Testimonials

Ulrike Weckes (Yoga Presence Teacher Training Student 2010)

"I was very happy with what I got out of the course when I first completed the Yoga Presence Teacher Training in 2010. But it’s only now, more than a year later that I appreciate how much I truly learned and gained through doing this training.

What Kate and Zara offered continues to inform and enrich my personal practice and my teaching. They created a safe, supportive and vibrant learning environment, encouraging growth on every level. I completed the course connected to a whole new group of teachers and friends and equipped with an abundance of down to earth practice and teaching skills, lesson plans and themes and concepts that I discover anew and flesh out further each time I revisit them, like tending to seeds I planted during those sometimes very intense months and allowing them to take root and blossom.

Participating in the YP teacher training was a genuinely transformative experience for me, the results of which are still unfolding in my life on every level. In my experience, the course delivers everything it promises and much more.

I am very grateful to both Zara and Kate for sharing so generously and compassionately their wisdom, their wealth of knowledge and experience and not least of all their warmth and sense of fun. I highly recommend this training to anyone who loves yoga, anyone who wants to explore and deepen their personal practice and/or their teaching. Enjoy!"

Dan Alder (Yoga Presence Teacher Training Student 2010)

"I chose Yoga Presence teacher training out of many others because it seemed so very comprehensive. The fact that this program is nearly 200 hours longer than it needs to be signalled we would be going deep below the surface in our learning.

To say that all my expectations, wants and needs were surpassed would be an understatement. In fact, it would be all but impossible for me to overstate the knowledge, personal growth and advancement in my yoga practice that I have received from this teacher training.

Kate and Zara, in my eyes, are yang and yin (respectively) and compliment each other perfectly. They each have their own strengths and have a great deal of knowledge and experience to draw from. They teach with all their heart and it really matters to them that they are understood; questions and comments are always invited. Zara and Kate have, from the start, been so much more than teachers – they are mentors and friends.

Yoga Presence teacher training has taken my life and my yoga practice to places I was not aware existed. Without a moments hesitation I recommend this teacher training to anyone."

Tim Mulligan (Yoga Presence Teacher Training Student 2010)

"I thoroughly enjoyed the 2010 Yoga Presence Teacher Training. I learnt so much about yoga and myself. I have learnt a lot which will be invaluable to my yoga practice, yoga teaching and my life."

Michele Martinek (Yoga Presence Teacher Training Student 2010)

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my experience of the Yoga Presence teacher training. I believe the Yoga Presence Teacher Training is unlike any other training available in Australia.

Kate Pell and Zara Matthews each possess an extraordinary wealth of qualifications, yoga experiences and personal practice that allows them to offer a comprehensive, unique training format that covers the Eight Limbs of Yoga and also introduces alternative movement studies and techniques.

The Yoga Presence Teacher Training was highly recommended by fellow teachers at my yoga studio. Initially, I was seeking a locally based, comprehensive training that would cover more than physical asana practice. My first yoga training was an intense 10-week physically demanding training that mainly focused on physical asana and alignment.

After teaching for two years, I realised I needed to learn more yoga techniques such as pranayama, meditation techniques and expand my knowledge and practice of physical yoga asana. I also wanted to understand the subtle energies. My greatest objective was to keep my students safe in the yoga room.

I specifically chose the format of a training that was conducted over a 12-month period. I wanted to savour and enjoy the training and take the time to really practice and embody the work we were doing.

My previous training was based overseas and on returning to Australia to teach I realised how remote I was from the source of the training. I was seeking an Australian teacher training where there would be ongoing support and mentoring past the completion of the course.

Kate Pell is a strong, passionate and competent teacher. Highly dedicated, very prepared and studied. Kate is a straight shooter who won’t waste your time. She is skilled working with injuries and teaching you how to adjust people accordingly, allowing for injury or body type. A great communicator who can clearly and concisely teach all yoga techniques including asana, meditation and pranayama. I enjoyed her honesty, lack of ego, strength coupled with empathy and a great sense of humour that enabled all of us to relax and enjoy the process.

Thank you Kate for sharing your teachings this year. You have given me the skills to take my teaching to a new level. I am more confident and active in the yoga room with my students and have a greater understanding of the yoga poses on a physical and energetic level. I can look at my students and read their bodies more effectively, and adjust them accordingly. I am comforted by the knowledge that I have cared for my students in the yoga room and kept them safe from injury.

Zara Matthews is a professional in every sense of the word. She is ethical, loving, and joyful. Zara’s teachings and experience was exactly what I needed and didn’t realize it at the start of the year! These Self-Study groups were a powerful, life changing process.
Zara facilitated groups in such a way that we turned the mirror upon ourselves and reflected on our own thoughts, actions, words and behaviours, within relationship with others and ourselves. A process like this needs to be facilitated by someone who is highly skilled, qualified and experienced to actively support and guide group participants. Zara steered all of us through this group process with great respect, support and space.

Thank you Zara, this group work allowed me the opportunity and time to work with my thoughts, behaviours and simplify my life. Over the course of the 12 months I gave up over-working, got more rest, became more leisurely and experienced greater fun in life. And as noted by fellow teacher trainees, smiled more often. My personal life is richer, more enjoyable and I am dancing my way forward now.

As a teacher I am now more aware that we must move beyond the physical yoga practice and become more self aware if we wish to reduce and change the actions, thoughts, words and behaviours that lead to our suffering. This suffering brings students into my yoga class. The physical practice relieves the suffering but a more powerful process is for me as a teacher to draw their attention to self-enquiry to change the triggers that cause the suffering in the first place.

Kate’s versatile knowledge of yoga asana and her creative ability to sequence and deliver energetic yoga practices as well as restorative, supported practices expanded my yoga world way beyond anything I could imagine. She has created an appetite in me to learn and study more. I had been restricting my yoga practice to only a strong, flowing energetic practice and now I discovered there was so much more. Previously I had not practiced a sitting meditation or pranayama. I have a really busy mind and was amazed to discover how beneficial meditation and pranayama were. In the past, I hadn’t persisted past a few attempts. With Kate’s guidance and continual support I am now regularly meditating and looking forward to more pranayama practice.

Due to the commitments of the teacher training I rarely practiced at my studio throughout the year and was concerned that my personal practice would be affected. Strangely enough, the work I did with Kate and Zara, was much more powerful, deep work. When I did return to my studio to practice I was amazed at what I could do that previously I could not do.

Kate taught physical asana alignment techniques, as we studied human movement patterns and associated techniques with Zara. This body of work, which included elements of Body Mind Centering, was so different to anything I have ever done. At times I found it challenging because I had to relax and feel, it involved a lot of work, which was foreign to me. This work had a dramatic effect on my yoga practice and on me. Kate and Zara taught us how to review our state of over-doing, working with only muscle and bone and to just be, to feel, to sense, to practice our yoga moment by moment.

Kate and Zara actively supported all of the trainees throughout the year. They personally delivered the course and were with us every step of the way through the training. They were available night and day to support us through life’s pains by actively listening and encouraging us along the way. Yoga teacher trainings can be expensive and therefore the knowledge that you will be delivered a highly, professional course that ticks all the boxes, is essential. The flexible payment plan, which allowed us to pay term by term was very convenient and reduced the financial load.

I thoroughly enjoyed the course and would highly recommend it. I discovered the true essence of my yoga and myself.