The AdventureYogi team
Michelle King
BA ITEC APNT
Michelle King is the co-founder of AdventureYogi. She began this way of life when she spent her winters in the Italian and French Alps, and her summers in Sardinia, working in the tourism industry managing chalets in Chamonix and villas in Sardinia. She then moved to Japan to pursue her passion of snowboarding in the Japanese Alps and this is where her interest in natural health, healing and yoga began.
The education she gained in Japan inspired her to return to England to study massage, nutrition and yoga. She is now trained in Holistic massage, Sports massage, Indian head massage, Thai foot massage and Natural Face lift massage. She specialises in Sports and Deep Tissue massage and works from The Berkeley Centre, Clifton, Bristol and from home with private clients.
She has practised yoga for 9 years and qualified as a Sivananda Yoga Teacher in 2009. She is currently teaching yoga in Bristol and is building up her teaching experience with further teacher training courses and will begin teaching on AdventueYogi retreats soon. On the holidays she is on hand to guide you to the right mountain or whichever watersports is a curiosity or passion for you and in the down time will help relax and recharge you with her wonderful healing hands.
Claire Hamilton
BSc MBAcC
Claire Hamilton, co-founder of Adventure Yogi Holidays started her love of travel and interest of health in India. After finishing her Psychology degree in 1999 she studied diet, yoga & massage in the Himalayas, which turned out to be the first step towards a career in complementary medicine. Inspired by the Eastern philosophy of health, she went on to spend 3 years studying Acupuncture. Since completing her training she has spent the last 5 years combining all her skills by practicing Acupuncture at The Berkeley Centre in Bristol and at The Westover in London. She is now embarking on her Yoga Teacher training with The Life Centre in London. She feels that this will be life changing experience and invaluable additional knowledge to share with her patients. And one day she hopes to teach on AdventureYogi retreats!
She is passionate about the importance of vitality & balance to improve one’s enjoyment of life; not to mention her love of adventure, exploring the world & seeing different horizons. Claire will be on hand to give rebalancing Acupuncture sessions and most importantly will be cooking up fantastic, health fortifying food.
Yoga Teachers
Laura Gilmore
Laura Gilmore has practiced yoga for 20 years now- since her teens. Laura has taught since 2001 and is qualified by Yoga Alliance (Ashtanga/ Hatha yoga), Birthlight (Pregnancy Yoga), Sitaram partnership (Postnatal/ children yoga) and has done further training through the Life centre (Ayurveda). From her very first class she felt the opportunity to “come home” to her body and otherwise busy mind! This sense of bringing an inner spaciousness and ease is what she hopes to share with her students.
Laura has journeyed across a range of yoga traditions with many of the world’s most experienced and respected teachers- she has studied Iyengar, Hatha and Ashtanga yoga in both the UK and in India. She continues to attend retreats and workshops regularly but also knows that ultimately this is a personal practice- she encourages students to find their innate wisdom to become their own life guide and teacher.
She is able to bring the teachings of yoga alive to new students and she can also guide experienced practitioners. Laura integrates meditation, simple breath-practices and yogic principles into her retreats. She teaches with a warmth and humour that brings many students back year after year.
Tara Walsh
Tara is a qualified Iyengar teacher and has been teaching since 2005. She has trained in India as well as the UK, working with a variety of senior teachers as well as Geeta Iyengar herself. Before she became a yoga teacher Tara was involved in the performance arts, founding a collaborative theatre company in Bristol, making pieces for stage and alternative venues. She brings joy and warmth into her teaching, and a deep desire to help people come into a more harmonious relationship with their bodies and minds. She is passionate about health and well-being, and creates a supportive and safe space for people to relax, release and practice.
Gillian Hurst
Gill’s Yoga teaching has its roots in the Hatha and Astanga traditions.She began a degree in 1995 in Physiotherapy with a view to gaining a deeper understanding of the human body and the western science and medicine around it. She later developed and interest in our health and existence that extend beyond the lines of western scientific models and began to study Yoga as a science, a philosophy, an art and a way of life. She is Guided daily by her self-practices and extensive studies and regularly works with her teachers Richard Freeman and Sharath Rangaswamy.
Gill Currently works at YogaSara and The Berkely Centre in Bristol. She also teaches anatomy and physiology on Yoga teacher training courses in London and Bristol and continues to thoroughly enjoy her work as a musculoskeletal Physiotherapist. Having worked as a Physiotherapist on the slopes of New Zealand and visited the Alps annually for boarding over the last few years, Gill is looking forward to her first year of working with the team and teaching amidst such beautiful surroundings.
Cae Ellison
began her yoga journey 9 years ago and in that time has developed her own unique style. Experimenting with Iyengar and Hatha Yoga she began Asthanga yoga 8 years ago and never looked back. This journey of exploration into her own body and personal well-being took her to Mysore, India to learn Asthanga yoga under the founder Pathabi Jois. After further deepening of her own practice with Kundalini yoga and Shadow yoga she decided to consolidate her years of experience in training to be a Yoga Teacher at the Nosara Institute in Costa Rica with Dom and Amba Stapleton. Now qualified in Interdisciplinary yoga, this gives Cae the opportunity to embrace all forms of yoga creating her own unique style, though broadly basing it on Asthanga and vinyasa flow sequences. Cae teaches Yoga in Bristol and has also begun teaching partner yoga.
