Natalie Almond is the founder of Anahata Yoga Space, teaching Alchemic Yoga and Hatha Yoga, with 27 years experience in yoga and it's science you will definitely be in for a transformative experience. You will understand the works of yoga and utilise it to re-empower, create change and heal through the therapeutic benefits of yoga. She first started yoga for the need to heal herself which she did successfully, read her healing story below.
Natalie was the co-founder of The Living Room Coogee 2008-2012. Between 2004-2008 moved to a community in the forest and gave birth to two lovely children. From 1997-2004 ran her own yoga school at North Bondi Surf Club holding classes and facilitating many transformative retreats. Teaching yoga for 22 years and practicing for 27 years and first practiced and studied yoga in 1989 for her own healing purpose.
Natalie's classes are gentle yet strong, working with fluidity, core muscles, asana, pranayama, bhandas, meditation and visualisation. Incorporating: internal alchemy, traditional hatha style, a touch of chi Kung movements, and flowing postures. Explaining benefits through postures and the effects physically, emotionally and mentally. Helpful to yoga teachers or people just interested in the WHY of yoga. Posture correction plays an important role as this allows energy to flow evenly through the pranic channels. With her keen eye and intuition she fulfils the needs of all students.
Natalie gives you the tools in the 3 essences of life; body, soul and spirit, the chakra system; energetic stations the body and integration of seasonal yoga practices which relate to the 5 elements. Keeping this all as balanced as possible, we should be able to maintain health and create transformation. Using the internal alchemy of yoga you have the power to transform and heal yourself. This is “alchemy”.
Natalie's healing keys are using intensity through: visualisation, creating a deep and meaningful relationship with your entire being and understanding your emotional state. These are vital to health and the way the mind works. I have taught people with chronic fatigue, HIV positive, anxiety, depression and many other ailments with considerable success. Through yoga, herbs and treatments I healed myself of dis-ease, as a tantric priest said to her "if you heal yourself of dis-ease you are an alchemist"
Natalie's first yoga classes were at The Australian Yoga School, Bondi Junction in 1989, then discovered many styles until she found her foremost yoga teacher/tai chi teacher/ healer John Burke in 1991. Studying and practicing solidly with him for seven years and continues today. After three years of intense learning and re-training she took herself on personal retreat for 14 months putting all teachings into practice. In 1993 traveled to Thailand, met Asokananda; teacher of Traditional Thai massage, yoga and meditation and studied with him in a small village in the mountains of northern Thailand healing the body's energy systems and attained a certificate in Traditional Thai Massage. Since then she began practicing healing and met healers of many different modalities who shared their knowledge with her.
Natalie met Swami Sarasvati in 2001, completing her yoga teacher’s diploma and receiving an outstanding guest award. In 2010/11 studied modules of yoga therapy with Ganesh Mohan from the Krishnamacharya tradition and in 2012 a psychological module in yoga therapy with Sal Flynn. She attends workshops and studies from the books of Swami Satyananda .
My Healing Story At the age of 25 I was feeling rather unwell but every time I went to the doctor with a drastic bronchial, asthmatic cough they would test my lungs only to say that they were as healthy as an athlete. I looked well with a healthy tan and a very muscular body. My problem was that I was obsessive in everything that I did from working hard, playing hard and training hard. I was in a complete burn out.
One day the doctor decided to give me a complete overhaul and found that I had a few liver disorders which I will not name as it is not part of my life anymore. He also discovered that I had sciatica down my entire right leg. The sciatica caused me a lot of pain and grief and a very sore mid to lower back. The doctor suggested I also see a psychiatrist as he said I was depressed.
One week later I met John Burke, a yoga teacher and healer of the Tantric tradition. In just the first visit with him, he knew of my ailments and of the party recreations in which I had been partaking. He placed his hand above my liver and asked if I could feel the heat. He then did the same over my kidneys and I could feel them absolutely burning. He proceeded to tell me that my entire filtering system was burnt out, hence the depression. (The doctor had diagnosed the liver problems but the specialist had concluded that there was nothing wrong with my kidneys.)
John told me that obsession runs in my family heredity and he explained that while it is very difficult to change an obsessive personality, you can change your obsessions to more healthy ones. This, according to him, would be my key to transformation. John told me not to wait until I stopped my behavior but to start coming to yoga and experience a natural high. He explained that by feeling this natural high, I would not feel any need to take drugs nor to continue with this hardcore and damaging lifestyle. I continued working with John by having regular healing treatments, taking herbs and practicing yoga. John also taught me to create a relationship with my organs by talking to them every day; and by telling my obsessive spleen to slow down and my lazy liver to pick up, I began to heal and feel.
During one healing session, I had a visualisation of a dark-haired boy in a dark room. This boy was very scared to go outside. Outside, a blonde-haired, overactive boy started to skip down a hill, but in his over-excitement he tumbled down, landing at the door of the dark-haired boy. He beckoned for the boy to come outside and the dark-haired boy’s mother encouraged him to go. The boy reached his hand out and touched the blonde boy and he immediately felt the warmth of the sun. The blonde boy took the hand of the dark-haired boy and they both skipped off in harmony, the blonde boy relaxed and the dark-haired boy confident. According to John, this visualisation represented the fact that my liver and my spleen were now in balance.
I once recounted this story to my father (who died two and a half years ago of liver cancer) and he told me that his brother had painted a picture of a boy in a dark room just before he too had died of liver cancer- but unfortunately he didn’t get a chance to paint the other boy.
I say this to illustrate that we have the power to change things that are stamped in our DNA. Most of the men in my dad’s family died of the same dis-ease. But I am living proof that we can change these genetic stamps and now my children and the next generations will no longer hold that stamp.
I went back to the doctor for the same tests I had originally had, and this time one liver problem didn’t show up at all and the other had became an antibody. The doctors of course found this hard to believe and said it must have been a misdiagnosis. Because of this miraculous healing transformation in my own life, I learned, and have now been teaching for 20 years, this style of yoga called ‘Alchemic Yoga,’ a system devised by John Burke from the ancient Tantric traditions. I recently met a Tantric Baba who took one look at me and said “a true alchemist is one that has healed a disease,” and then smiled at me.
