Lawyer Inspired to Make a Career Change

New trainee Yoga Sports Coach™, Natalie Gerrard explains what inspired her to join the Yoga Sports Science team.

I am now only a few days away from the start of something very exciting! I found yoga 15 years ago whilst working full time as a legal secretary and studying part time to become a property lawyer. I suffered from the usual aches and pains associated with spending far too much time at a desk – lower back pain, tension in my upper back, shoulders and neck, frequent headaches.

Yoga was my medication to what was a fairly stressful existence. Fast forward several years and two kids later, and my legal career is a previous life away. I am now a yoga teacher providing my students with the tools and techniques to enable them to deal with a life which often moves too fast.

I met YSS Founder, Hayley Winter in her capacity as tutor whilst I was training to become a yoga teacher at Cam Yoga in Cambridge, and immediately felt inspired by her lectures. I filed the existence of ‘Yoga Sports Science’ away and decided that once I had settled into my new teaching role YSS would be something which I would most certainly revisit.

A year into my teaching career and I have the pleasure of working with some wonderful students some of whom also run, play football, and practice karate etc. as well as practice yoga. One in particular, a man in his twenties who plays football regularly, has told me that he is now “a changed man”, his game has improved and he feels more “balanced” out on the pitch, and he often enthuses to his teammates about the benefits of yoga. I can now clearly see that there is a place for yoga in the world of sport.

The human body is an amazing thing but requires constant maintenance to be kept at its best, and I believe that is what yoga can provide. If you have a body which is already doing pretty well, as with an athlete, but needs fine tuning to find that extra little something, then I believe that is what Sports-Specific Yoga can provide.

With more and more athletes owing their improved performance and/or the longevity of their career to their yoga practice, I feel that it is an exciting time to train as a Yoga Sports CoachTM and that is why I have decided to take the plunge and join Yoga Sports Science. The course starts in just a few days and so here I am eagerly awaiting the start of something which I believe will be really quite special!