Suze believes yoga is key to mind and body wellness, allowing us to discover our true selves and connect to everyone else in a positive way. She discovered yoga’s power to provide a pervading sense of calm in life in 2000, but it was only when dealing with the death of her mum that it became more central to her life. A search for a healing retreat led to teacher training with iFlow Yoga in 2015. She has also completed 300-hour training at the Association for Yoga and Meditation in India. She has a passion for yoga as therapy and feels privileged to be a conduit for others to discover the life-enhancing and healing benefits.
Meet Suze. She is the person who will encourage you to be still, stay in the moment and just ‘be’ at yin yoga. She is also working behind the scenes as the studio administrator. Find out here whether you can trust her with your secrets, and what a licking dog has to do with yoga.
When did you first fall in love with yoga?
My sister had started doing yoga to manage stress and anxiety. She was living in Hong Kong and doing yoga on her rooftop, so once when I visited her, I joined her on her rooftop and never looked back (or should that be ‘down’!). I think yoga becomes less about love and more a necessary and entrenched part of your daily life. Once you discover the deep-seated calm it creates, you HAVE to keep doing it.
How did you end up teaching?
After my mum died I was looking for a healing retreat, and the yoga teacher training in Bali was the only thing I could find in my budget and they made it sound lovely. (It was actually hard work!) I had been working for a regional library service doing marketing and media and before I left work and left for the course we cooked up an idea for some Alice in Wonderland-themed yoga classes as part of the library’s Booklovers’ Festival. So I finished the teacher training in Bali not really sure if I wanted to teach yoga, but there was my face in the Booklovers’ Festival brochure so I was locked in. So I started teaching yoga with these fairly trippy Alice in Wonderland yoga classes.
What is your favourite type of class and why?
I do like teaching all types of yoga, but my favourite type of class would be a very flowy vinyasa class because I think it’s easy to get lost in the flow (Get lost, but find yourself).
What is your funniest teaching moment?
I have two and they both involve animals. I teach a class with a group of mostly vets at a private house. The couple who own the house have a gorgeous Maine Coon cat that hangs about during yoga, but one class during savasana she bit one of the vets on the nose! Not relaxing!
Once, teaching yoga, one of the attendees had tied up her two little dogs outside. During the class, I noticed she had let them into the class, and then during the peaceful final pose of savasana, one of the dogs got loose and proceeded to go around to all the other yogis sniffing AND LICKING their feet. The whole time I was trying to shoo him away from their feet as quietly as I could!
What is your favourite post-class meal?
I don’t really have a favourite post-yoga meal. I eat an inordinate amount of bliss balls (Marisa makes a great bliss ball so highly recommend coming along, or working for her. This is obviously the reason I do studio administration.)
I have been trying out intermittent fasting (16-hour fast/8-hour eating window) and tend to break the fast with a smoothie. (This smoothie I would never foist on anyone else, but it works for me.) It has almond milk, aloe vera juice, avocado, flaxseed, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pepitas, chia seeds, psyllium husk, ashwagandha, cos lettuce leaves, and kale. The secret to making it taste at least a little bit palatable is adding this Nature’s Way Greens Plus powder.
What is the biggest thing you have learned that has changed your life?
I think meditation has been the biggest life-changing thing for me, so I think the biggest thing I have learned that has changed my life is being here, truly, authentically, fully in the present moment.
What is your personal mantra?
Be unattached: Be unattached to outcome (just be in the moment and go with the flow); be unattached to what people think of you.
What is something about you people wouldn’t know?
I used to be a journalist interviewing celebrities for Who Weekly magazine. I know you are now in a conundrum because, well, do you tell me secrets (yoga teachers are very trustworthy) … or not (celebrity journos are not)?
If you would have told me at 16 when I couldn’t touch my toes that I would be teaching yoga at 50, I would have laughed and asked: “What’s yoga?”!
