The YHM Team
Yoga and Movement Trainings since 2014
Our Mission
To offer in-depth training in movement and health. All of our courses have a solid foundation in anatomy and physiology combined with the latest fascial research to create optimum conditions for health. The tools used are a combination of Scaravelli inspired yoga, Qigong, resistance and mobility training with a strong emphasis on self-enquiry.
Workshops, experiential immersions, CPD courses, individual mentoring, yoga teacher training and retreats. Between us, we have 60+ years teaching experience.
How We Met
Steve, Helen and Ru met in the mid 90’s at the white owl sweat lodge in Sussex, where Steve was leading traditional ‘Temascal’. We synchronistically reconnected in Goa, India and in 2014 the YHM team came into being where we decided to develop an Immersive course encapsulating our varying backgrounds in movement. We combined our experience of yoga in the spirit of Vanda Scaravelli, bodywork, sound therapy, martial arts, and rehabilitation into a transformational journey. We had the pleasure of hosting our trainings In Goa for 7 wonderful years, and after a 3 year pause, find ourselves in Greece. We now offer short retreats in the Peloponnese and our new 3 week Immersion in Lesvos.
Helen Noakes
Helen (registered with the YTT as yoga elder) is a nomadic teacher inspired by the teachings and students of Vanda Scaravelli with Elizabeth Pauncz (one of Vanda’s students) as her mentor and guide. Helen also offers training’s in Chavutti Thirumal (massage by foot pressure) which has a strong influence on her teaching style.
Goa has been Helen’s second home for many years, as well as enjoying leading yoga seminars, teacher training’s and intensives in Europe, India and the USA. She is passionate about spontaneous, intuitive movement in the form of waves and spirals and includes her love of improvisational movement and the influence of GAGA into her teaching.
Helen’s aim is to invite a lightness of being and joy to our movement practice and to encourage others to listen and respond to natural inner impulses. Scaravelli-inspired yoga has no methods or set sequences. This approach encourages the practitioner to create a strong relationship to the ground, the breath and to awakening the spine.
Rupert Johnson
Rupert (registered with the YTT as a yoga elder), teaches Yoga, Qigong and Kung Fu and is a long term practitioner of Shamanic Healing in the Toltec tradition. He facilitates movement and meditation retreats and co-created the Shala 142 retreat space in Goa dedicated to music and the healing arts. He also combines body-work with sound vibration for individuals and also in groups. In addition to a personal teaching practice, he offers yoga training with the Yoga Health Mandala.
Steve Bracken
Steve is a sports therapist specialising in musco-skeletal pain and dysfunction plus the correction of dysfunctional movement patterns. Before this he has been a martial arts instructor, personal trainer, yoga and anatomy teacher.
In his work Steve aims to ease pain and discomfort in the body by alleviating the root cause of the issue and to give people the tools to do this for themselves.