About Yogami

My name is Ami.

In Sanskrit, it means ‘divine nectar’ – that was a tough call to answer to! A work in progress in every way!

I grew up in India and I have had access to Yoga and Ayurveda through my culture and most importantly, my paternal family.

I was always curious about the underlying spiritual and healing aspects of practices that were part and parcel of my childhood. After losing my mother at the age of 18, a curiosity about the nature of life and death naturally led me to explore Yoga in a different context.

For years, even when studying at University in Mumbai, and later as a young mother in the UK, I was aware that the threads tying me to Yoga and Ayurveda were deeply woven into the fabric of my inner being.

‘Ami's ability to combine asana practice with a deep knowledge of ayurveda, anatomy and mythology is pretty much unique.’

Djamela Bounechada
Read my Testimonials →

Yogami was born after I completed my teacher training under the guidance of Swami Ambikananda Saraswati and The Traditional Yoga Association in Berkshire a decade ago.

I was keen to blend together the formal teachings of yoga and how to deliver the practice to an audience with the subtle and nuanced teachings I have been carrying inside me since childhood.

I was also very keen to share my own experiences with others who may be curious about what it means to bring Yoga off the mat.

More and more I can see that the strength and flexibility that we try to incorporate within the body also ripple through the mind and the soul.

As I grow in my own practice and work, I can be bolder when combining somatics, neuroscience, meditation and nervous system regulation to inform each class I teach with my own personal search for a harmonious existence.

Credentials

Traditional Yoga Association

Trained by Swami Ambikananda Saraswati

Languages

Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Kutchi, Bengali, English

Level 3 in Counselling Studies

Psychotherapy

University of Mumbai

BA Architecture

Ask me anything!

  • I do! Please ping me an email at ami@yogami.uk to discuss.

  • I have ran popular sessions at the Blade in the past. To arrange a weekly class at your place of work simply fill out the contact form in the footer.

  • Traditional Yoga may mean different things to different people, and I am keen to say that I am as much a student as I am a teacher of Yoga.

    In the past I have used (and sometimes still use) the label ‘hatha’ yoga as this seems to match local expectations for a class style.

    In my view, traditional yoga is an inquiry into how such an ancient system came to become integrated over time and history with movement practices and expressions outside the Indian context. It is also an attempt to reference the Indian root system without surrendering to any dogma.

    Traditional Yoga for me allows me to fully express my own Indian roots but also recognise that we are a living tradition.

    As we practice and learn more about our human condition, we carry on and transmit this tradition.

    I take pains to reference accurately the mixing and blending of practices that are now seen as Yoga in the West. I try to demystify and sift through  some of the noise and appropriation around this topic, by reminding myself and others that we are only here to inquire and learn, to listen and understand.

    In my view, I am trying to integrate the whole being- mind, body and soul, honouring the practice and honouring myself, my teachers, my roots and my students.

    When I don’t know something, I am humble enough to accept my limitations. And curious enough to ask for help and to seek more knowledge, with a view to passing it on.

    These living traditions join us to each other and to our shared human story.

    Yoga and Ayurveda are two such living traditions that I was so fortunate to have met so early in my life. A divine accident or a divine intervention, each one holds true for me.

  • Ayurveda is Yoga’s sister science, a way of life and a medical practice that supplements Yoga practices and is aided by them in turn.

    We left Ayurveda behind when we brought Yoga to the West, and like all sisters, she doesn’t arrive empty handed when we invite her over.

    Ayurveda, the science of Life, informs a lot of the practices that I share and my aim is to delve deeper into this area of inquiry as Yogami grows, not prescriptively, but rather in essence.

  • I speak Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Kutchi, Bengali, English confidently. 🌍

Contact Me

  • For every minute that you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • If you have much, give of your wealth. If you have little, give of your heart.

    Rumi

  • I dwell in possibility.

    Emily Dickinson

  • One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.

    Henry Miller

  • I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially if singing is not necessarily prescribed.

    Mary Oliver

  • Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.

    Khalil Gibran

  • Indescribable and free from motive, love is at the core of the internal experience.

    Narada Bhakti Sutra

  • May there be kindness in your gaze as you look within.

    John O’Donahue

  • Yoga is the bringing together of that which was never separate.

    Richard Miller

  • By your stumbling, the world is perfected.

    Sri Aurobindo

  • It takes time for an acorn to turn into an oak. But the oak is already implied in the acorn.

    Alan Watts

  • Path maker, there is no Path. You make the Path by walking. By walking, you make the Path.

    Antonio Machado

  • If it weren’t for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song.

    Carl Perkins

  • We are not passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are the crew.

    Rusty Shweickhart

  • I buy rice to live and I plant flowers to have something to live for.

    Confucius