Kate Pell Yoga
Welcome! Here you will find the information needed regarding yoga practices with Kate Pell.
Use the menu above to find classes, zoom links for online classes, workshops and retreats in Kangaroo Valley.
Kangaroo Valley
Kate offers classes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
Drop in attendance is welcome.
There will be another great year of Yoga Teacher training in 2025.
Applications now open!
Kate offers individual or group classes to locals and people visiting Kangaroo Valley. Group events, mini-breaks, weddings, conferences and beyond!
Let Kate help you design a tailor made yoga session for your special event.
Keep an eye out on social media for upcoming workshops, retreats and intensivesKate offers individual or group classes to locals and people visiting Kangaroo Valley. Group events, mini-breaks, weddings, conferences and beyond!
Dates are soon to be announced for the new ‘Open Mind-Open Heart Silent retreats, right here in the beautiful Kangaroo Valley
Download a PDF of the current timetable HERE.
About Kate Pell
Kate has been exploring the art of Yoga since a journey to India in 1989. She completed her Sivananda Yoga and Kundalini teacher training with Joy Spencer in Melbourne in the early nineties along with an advanced Diploma of Shiatsu therapy at the Australian Shiatsu College and Siddha Yoga studies in the philosophies of Kashmir Shiviasm. Kate continued her exploration of Iyengar style Yogasana; which began in India for another 2 decades of rigorous training.
She branched out and did more study with some wonderful contemporary teachers such as, Simon Borg-Olivier and completed 150hrs yoga teacher training with Donna Farhi. Kate hosted many great teachers at her Brisbane studios and learnt to see yoga as a much broader process than simple asana and pranayama.
She began teaching Yoga in 1998 and it became her full time occupation in 2000. Kate has offered Yoga Teacher Training courses since 2005.
Since the late eighties, Kate’s interest in Buddhism and meditation practices, culminated in the recognition that Loving Kindness is the foundation of all yoga practices. One must move, breathe, contemplate, meditate and be in the world from the core of loving kindness.
Kate’s first classes began in the northern suburbs of Melbourne before moving to Brisbane where she opened three studios. She moved to the Southern Highlands and ran 2 studios in Bowral before settling in the beautiful Kangaroo Valley where she now teaches from her hand built Strawbale and mud brick home.
Kate is an AHPRA registered acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist (CMR0002174967). Kate received a Masters of Traditional Chinese Medicine from Western Sydney University and is a qualified Shiatsu therapist by appointment only.
Kate is a passionate meditation practitioner and offers not only physical asana and pranayama (breath/energy control) classes, but specific philosophy, meditation & movement practices.
“It is important to adapt our practices to the stages of our life. A deeper practice does not necessarily mean a stronger or physically fancier practice. With loving kindness as the foundation of practice, movement is more of an inner dance. The slower the movement the stronger the practice.”
Kate has been practicing Chi Gung with Master Zhao and her dearest friend, partner, teacher and mentor, Sue Cochrane.
Life is too short and too precious to waste time of trying to ‘get the pose right’…..instead Kate is far more interested in the felt experience when it comes to asana, pranayama, meditation and day to day life. As such, it is far more important to wake up to the subtler and subtler sensations within the body and breathe in every waking moment.
Life is such a gift, a joy, a blessing! Life can also be one the most challenging of processors; painful, overwhelming, disappointing, full of regret or hopelessness. So how do we cope with the pendulum swings, the curve balls, the waves of life as they crash upon our shore?
“Befriend the busy mind, to consciously train your awareness to settle within the fullness of each moment. With an attitude that is open (loving and welcoming and curious), the mind becomes more sensitive to the daily presentations via the felt experience. Recognising that yoga (the deep stillness of universal mind) is always present within and all around you; means that the opportunity to turn our awareness to that, rather than be bogged down in the superficial busy mind”
For me, Yoga has been the path that has given me the strength, courage, humility and open vision to see that it is my responsibility to create the headspace that welcomes every moment as not only fresh and new, but also my best teacher.
There are so many great teachings (e.g.taoist, yogic, buddhist, sufi) from two thousand years or more ago, that offer great methods to calming the ever yearning mind from wandering into thoughts of stress, drama, doubt, anger, confusion, fear.
This is not to say that life is not at times stressful, dramatic, fearful, worrisome, frustrating or full of negativity, but it is what we do at these times that makes all the difference in our life.
Yoga is a state. Yoga means to "calm the fluctuations of mind" Yoga does not require long hamstrings or strong arms!
This state can be reached by retraining the mind to stay present to 'what is'. Learning to calm the fluctuations of mind is not an easy task. Yet with gentle and consistent practice, it can be attained.
Hatha yoga is one of the 5 great schools of yoga. It is the physical practice of opening the body, recharging the inner energy and letting go of physical stress. Hatha yoga encompasses all forms of physical yoga practices that most people assume is the full spectrum of the practice.....but it's not!
Another school of Yoga is Raja yoga; meditation. Seated meditation gives us the chance to be confronted with just how crazy and caught up the busy mind can be. We may also be faced with sitting with physical and emotional pain, and this is where we can learn and grow so much.
Kate’s Perspective
To practice, is to be aware of the quality of the thoughts that we are holding/producing. This would be a kin to another of the five schools of Yoga called Karma yoga. The state of mind that you hold is the state of mind that welcomes each moment. This is a potent practice. If you can learn to relax the tension/attitude/opinions in the mind, you have more chance of seeing things far differently and therefore responding in new and refreshing ways to the age old problems that arise for us all. Issues such as power, greed, ego grasping and desire turn to compassion, contentment, usefulness and peace.
Bhakti yoga is another of the schools, this is similar to Karma yoga. It requires the mind to stay open with a loving attitude towards whatever arises. Bhakti (love) does not mean denying or suppressing, but to indeed recognise you have the inner strength to face whatever adversity arises. One of the biggest obstacles to remaining calm is fear of death of ego or facing our own mortality. When we see with a big smile and deep calm that living and dying is as natural as breathing, we train the nervous system to remain relaxed under pressure. So every difficulty that arises is actually a teaching in disguise.
The last of the 5 great schools of yoga is Jnana yoga. This is the study of the great texts such as Patanjalis sutras. There are so many great texts from the past to the present day.
I recommend seeing the big picture. See the connections between all the great teachings. See the clarity. Be now. Be love. Be YOU.
You are enough as you are!
My yoga classes occur on the lands of the Tharawal & Wodi Wodi people of the Yuin Nation.
I acknowledges the traditional owners as the custodians of the land. Never ceded, across this continent, this always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
