I was born in Australia to Italian parents, grew up in Tripoli, Libya, and returned to Italy in my 20's. I started studying yoga when I was 30. The birth of my children brought a very different insight into my daily practice.

 

During labour I observed an unknown intelligence at work. The more passive, soft and elastic I was, the more powerful this physical intelligence became. During my yoga practice I wished to be re-connected to this gentle, weightless brightness that I had observed at work in my body during the birth of my children.

 

To revive this primal energy I needed help, a guide with a very light touch. That guide turned out to be Vanda Scaravelli, who had developed a unique approach to yoga using gravity and breath to ride the body's own wave. Author of Awakening the Spine, Vanda, studied privately with B.K.S. lyengar and T.K.V. Desikachar over many years. Her lifelong friendship with Krishnamurti is vastly reflected in her teaching.Learning from Vanda was an extraordinary experience.

 

There was extreme clarity and wisdom in her words. Her hands could focus on the same spot until it became alive. Her words traveled straight into me; her touch gradually dispersed dullness and old habits. 

 

We met every week for 17 years. It is her gift of yoga - a radical yoga that emphasizes working with breath, gravity and the spine - that I am trying to pass on through my books and teaching. During the last twenty years, I have been guiding some of the yoga gatherings together with Michal Havkin .The workshops have been held in Europe, Middle East, United States, India as well as at home in Campiglia ( Tuscany).