Kia ora, I’m Leith. Originally from Aotearoa NZ (Pakeha), I returned to live in Australia this year after nearly a decade living and working away in different parts of the world. Before I left Victoria, after trying many different types of yoga, I completed my first yoga teacher training across 2012 through SomaChi in Melbourne. Together with Buddhist based meditative practices, this teaching (Soma = alive body, Chi = energy) involved such beautiful, creative and fluid movements that honoured historical lineages while remaining contemporary in its understanding of kinaesthetic movement and sequencing. While living away I often practiced at Jivamukti studios as well as so many others. It always felt like coming home, arriving at a studio in a new city and joining in, regardless of whether the instruction was in English. I practiced all the way through my two pregnancies and post-partum. This served me so well and taught me to be much more humble and kind in my approach. Before returning to live near Mansfield VIC, I was able to reinvigorate my personal and teaching practice through undertaking a second 200hr Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training through Awhi Yoga and Wellbeing in Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington. These months enabled me to focus keenly on the power of the service one can provide through teaching Yoga and learn more about the strong affinities my teacher, Jase Te Patu, sees between Te Ao Māori (Māori worldview) and the historical philosophies underpinning contemporary yoga.
Leith Pierce
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