Lou

I set up the BodyMind Studio as Community Interest Company. This means we are a not-for-profit organisation that ploughs any profits back into the business to support the communities we work with. I champion equality across race, class and gender.

In line with my vision for social inclusion, the studio works with diverse groups and individuals and welcomes in particular, those for whom yoga may bring the greatest benefits but who often face the greatest barriers to accessing it. The studio is trauma sensitive and person-centred.

The organisation has changed since its formation in 2016. I had graduated from Bikram Yoga teacher training one year before and took the plunge with my own studio. A couple of years later, I expanded my yoga knowledge with comprehensive training with Yoga Scotland.

This training showed me another way to teach, using invitational rather than command-based language. Further courses around addiction and trauma led to initial understandings around neuroscience. I began forming partnerships with support organisations.

We currently deliver Y12SR to Phoenix Futures Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Service, Trauma Sensitive Yoga to Glasgow Women's (GWA) Aid and Rape Crisis, as well as projects for young female survivors of sexual abuse, including the Rosey Project.

As well those in recovery from addiction and survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, we work with many black and minority ethnic (BAME) yoga participants through GWA and the new mums at Amma Birth Companions, many of whom have refugee status, or are seeking asylum.

My latest (pending) diploma in Trauma Centre Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) has provided the knowledge required to deepen my trauma yoga teaching practice and work one-to-one work with those who require it. I hope to begin a new phase of academic research on trauma.

Five years on, there are two sides to the BodyMind Studio: our regulated work with vulnerable adults and marginalised individuals; and our regular work with students who practice our intensive hot workouts, Bikram Yoga and Inferno Hot Pilates, at our studio, Hot Yoga West End.