Good Life Yoga School was established by Hannah and Marcus to offer a training where tradition is respected, but a firm grounding in science and anatomy is integral.
We believe yoga should be accessible for all: physically, socially and financially, so all of our trainings have scholarship and bursary places available.
Hannah
Hannah is a History graduate, dancer, musician and writer turned yoga teacher, with particular interest in music’s impact on the brain, and how embodied practices can ease anxiety, trauma and mental health.
After a post-grad at the Royal Academy of Music, Hannah worked in theatre and the pop world before training in Ashtanga Vinyasa, the Rocket, Yin, Qigong, Embodied Yoga Principles and the neuroscience of mental health. When she is not teaching, she still works as a writer, and is mid-training to become an integrative psychotherapist.
Marcus
Marcus is a Philosophy graduate and ex-musician turned DJ turned yoga teacher, having trained in Ashtanga Vinyasa, the Rocket, yin, and completed Jason Crandell’s 300 hour advanced programme.
Both Marcus and Hannah teach vinyasa to a steady beat (4Beat), so that breath and movement are in sync and always regular, helping maintain flow-state, meditation, and keeping the nervous system in check.
These days Marcus likes to incorporate different movement modalities into the traditional yogic form, with influences from Jiujitsu, Capoeira and FRC (functional range conditioning), but the overarching intention is always to find meditation in the movement by tuning the breath into the beat.
Key Teachers
Elodie
Osteopath, lecturer and yoga teacher Elodie leads the anatomy hours of our foundation course.
Elodie wasn’t always a mover: it took the whole of 18 months before she decided it might be interesting to see what happened on the other side of the room, and therefore get up and walk! Since then, however, there has been no looking back. Moving to the UK from her native France to train as a contemporary dancer, she discovered yoga for its physical benefits, and eventually fell in love with the wider practice in all its variety, adaptability, physicality and spirituality.
Elodie is the Exercise and Rehabilitation Lead for the M.Ost at the UCO School of Osteopathy, part of HSU. She also lectures technique to the part time students on this course, and tutors in the student clinic.
Cecilia
Immunologist, behaviour change specialist and yoga teacher Cecilia leads lectures on the nervous system on our foundation course and on the Yin & Mindfulness course. She is also our Senior Assistant for the foundation course.
Cecilia wears many hats: scientist, researcher, writer, editor, science communicator, behaviour change specialist, yogi, sewist, knitter and aspiring poet. She has a PhD in Immunology and an MSc in Science Communication, and somewhere in the midst of that she discovered yoga.
Since her first 200hr training in Hatha & Vinyasa flow, she has trained in Yin Yoga, Yoga Nidra, pranayama, meditation and Rocket Yoga. If you are interested in how yoga affects our health and wellbeing (and the science behind how it all works), check out her blog at geeky.yoga .
Fiona
Lawyer, disability advocate and bionic yoga teacher, Fiona leads sessions on accessibility for our foundation course, and co-teachers advanced trainings in Rocket.
Fiona discovered Yoga back in 2014 on a sweltering hot day in Hong Kong when she was on maternity leave from her job as a litigation lawyer after having had her second baby in as many years. When she struggled not to pick up her phone as it started ringing during the class (to her now horror when she looks back on it!), Fiona started to realise that Yoga might be beneficial for her in more than just a physical way.
Fiona got addicted to her Yoga practice fairly fast in true Type A lawyer style and went on to complete her first teacher training in Hong Kong in 2018. Since then Fiona has done advanced trainings with Patrick Creelman, Jason Crandell, Marcus Veda and Hannah Whittingham. She teaches Rocket Inspired 4 Beat Vinyasa to music and her classes focus on finding stillness and focus through the breath and proper alignment in the poses for every body. Fiona also teaches Yin, which has taught her to soften a lot in her practice over the years and to sit still with herself more.
Fiona is a right below the knee amputee, having lost her leg in the Asian Tsunami of 2004. Her Yoga practice has had a huge impact on her physically, showing her directly through her body every day that her limitations are always much more mental than physical. It has also gradually helped her over the years to recognise and then deal with the trauma that she suffered as a result of her injuries. Fiona aims in her classes to teach her students to understand how to apply their Yoga practice to their lives to empower themselves to challenge any perceived limitations that they might have and invoke a sense of possibility, joy, and fun, so that both they and those around them can benefit from their practice.
