Our yoga journey
Hi, and a warm welcome. We have been running Yoga at the Mill for twelve years; and our retreat business, Satvada Retreats, for the past 17 years. Run by Lucia, an ex-journalist, and Darren, a software engineers, we discovered yoga whilst living in East London. With stressful jobs (in journalism and software respectively) yoga offered a non-competitive, holistic way to nurturing our physical and mental wellbeing - and a much-needed sanctuary from everyday stresses. It was a wonderful surprise to find that it was also so enjoyable!
Over the years, and under a range of different teachers, we dabbled in different approaches to yoga (Iyengar, Ashtanga, Hatha, Yin, Vinyasa Flow and Scaravelli) with a deep interest in mindfulness meditation proving life-changing, and coming later.
After ten years of practice Lucia took a leap of faith with a 200-hour teacher training in California, followed by other immersive teacher training and a two-year postgraduate diploma in mindfulness based approaches. Darren gained his 200 hour teacher training at the highly rated Yoga Campus in London.
This experience in wildly differing approaches to yoga and meditation was instrumental in knowing what we personally liked about how to practice and teach these disciplines (hopefully with depth, inclusivity and sensitivity) - and equally important, what we felt did not work so well: in our mind, huge, impersonal groups, a rushed pace and even on occasions being mentally or physically pushed into postures.
Yoga is always personal, but we hope these myriad of different yoga and meditation experiences have helped made our business and community what it is today.
Looking after mind and body
Now in our eleventh year at Moulsham Mill, and having survived the pandemic, we are proud known for our personal, relaxed, friendly approach, and for the consistently high standard of teaching, delivered with sensitivity, integrity and depth; as well as of course with deep knowledge. Our approach to teaching meditation is similarly undogmatic and nourishing - and always secular.
We are sticklers for detail: our specialist classes and workshops are always led by teachers who have invested in relevant training. These areas include yoga nidra (a particular form of deep guided relaxation), restorative yoga and mindfulness. Underlying all this is a simple, heartfelt ethos of yoga and mindfulness as transformative self-care. We’d love for you to dive in and see what you think.
What now?
To view our in-studio yoga schedule go here.
To view our live streamed yoga schedule go here.
To view our mindfulness schedule go here.
““At Yoga at the Mill, I can park all stresses and tensions at the door and leave feeling centred, relaxed and happy. Classes are small and very friendly with all levels working to their own ability or needs for the day. The combination of meditation, mindfulness and yoga in classes I attend is an elixir for daily life. Teachers are professional, approachable and fun and The Mill environment is very special and intimate whilst being in the centre of Chelmsford.” ”