Our background.
We opened breathe yourself. in a former print shop with cracked windows and very good light. The floors were a mess and the rent was a stretch, but the room did the one thing we needed it to do: it made people breathe slower the moment they walked in.
The idea came from a simple, unglamorous observation. Most people who want to move are not held back by fitness. They are held back by the decision. They sit in the car outside the studio, or hover over a booking page at 11pm, and then quietly choose the version of the night where nothing changes.
So we built for that person instead of the athlete. Clear cues over clever ones. Beginner classes at real hours, not just Tuesday at 2pm. A free first class so the first step costs nothing but a decision. Five years and eleven thousand classes later, the rule has not changed: you are never the least experienced person here, because everyone in the room started exactly where you are standing.
Mara Ellis
Founder and head of practice
Mara spent nine years in hospital logistics, a job that ran on adrenaline and ended most days with a body she did not recognise. She found yoga late, at thirty four, in a class she cancelled on twice before she actually walked in. That class did not change her life in one hour. It changed it over about four months, which she says is the part nobody puts on a poster.
She trained for two years, taught out of a rented hall for another two, and opened breathe yourself. in 2021. She still teaches four classes a week, still writes every new instructor’s first sequence with them, and still greets people at the door on Saturday mornings because that is where the nerves live.