You Know What you Want

You may have some discomfort in your body and you’re looking for a way to deal with it. Or maybe you’re looking for an embodied movement practice that will give you a deeper connection with yourself.  Perhaps you have a strong/yang type movement practice already and you’re looking for a more ‘yin’ approach. Possibly, you have heard of this term ‘Somatics’ and you want to know what it is all about.  Or you are already a movement teacher and you want to add Somatics to your existing knowledge base and skill-set.

We can help you achieve it!

If it is learning to release tension and tightness in your body, or how to improve your range of movement and flexibility so you can do the things you love doing, we can help with that.

If you’re looking for classes or ‘playshops’ to compliment an exisiting moving practice, you are in the right place!

If it is learning to teach others how to move more effectively, look no further!

Why Choose Radiant Star Yoga?

We have worked together for over a decade. And we have shared the ‘Joy of Movement’ with hundreds, if not thousands, of people.  We want to help you find the pleasure and joy that exists in sensing your and moving your own body!

We are really passionate about what we do and we’d like to help you expel any myths you might hold about movement and age, about movement and labels you may have been given, and about movement and pleasure.

Our Story

We met after we had each spent 10 years living independently, immersed in self exploration. We combined our skills and talents, registered a UK-based company, and set off on a journey to live a life we really loved!

Amanda: “I had been a secondary school Teacher of English for 8 years when we met, and for the previous 11 years, a committed member of a meditation organisation, practising and teaching Raja Yoga Meditation and making yearly trips to India. I had also been teaching Nia (a somatic dance/movement technique) for a year and really wanted to do more of it, but couldn’t work out how.

Meeting David, with his ideas for a Social Enterprise, and connections with community groups in Leeds, gave me a way of doing more of what I loved.  With David’s previous experience of being a Nurse, Counselor and Trainer and mine of teaching groups of children and adults, we soon learnt from each other and taught Nia in a wide variety of settings: community groups for the elderly (Pakstani, Bangladeshi, Sikh, Hindu, Irish), groups for Adults with Learning Disabilities, After School Clubs, NHS staff, Visually Impaired, Mental Health Support groups….as well as having regular evening classes in local areas of Sheffield and Leeds.

We were both trained in The Nia Technique when we met, and together we took further training, up to the level of Black Belt. In addition to this dance based technique, we also trained as Nia 5 Stages teachers: a floor-based somatic approach to movement using the developmental stages of ‘embryo to walking’.  Later on, we trained in Aerial Yoga and founded Aerial Yoga Leeds, teaching regular classes and beginners workshops for over 4 years.

It was David who initially had the interest in Somatics as a separate field of study. After much research he collaborated with Martha Peterson of Essential Somatics and organised the first group training in Leeds. It was only when I went to help out as a practice student on the course that I fully recognised how powerful Somatics was.”

David: “Where Amanda seemed to relish the ‘dance arts’ in Nia, I was fascinated by the ‘healing arts’: Yoga, The Alexander Technique and the work of Moshe Feldenkrais. It was through this that I discovered Thomas Hanna’s work and subsequently Essential Somatics.

A few years previously, a bike accident had led me to be hospitalised and needing to re-learn how to walk. By the time I trained in Nia I had regained basic functioning, but Somatics began to fill in many sensory-motor gaps so that I could be fully connected to my nervous system once again.

After my initial training as a Somatic Movement Coach, I began to work 1:1 with people which showed me just what Somatics was capable of doing. This led to me train for another 3 years to become a certified Clinical Somatic Educator (CSE).

Training other teachers became a natural next step for myself and Amanda, and for the last 5 years we have been leading trainings in both the UK and Goa, India so that this body of work can be shared throughout the world of movement”

Qualifications

David

Gentle Somatic Yoga Teacher (Levels 1, 2 & 3)
Clinical Somatic Educator (Essential Somatics)
Somatic Movement Coach (Level 1)
Aerial Yoga Teacher
Nia Teacher – Black Belt
Pranayam Training (Patanjali Yogpeeth)
NLP Master Practitioner