The Chichester yoga teacher with a new venture to share the benefits of the practice

It is something that yoga teacher Heather Leary, 36, recognises and is looking to combat with her new venture The Real Yoga Club.

“Yoga is about each individual and if you can find a practice that works for you it can be so magical,” she said.

“Walking into a yoga studio is intimidating. It’s intimidating to do yoga. It’s even more intimidating if you are a newbie. My mission really is to get people discovering yoga.”

Heather credits her mum with her discovery of yoga as a child. Her interest, however, really kick started at age 15 with the onset of anxiety and panic attacks during her GCSEs.

“One of the things that I was recommended to do was to try yoga,” she explained.

“At the time it was more kind of Tai chi that I went along to and that included some meditation as well so I started finding out more about that.

“From there on I dipped in and out of it – I tried classes, I tried different teachers and I just started to uncover that actually there was this whole world of yoga that I had no real idea about.”

On a trip to Bali in 2017 Heather, who is from Chichester, did a class at The Yoga Barn in Ubud.

“It was fast and it was hard and there were times when I thought, ‘I’m totally out of my depth here’, but there was something about it that was amazing.”

At the end, the teacher talked about yoga teacher training, which she had never considered, nor been aware of being available.

“The way she spoke about it made me think, ‘That is definitely something I need to look into’,” she said.

“I remember leaving that class feeling so emotional but in a good way. It was just an overwhelming but amazing experience.”

In 2018, Heather took a three-month sabbatical from her job in marketing with retailer Fat Face, travelling to Goa in India for a 200-hour course at the Sampoorna Yoga School.

“To a certain extent I didn’t really know what I was letting myself in for,” she said.

“I went into that thinking, ‘I just love yoga, I love the yoga practice and I want to spend four weeks doing it’.

“At that point there was no intention to become a teacher; it was more, ‘Oh, I can go and do yoga for four weeks in this beautiful place. Sounds great’.”

She added: “Honestly, when people say it’s a life-changing experience it’s no word of lie. It’s a complete game changer.”

Along with yoga, the daily training included lessons on philosophy, anatomy, posture alignment and teaching.

“I came away from there thinking if I can pass any of this on to anyone else to help spread the word about the benefits that yoga can bring then great.

“It wasn’t so much that I came away thinking I want to teach – this is what I want to do – it was more like this is such a gift to be able to share.”

Heather used the rest of her sabbatical to travel, returning to Bali and then heading to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

At the request of friends, she taught her first class at Chichester’s The Body Suite in January last year.

In November, she gave up her job to pursue teaching and clicked ‘publish’ on The Real Yoga Club website on January 1.

“It was getting to the point where I couldn’t do both any more and my passion is yoga so I thought as much as this might not be the logical decision I’m just going to go with my gut and take the leap of faith and I know it will be fine,” she said.

Along with creating an inclusive space, The Real Yoga Club aims to break down some of the common misconceptions about yoga and ‘yogis’ and to help others explore the benefits yoga can have on mental well-being.

Her weekly Hatha-style sessions run in Chichester – at The Body Suite and at Runcton Manor.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about yoga, or what you have to do or what you have to be to do yoga,” she said.

“People think that you have to be super flexible, that you have to have some mega, amazing sense of balance to be able to do yoga and it’s so wrong.

“I just think yoga can bring you so much if you practise it in the right way and you can gear it to what you need. It can literally change your life.”

For more information, see therealyogaclub.com