Movement has always been important to Cecilia Ho. The Yoga Alliance 500 RYT Certified International Yoga Teacher and Reiki Master will be running workshops alongside her regular yoga classes at Custom Lane beginning in June. Cecilia first started yoga while training for a marathon, and while originally drawn to the physical aspects of yoga as a way to recover from running, she found that it quickly blossomed into a spiritual and mindful practice as well. Before ever attending a structured yoga class, yoga breathing techniques, specifically ujjayi breath, helped her to feel more centred and grounded, especially important as she was studying a full-time masters, working in a coffee shop and undertaking a research project.
From Scotland to Melbourne, Australia, Cecilia attended a yoga studio for the first time in order to find a sense of community. For anyone who’s ever been to Melbourne, you’ll know it as a place truly enamoured with yoga. Cecilia describes her first moment of true connection to the practice and others: “Halfway through the class I’m in warrior three, (which, for the uninitiated, is a balanced pose on one leg, the other leg extended behind you and your arms outstretched in front, making a T shape), and my legs are shaking uncontrollably. And the teacher tells the class to relax our jaws. Oh,” remembers Cecilia, “I did have my jaw clenched. How did he know?” Experiencing someone previously unknown to her, recognise the sensations happening within her body sparked her interest.
Cecilia is a Reiki Master and Yoga Teacher offering holistic wellness services for 8 years with a self-practice spanning 14. She provides a safe space, gentle encouragement and practical guidance to connect with the power of the simple and sacred within you.
It wasn’t only the difficult movement-based aspect that intrigued her, either. She felt a deep peace and relaxation during shavasana, the final portion of a yoga class where you lie perfectly still on your back in a restorative pose. This feeling will be familiar if you have ever taken one of Cecilia’s classes; she has a distinct way of making participants feel truly relaxed, partially through exhaustion after being challenged throughout the class, but, more importantly, by creating a space that feels safe enough to let your guard down.
Mindfulness and intentionality are two concepts that can be difficult to put into practice: although there are scores of apps and articles available, for many of us, it is overwhelming to filter through what might be truly useful or necessary. However, Cecilia describes the mindful aspect of yoga in simple terms. To her, it’s a sense of coming home to yourself and learning to trust ourselves. “One of the most important things that yoga gives us,” she explains “is self-trust to do what we feel we need and to stop self-censoring.” She describes self-censorship as the act of constantly asking ourselves what we should or could have done differently, instead of accepting ourselves for who we are at any given time.
After three years of attending regular yoga classes, Cecilia decided to undertake teacher training, initially as a way of learning and deepening her personal yoga practice. “I had this very strong identity as a rational non-woo-woo person. Nobody knew I was doing it [taking teacher training] . . . the more I practiced and learned, the better I felt about myself, the clearer my vision became about myself and others, and the stronger my connection was with everyone I came across. I had probably been quite disconnected for a while and doing that yoga teacher training helped me be more consistently mutual in my interactions rather than guarded. And I felt that this is an amazing thing, even if I can offer a moment’s respite from someone’s mind.”
This deepening of her philosophical connection to yoga led Cecilia to quit her job in the tech industry and sever some unhealthy personal relationships. From there, her work in the yoga world snowballed into teaching classes, co-owning two studios in Berlin that hosted a collective of freelancers working in the holistic wellness space, and starting Channel 22, an online platform to connect like-minded individuals interested in yoga and energy healing.
Now back in her native Scotland, Cecilia is focusing on building community through teaching classes, workshops and expanding her online presence. She teaches a weekly vinyasa class at Custom Lane; and beginning in June, Custom Lane will host Cecilia’s series of workshops with an emphasis on seasonality. Each one will be timed with the shifting of the seasons, as people are starting to feel a natural shift in energy and weather. Through meditation, physical movement and sound healing, Cecilia hopes to promote letting go of the past season and ushering in renewal, “My hope is that through these workshops people can take away one or two tools for themselves that they can use in their own lives. And you don’t have to do yoga or meditate for half an hour a day. It’s more about taking the time out to experience things that arm each person’s inventory.” A personal inventory of tools that, Cecilia hopes, helps us to come home to ourselves and identify what our minds and bodies truly need in the upcoming seasonal shift.