Nina Romijn

Since I started practicing yoga around 2013, the practice has unfolded and blossomed for me in all directions: physical, mental, emotional, social, philosophical, and most of all, an underlying beat and tone to my everyday life. It’s shown me strengths I didn’t know I had, held up a mirror to my mental and behavioural patterns, and challenged me to clear up my perception of reality. I do my best, anyway. I initially came to yoga for its physicality (which I desperately needed at the time as an introverted abstract philosophy nerd), then I got hooked on its rich philosophical wealth and depth, this time without getting seduced by its ascetic roots into romanticised withdrawal from the world. I am currently settling deeper into the fact that yoga and “the rest” of life are not separate spheres - by which I mean, yoga practice is not an antidote or tranquilliser to the stresses of life, or an escape - rather, yoga is a loud and clear call to wake up to reality indiscriminately, and to hold, unite and set free all parts of the self and life.

My teachers are MUDRA Yoga (Demelza Feltham and Helen Gillespie), who I did my 200hr teacher training with in 2017, Dulce Aguilar, who taught me Mandala Methodology in 2018, Demelza Feltham again with Yin teacher training in 2019, and Ty Landrum who I continue to learn mythology and the internal chemistry of yoga from. In 2022 I completed my MsC in Religious Studies, where my work focused on contemporary yoga, with distinction.
Really, the teachers and lessons of yoga are happening continuously outside of these formal trainings and teachers. I learn from cooking food, I learn from my cat, I learn from my friends and lovers, I learn from hiking, running and swimming, I learn from my garden, etcetera, etcetera.

I feel incredibly lucky to be a yoga teacher - it is the best job in the world. In my classes, I hope to create the space for exploration, truth, and the deep relationality and connectedness that I have found through yoga. To me yoga is a big deal - the biggest deal - but it is also the most human thing imaginable. Therefore I don’t consider my teaching formal or dogmatic. It’s playful, it’s encouraging, it’s curious, it’s conversational, and there will be a lot of invitations to chat and work things out together. And also a lot of food based metaphors.