Teaching Team
Living Yoga & The Art of Facilitation
Juliette McConachy
“Given a safe and loving environment all human beings know instinctively how to move their own animal body towards greater comfort and wellbeing.
I curate safe loving environments, generate truth-centric community and seek to champion the unique unrepeatable genius of each soul I encounter.
I bow my head to the lofty slow mountain and the humble hurried ant.
I bow my head to the life that lives me into relationship with all life.
I open my hands to contribute.”
- Juliette McConachy
Devoted to a path of enquiry and embodiment, Juliette has spent ten years in professional training along side world class yoga teachers, travelled the world to sit at the feet of her spiritual guides, clocked many hours in vipassana meditation halls and countless hours in the shifting terrains of her yoga practice.
She has been working one to one and in group therapeutic settings since 2012 and continues to learn and grow and weave the threads of various healing traditions into artful and relatable teachings and experiences of embodied awakening.
QUALIFICATIONS
Somatic Movement Therapist
E-RYT® 500 Registered Yoga Teacher
YACEP® Continuing Education Provider with Yoga Alliance
Certified Embodied Flow™ Facilitator
Psychosomatic Therapist
Zenthai Shiatsu Practitioner
Yoni Mapping Therapist
Embodied Anatomy and Physiology
Jane Hardcastle
Learning and development inspire Jane’s energy and commitment to practice and teach yoga and therapeutic movement. Although all yoga should be therapeutic, not every pose or practice suits every body, or the stage of life we are currently in. By combining over 30 years of experience in health care and adult learning with a desire to help people move and be well, Jane can help you learn how to do the things you want to do without the niggles or discomfort that can arise from habitual movement patterns that may not serve you well.
As a self-confessed bookaholic and perpetual learner Jane loves to read, study and play with ideas and experiences to help students & clients develop greater awareness and understanding of their body... and how to befriend it! She shares this knowledge and practice through yoga teacher training (Awakening Arts, NZ), yoga teacher mentorship (MoveWell), local workshops and co-teaching with esteemed yoga therapists Vincent Bolletta (Hansa Yoga International) and Leila Stuart (Centre point yoga therapy, Vancouver).
Time out is spent as time ‘in’ the kitchen, garden or chill out yoga nidra – anywhere she can lose track of time by being in the flow of creativity and space.
QUALIFICATIONS
Registered Yoga Therapist - Yoga NZ
Authorised Hansa Yoga Therapist 500 hrs (April 2019)
Registered yoga teacher level 4 - Yoga NZ
Advanced Yoga Studies – Donna Farhi yoga teacher training 2015, Christchurch, NZ (150 hrs)
YTT level 1 – Santosha Yoga, Bali 2014 (150 hrs)
Registered Yoga Teacher – Yoga Alliance (RYT200)
iRest® yoga nidra (level 1) teacher in training (2017)
Shakti mat teacher (Shakti Canada 2018)
Polestar Pilates Instructor, level 2 NZ 2014
EDUCATION
EdD (Doctor of Education, recipient of Dean’s award), Massey University, NZ
MEd (Master of Education – First Class Honours – Adult education), Massey University, NZ
HEALTH
BSc (Nursing Studies), Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh
ENB100 (General Intensive Care Nursing), City University, London
RN (Registered Nurse), Leeds Eastern School of Nursing
Yoga History and Philosophy
Carlos Pomeda
Originally from Madrid, Spain, Carlos has been steeped in all aspects of the yoga tradition during more than 40 years of practice and study. He spent 18 of those years as a monk of the Saraswati order, under the name Swami Gitananda, including 9 years of traditional training and practice in India.
During this time he learned the various systems of Indian Philosophy and immersed himself in the practice of yoga, becoming one of the senior monks of the tradition and teaching meditation and philosophy to tens of thousands of students around the world. He combines this experience and traditional training with his academic background, which includes two Masters Degrees: one in Sanskrit, from U.C. Berkeley (where he has taught) and another one, in Religious Studies, from U.C. Santa Barbara. He is currently working on a book on the topic of “Karma and the Journey of the Soul”, as well as a new translation of the Śivasūtra, an important Tantric text of the Kashmiri tradition .
Carlos currently lives in the US, and travels extensively around the world conducting a variety of retreats, courses, seminars, workshops and lectures on the Wisdom of Yoga and related subjects.
As a teacher, Carlos is renowned for the breadth of his knowledge and the clarity with which he conveys it. His great love of the Indian yoga traditions, his insight, his humor and his deep connection with his audiences give him the ability to transmit the deepest scriptural teachings in a way that is clear, meaningful and applicable. Studying with Carlos is an enjoyable and transformative experience.
Sanskrit & Mantra + Social Justice
Mei Lai Swan
Mei Lai has been studying eastern philosophies and meditation for over 20 years, and yoga for 18 years. A senior yoga teacher, Mei Lai is a certified Embodied Flow™ teacher, with years of study and practice in Ashtanga, Vinyasa and Anusara yoga.
From Melbourne, Australia, but now based on the road, she teaches in-depth workshops, retreats and on international teacher trainings around the world, with a special focus on nada (sound) yoga, somatic and trauma-informed practices.
With a BA in International Development and a Master of Social Work, Mei Lai spent many years working in remote Aboriginal communities running community development programs, before returning to Melbourne to offer psychosocial programs for people seeking asylum.
Mei Lai has trained in somatic-based trauma therapy and counselling, and combined these skills with yoga to deliver individual counselling, group work programs, and specially-tailored yoga programs for asylum seekers, refugees, disadvantaged youth, and people experiencing chronic pain and trauma.
A trained Doula, she is the founder, previous CEO and ongoing board director of Birth for Humankind, a non-profit organisation providing free birth support to women in disadvantaged circumstances.
She is now the director and lead teacher of Yoga for Humankind, a yoga school and social enterprise specialising in trainings in contemporary hatha, trauma-informed and community based yoga. She also offers private sessions in body-focused therapy, primarily via online.
Mei Lai is registered with Yoga Alliance as an E-RYT500 and Continuing Education Provider (YACEP).
Reflections from our students
Chantal Cropp
“Juliette’s style of teaching and sharing yogic wisdom is the most exquisite I’ve ever experienced.
The way she holds the space and the way she uses language transported me effortlessly and pleasurably into a deeper exploration of myself.
Deeper and more profound than any other training I have ever had.”
Lena Ramberg
“Discovering Embodied Flow has been such a profound process, and heading heart first into a teacher training with Juliette offered experiences I could never have imagined.
Her authenticity, warmth, humour, intelligence and curiosity is inspiring and nourishing, a gift of inclusion and love that I wish I could grant every human being on this planet.”
Michelle Cadby
“Yoga teacher training with Juliette is so much more than yoga teacher training, it's a life training.
Juliette opened my eyes to a whole new level of play and curiosity, both on the yoga mat and in everyday life. She is an amazing teacher and a true inspiration; continuously leading by example in ways I find eye opening, inspiring and moving.
I’m so grateful that from the other side of the planet in the UK, I was drawn to join Juliette's YTT in New Zealand!
Tui Kraal
"This training with Awakening Arts was the coming home - the return to myself, I hadn't realised I was craving.
Conversations between parts of myself, and between myself and my surroundings were begun, continued, expanded and deepened.
I felt myself sensing and feeling from new perspectives at all orders of magnitude, and although the intensity of the experience is fading, these new ways of being are impossible to undo.
I now have confidence and tools to continue exploring the multitude of intersecting relationships that are this experience of being Me."