Louisa’s Yoga Teaching Training journey

If I had told myself one year ago that I would be a qualified yoga teacher and teaching three classes a week I would never have believed myself.

But here’s the amazing thing - that is all now true. After moving overseas with my husband and two small children in 2017 my focus for the first year was on getting us settled. However, I soon realised that once I had taken care of everyone else my own wellbeing was suffering. I had a left behind a corporate career and a friendship group that filled much of my time and life. 

As I began practicing more yoga I was able to build my inner peace and happiness, but the opportunities to get to a class were limited with the commitments of a young family. 

After a chance conversation with a former saigon om alumni, I found out more about saigon om and Sarah and Hang. After jumping on their website and saw they were holding an upcoming yoga teacher training in Ho Chi Minh City I felt this was not a coincidence, so I took the plunge and decided to sign up. Initially, my main goal for joining the program was to gain enough knowledge in yoga to confidently have my own self practice to fit in around my family’s schedule.  Little did I know I would gain far more than that!

Walking into the beautiful Mandala Wellness grounds on my first day of YTT I knew I had made the right decision. Over the course of the next 6 weeks I made incredible friends, learnt an awful lot about yoga and anatomy but perhaps most importantly I learnt even more about myself. Sarah and Hang’s incredibly knowledgeable, warm and inclusive teaching style and carefully structured course gave me the life long gift of mindfulness. I can safely say that mindfulness has changed my life, it has made me a better person, friend, daughter, partner and mother. I am happier, calmer and more peaceful. 

I also realised about two weeks into the course that I wanted to teach yoga. The final section of the program is tailored to support each of us in guiding a class and upon graduation I felt extremely well equipped to head out and share my practice with others.

Looking at my life now a year on I am a different person - happier, healthier and mindful - and a lot of that is entirely down to crossing paths with Sarah and Hang and having the gift of joining their YTT program.