You can find our bios below but we guess you are here because what you really want to know is why you should spend your money on our course? Fair enough.

Well, we can guarantee you that you are going away with way more information and practical tips than you paid for. We know this because we are course junkies and understand what it feels like to learn from inspiring trainings and...we also remember how it is to be on a crap one!

We are lucky to have met (and still have) some great teachers in our lives. When it comes to yoga, we are particularly grateful to Madelaine Heinemann, Nirilipta & Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, Norman Blair, Cecily Milne, Kathryn Bruni-Young & Jenni Rawlings.

Our other online home is here, where you can read more about us and our TCM clinical practice.

GIUSI PEZZOTTA

It all began when I was in my late teens and I had a few health challenges. One day, at a whim I picked up in a large Italian supermarket (no fancy self help bookstores then), a shiatsu book and practiced a self massage routine. The following day I learnt that vigorously pummelling my lung and large intestine channels (meridians) had physical effects. It didn’t feel great at first but was thrilled nevertheless. I had concrete proof. The seed was planted.

That seed would have to wait for a few years to sprout. Grief can be a profound teacher and stirred me back on the health path in my mid 20’s. I never actually ended up studying shiatsu but in 2005 landed in Thailand where my bodywork learning began. I’ve been working with people’s health ever since.

London was my home for many years. I was blessed with fantastic learning and professional opportunities including a Chinese medicine degree and master and working in some of the most established clinics in London.

During those London years yoga classes were always a companion… and then (almost on a whim) I decided to join Rebecca on a TTC while travelling in Asia. I always had a secret desire to be on one but dismissed the idea mainly because of my hang ups on what I felt a yoga teacher should look like. Well… it turned out that I enjoyed teaching yoga way more than I ever thought. More TTCs followed and with that other powerful ways to help the people I work with.

What Yoga (& Ayuveda) and Chinese medicine have in common is the basic concept of the interconnectedness of all life. The environment we live in, seasonal changes, what we eat, the people we spend time with as well as the constitution we are born with, all have an impact on our health.

Finding out about this ‘invisible web’ that connects us, not just to the environment but also to each other, and ways we can work with it to live life fully, was the real gift of yoga and Chinese medicine.

I live what some might consider a bit of an unconventional life. I love quiet early mornings and I tend to chase the sun. Some say I don’t look that Italian… I think it’s because I tend to have more good days than bad ones!

I currently have one foot in the UK and one venturing in Portugal… I dream of a small self sufficient quinta and winter visits to Asia… the sun, you see!

REBECCA ELLIS

Hi I’m Rebecca! When I get asked what I do for a living...well, it can be a conversation maker or killer! I offer so much more than sticking needles into people, let me elaborate....

I’m a qualified Chinese medicine practitioner, acupuncturist, Bowen & bodywork therapist, yoga teacher, mover & shaker and if you haven’t worked it out yet...a life long learner!

I have always believed that we have within us all that we need; sometimes we just need some prompts to access our resources. My experience is that Chinese medicine and yoga are incredibly effective instruments to facilitate this. They offer accessible and practical ways to understand ourselves and our place in this world. The journey towards ‘health’ is individual and one that’s not just about feeling well and being free from pain.

It’s with this in mind that I started looking into what I really wanted to do with my life and after a few wrong turns and dead ends, in 2009 I graduated with a degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. During my first few years working as an acupuncturist, I was taken under the wings of an incredibly skilled, interdisciplinary team specialising in chronic pain. This is where I began my further trainings to build the tools in my skill box. It was an eye opener into the complexity of health and disease and where my desire to learn more about people got fuelled.

I’ve gained most of my clinical experience in London: Harley Street fertility clinics, co-ran a radical multi-bed acupuncture project and volunteered in a busy hospice assisting with end of life care. I've also undertaken a post graduate scholarship in China and worked in community clinics in the foothills of rural Nepal.

And yoga?…well I’ve been teaching for over fifteen years so going from years of yoga practice to teaching was a natural progression. As a result of my clinical experience, I began to explore the more therapeutic side of yoga & movement practices. I have some equally eclectic experiences of teaching yoga under my belt: from a Thai Vipassana meditation centre, to leading Yoga therapy TTC’s in south India!

Before all of the above, I was working within the world of health and outdoor education and I continue to be involved in surf lifesaving and professional water safety. Can’t get the sea out of the girl!

I’m also an avid allotment owner, L plate forager, Taiji voyager, incredibly blessed wife and daughter, prone paddle boarder, wild dipper, content rambler & global trotter!