Emma Peel

All Teachers

The practice of feeling

Approach

At the heart of Emma's teaching is a functional approach to Yoga, recognising the individuality of every body. Through anatomy and the intelligent adaptation of postures, she helps students practise safely while making the internal experience accessible. The body is where we experience life, and the body is where we begin. As attention turns inward, physical sensation opens into an exploration of breath, Qi, emotion and mind. Emma encourages students to follow these experiences with curiosity, discovering how a posture lives within their own body. For Emma, alignment is not simply the arrangement of the body, but an internal experience. The emphasis is on how we practise - with steadiness of effort, attention and a continual realignment with the present moment.

“Our approach is about what I can feel. And that turns out to be everything.”

Early years

As a child, long before she knew of meditation, Emma would sit quietly, legs crossed and her spine buoyant. When her mother asked what she was doing, she would reply, “Thinking.” A few years later, an old Yoga book introduced her to Yoga postures and a familiar feeling that she had never quite known how to return to.

That curiosity stayed with her as life unfolded, leading to her first Yoga teacher training in 2011. In 2014, she discovered Yin Yoga, a practice that brought together the stillness she had known as a child and the inner experience she had first encountered through Asana. It was a meeting of two familiar experiences that would profoundly shape her teaching.

Training & influences

Emma's practice has developed through a continuing enquiry into the relationship between the physical body and our inner experience. Returning to study with Paul and Suzee Grilley over many years, she has deepened her understanding of functional anatomy and how the individuality of our bodies shapes what we feel in practice. Their teaching continues to inform her approach, where postures are adapted to the person rather than the person to the posture.

Her studies in meditation, pranayama, Daoist practices and Chinese Medicine have opened further ways of exploring the relationship between body, Qi, emotion and mind. Meditation has deepened her understanding of attention, while acupuncture and Tui Na have brought another dimension to her work with the body. Rather than treating these as separate subjects, Emma is interested in where they meet and what becomes possible through direct experience.

Teaching today

With over 5,000 hours of teaching experience, Emma teaches classes, workshops, retreats and teacher training across the UK and internationally. She is the founder of The Five Movements School of Yoga, bringing together Yin and Yang Yoga, meditation, pranayama and Chinese Medicine through an approach rooted in direct experience. At The Shala School, she will lead the five-day Yin Yoga Teacher Training, sharing a functional and experiential approach to the practice.

Alongside her teaching, Emma works as an acupuncturist and Tui Na practitioner. Her clinical practice informs her teaching through an ongoing understanding of individual needs, the body and the ways people respond to practice.

Specialisms

Yin Yoga · Functional Anatomy · Chinese Medicine · Yin Yang Daoist Yoga · Meditation & Pranayama · Teacher Training · Acupuncture & Tui Na