My Story
From a party-loving city girl to an adventure-mad, horse and yoga devotee.
It all began for me in 2014, when I stumbled upon “hot yoga” while working as a journalist and enjoying a glamourous, city life in Hong Kong.
You should know that I never thought I was flexible enough to practice yoga. But despite being as stiff as a board, I tried it anyway, and quickly realised there was far more to this wonderful ancient practice than downward dog and touching your toes.
It didn’t take long for me to become hooked. Swapping my high heels and glossy handbags for flip flops and a yoga mat, I spent countless hours in the city’s plush studios learning about a range of styles, from Hatha to Yin.
I’d been thinking about teaching yoga for some time, when, in 2018, having left Hong Kong in search of a new adventure, I finally bit the bullet and travelled to India, the home of yoga, to complete an intensive 200-hour Ashtanga-Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training Course in Goa. It was an incredible experience that saw me face my fears and grow in confidence and knowledge. Naturally, I also got to practice in a beach-facing, palm-tree-surrounded yoga shala, while monkeys jumped around in the branches above.
“I never thought I was flexible enough to practice yoga, but I realised there was far more to it than downward dog and touching your toes.”
As for my riding journey, I was on and off horses as a child but reconnected with them in 2016 when I began regular lessons at a riding stables in Hong Kong that took in ex-racehorses. As with yoga, I became so addicted to riding that I would travel two hours (one way) just for a 45-minute lesson. I also helped out at Riding for the Disabled once a week.
By 2018, I had left my desk job in Asia and was having riding lessons back in England, when, inspired by a TV programme about young people abandoning their ordinary lives to pursue their career dreams, I decided to give up looking for journalism roles and find a job working with horses in Argentina. I did my YTTC first, and then took a 16-hour flight across the Atlantic (with little to no Spanish and on a very old plane) to start my new life chapter.
I was dragging a wheelbarrow around the field at the estancia in Buenos Aires one day when I realised how much I’d changed — I’d gone from a party-loving, city girl to an outdoorsy, horse and yoga devotee.
I have since worked with horses in Patagonia, Mozambique, Wyoming, Sardinia, Spain and Egypt, experiencing some incredible rides and adventures and taking my yoga mat with me everywhere. I have also discovered riding out on the trails to be my passion. On my travels, I have cantered through fields and along beaches, ridden bareback through a river and in the sea, trotted through forests, clambered across rocks, trekked over windy peaks, galloped across the desert and persevered in every type of weather, from the baking African sun to Europe's thick mountain snow.
Today, from the comfort of my Cheshire home, I am on a different kind of adventure to bring the things I love together with my very own enterprise: Mat & Saddle Equestrian Yoga. I hope you enjoy it!