About

My name is Gemma Mullins. This journey with yoga began in the UK in 1997. After experiencing panic attacks, depression and agoraphobia; my mother had given me a Yoga book from the library. As a competitive gymnast, the forms came easily to me but something happened that I wasn't expecting. I began to notice that these poses made me 'feel' a certain way after doing them and I wanted to understand why. The discipline of gymnastics had always encouraged me to push through pain, to train harder, to be the best. Yoga, on the other hand, taught me how to challenge myself physically whilst being more respectful of my limitations. Over time, Yoga was a fundamental part in my recovery from addictive and self-destructive behaviours and also helped me to close the door on using daily medication for asthma.

I emigrated to New Zealand in 2007 and was lucky enough to find Ashram Yoga. I began my teaching journey in 2008 and continued my studies with them over the next decade, completing Ashram Yoga’s Teacher Training Programs; Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Yoga Nidra Level 1 and 2 and also their Natal Yoga Training Program. In March 2014, I added Postnatal Yoga and Mums and Bub's Yoga Training to my toolkit through Bliss Baby Yoga. And in 2015 and 2016 studied the anatomy and facilitation of Yin Yoga under the tuition of Markus Henning Giess and Karin Sang of Yin Therapy.

In January 2019, I experienced a fall which resulted in a lower back injury. A challenging and humbling year, learning how to balance student's needs with that of my own. It was an invitation to know that I am not my body or it’s pain. The silver lining was that I now have much more awareness of how to share yoga with people who are working through injuries or permanent limitations.

These days I am mostly inspired and influenced by movement teachers and body workers like Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Kerry Castell-Spence. Their work emphasizes the importance of movement and position arising from the inner plane, a bodily impulse, an intuitive knowing rather than imposing externalised, prescriptive forms onto another person's anatomy. In this 'model' each practice is approached in the spirit of innocence and inquiry rather than the need to complete or achieve.