About Kutumba
Rooted in the teachings of Yogasara Studio, Bristol. Seanie and Shell are Bristol based yoga teachers with a passion for bringing people together and celebrating life though movement and music.
They have been collaborating and teaching together since 2018 running local wellness events and annual Summer retreats. Community and family is at the heart of what Kutumba offers, creating space for guests to nurture and connect in the tranquility of taking some time out of their routine life.
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Balancing the elements within us and in our environment can help bring harmony to our body and lives, and this is what Kutumba brings to you. Their unique journeys and gifts that embrace all the elements create a well-rounded experience of embodiment and connection.
Shell: Handstander, acroyogi + chef.
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Shell spent over 20 years in the hospitality industry, front of house, looking after guests and honing her organisational skills with weddings, events and team management. As a current self taught chef these years were also a joyful time of learning flavour, textures, technique, and presentation from the other side of the pass, and visiting inspiring restaurants across the world.
From a need to find space within a physically demanding lifestyle of service, Shell found peace in a weekly yoga class and in 2017 became a teacher, inspired to offer that space to others. After learning about meditation, Shell realised she'd been practicing yoga long before she found it through intuitive response to mental health in her early 20's.
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Since childhood, Shell has always found joy in movement (a dancer at heart), and eventually found acroyoga, a love like no other, that she also trained to teach. Shell loves anatomy and specialises in teaching handstands and inversions, a discipline that consistently meets her edges alongside a great sense of achievement. She practices standing acrobatics and brings her wisdom from these disciplines into her teachings on the mat. As a natural community builder, Shell is a leader in the Bristol acroyoga community, hosting jams and events and supporting others with their journey in this practice.
Shell deeply understands the need to balance the yang both in yoga practice and in life, and moves from a place of compassionate, embodied awareness. She loves to sink into a juicy yin practice to decompress, release and strengthen the conversation with her body. Choice is always welcome in her offerings and she will invite you to always listen to your needs above anything else.
Shell cooks for Kutumba events aswell as other yoga retreats and events as a private chef, sharing her gifts at the table and wowing guests with her love for food. Since 2017 Shell has been running supperclubs and yoga brunches and loves weaving all of her passions together in this way. Shell creates spectacular vegan and vegetarian food that bursts colour, flavour, and texture. She enjoys using seasonal whole foods and draws on the rich teachings of Ayurveda that continue to have a profound effect on her lifestyle as she continues on this path.
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Seanie: Artist, mother.
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Seanies journey into a life guided by the teachings of yoga started in her twenties, as she sought a way to find balance and manage her anxieties, trauma and mental health. Her research soon took her to some of the spiritual teachers and literature she still values today - most notably Eckhart Tolle’s The Power Of Now.
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Coinciding with her move to Bristol, she pursued a deeper engagement with yoga and in 2016 completed an advanced-level course in Hatha Yoga Teacher Training. In her continued search for a community she found Yogasara, and in 2019 embarked on a two-year, 500 hr immersion teacher training course in Tantric Vinyasa Yoga.
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The style of teaching she has developed is unique to her own unfolding, healing and is ever-evolving. Rooted in the belief that her own continued studies, practices and offerings are all deeply connected. She provides a strong yet nurturing enclosure in which to immerse yourself in your practice.
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The practices she guides are full-bodied, aiming to connect mind, body and spirit. They offer you the opportunity to release, to challenge yourself and connect deeply within, but always offset by the need for self-care and the freedom to listen to your own needs.
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Another form of meditation and yoga in Seanie's life is Symbolic Artistry. Over the years these two paths have effortlessly found each other and her evolution as an artist is a direct response from her healing journey through yoga, and being a part of a safe and strong community.
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Creating art has long been a sacred space for Seanie, at the age of 15 she began to commit more to art, teaching herself how to draw and paint. Little did she know at the time that she was surrendering to a spiritual practice. She poured energy into it and got relief, understanding a way to process complex feelings; this can be likened to the lotus flower emerging from muddy waters.
More recently Seanie has discovered through learning and commitment, how to channel internal wisdom, feelings, messages and energies into artworks, which has continued to evolve as an offering to others in the form of mandala readings.
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Her offerings continually grow both in her outreach and outlook to explore how she can best serve the collective consciousness and encourage physical, mental and spiritual health in the wider community.
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Qualifications + Training - Shell:
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- 250hr Advanced Tantra, Yoga Alliance, Yogasara 2022
- 80-hour Trauma-informed Yoga and Embodied Resilience, Golden Mandala Yoga-Soma Institute, 2022
- Advanced Stretching Technique Instructor, Bendy Kate, 2022
- 30hr Yoga Nidra ‘Yogic Sleep’, Yoga Alliance, Yoga Leela, 2022
- 62hr CPD Handstands, Yoga Alliance, Lux Yoga, 2020
- 90hr CPD Inversions, Mobility, Breath, Foundations, Yoga Alliance, Lux Yoga, 2021
- 50hr RYT Yin Yoga, Yoga Alliance, Yoga Leela, 2020
- 60hr CPD, Hands on teaching & anatomy, Yogasara, 2019
- 200hr RYT Acrovinyasa, Yoga Alliance, Yoga Beyond, 2017
- 200hr RYT Vinyasa Flow, Yoga Alliance, Yoga Beyond, 2017
- Acroyoga International, Elemental Immersion, 30hrs, 2017
- Acroyoga International, Solar Immersion, 120hrs, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022
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Qualifications + Training - Seanie:
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- 300hr Advanced Tantra, Yoga Alliance, Yogasara 2022
- 80-hour Trauma-informed Yoga and Embodied Resilience, Golden Mandala Yoga-Soma Institute, June 2022
- 250hr Tantra Vinyasa, IYN, Yogasara 2018
- 50hr RYT Yin Yoga, Yoga Alliance, Yoga Leela, Nov 2018
- Advanced Hatha Yoga, 2017
- Hatha Yoga, BSY, 2016