Teachers

Jude MurrayJude Murray

I had my first experience of Hatha Yoga in about 1991 and started teaching Yoga in 2004. I feel privileged to be able to share yoga with the people who come to my classes and workshops.  Because I have also trained in massage and anatomy, I bring this into my teaching to guide students through a safe, yet personally challenging asana practice. More importantly, however, I hope to help people discover for themselves the transformational power of yoga and to find wholeness and balance in their lives.

For me, yoga offers deep emotional and spiritual connection and this deepens the longer I teach and practise. I teach classes in Hatha and Yin Yoga, Yoga for Pregnancy and Yoga & Relaxation for people living with cancer. Recently I have been exploring and developing a Celtic Yoga. Very much a heart-felt discovery of how Yoga and ancient Celtic Spirituality work together. The deep connection with the cycles of nature that this brings continues to guide my own personal practice and teaching.

I took my first yoga teaching diploma at the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres  Ashram in Neyyar Dam, Kerala, South India in 2004 and returned to the UK to take a further Diploma in Astanga Yoga with Union Yoga  in Edinburgh. I also studied Yin Yoga and Yoga Anatomy with Paul Grilley in 2005.  I completed the British Wheel of Yoga  Module in Yoga for Pregnancy in 2009  and recently attended a training intensive in Structural and Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy™ with Mukunda Stiles.  I am registered with the Independent Yoga Network .

I am committed to ongoing personal and professional development and I continue to study various aspects of yoga and spirituality in the UK and in India. I have studied with the following teachers: David Swenson, Brian Cooper , Yogacharya Venkatesh , Paul Dallaghan, David Williams, Matthew Sweeney, Kausthub Desikachar, David Sye ,  Judy Cameron  and Bishop Alistair Bate with whom I have studied Druidry & Celtic Spirituality. I am now  blessed to  able to name Mukunda Stiles as a teacher who has deeply touched my heart and Yoga practice.  

Mahashakti is my spiritual name, given during Mantra Initiation whilst living in the Sivananda Ashram in South India. It is a Sanskrit word. Maha= great; Shakti= Goddess/Power/Energy. It is the name of the Universal Mother.

Graeme Murray

Graeme Murray

Having had a long-standing, but unfulfilled, inquisitiveness about yoga, I was finally able to find time in my life to begin my hatha yoga practice after selling my successful aquaculture business in 1996.  My first introduction to yoga was on a wintry evening in a drafty village hall but the experience of my first yoga class was immediate and profound and I have continued, from the start, to pursue my practice with self-effort and self-examination.
 
In 2002 I studied the Astanga Primary Series with David Williams and began daily personal practice in this form.  I continued to study with various teachers in the UK and at The Sivananda Dhanwanthari Ashram at Neyyar Dam, Kerala, India until deciding to take the Yoga Alliance UK 200 hour Teacher Training Course in 2007.  I now continue with my own personal practice and teach regular general and beginners’ level hatha yoga classes, and also assist my wife, Judith Murray (Mahashakti), with workshops and retreats in Glasgow and Argyll.  I continue to learn and broaden and deepen my journey in yoga, studying in the UK and in India.
 
My strong personal yoga practice is influenced by the flow and precision of Astanga vinyasa yoga moderated by strong attention to physical discernment; breath awareness and meditative focus, and I guide my students safely and expertly through a flowing, dynamic hatha yoga practice built on the framework of deep focus, physical awareness and the use of the breath. 
 
I have studied with and learned from the following teachers:- Ellen Pierce, David Williams, Yogacharya Venkatesh, Paul Dallaghan, David Swenson, Brian Cooper, Nawajyoti, Michael Gannon, Paul Grilley and Mukunda Stiles.