer, you will want to try an all levels class; rest assured…