Grounded in Science. Built from lived experience.
Hi, I’m Ini.
I’m a movement and mindfulness teacher based on the southern coast of New Zealand – though my path here started a long way from yoga mats and this remote shoreline.
I hold a PhD in cell and molecular biology, and spent years working as a research scientist in public health, biosafety and biosecurity. I spent my career studying disease and immunity, the systems that keep bodies functioning and what goes wrong during chronic illness – before I ever thought I’d be teaching people how to move their bodies and work with their minds.
I was born in Berlin, and have lived across Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean and now New Zealand. Somewhere in all of that – and in navigating my own experience of unpredictable energy and shifting capacity, along with the numerous curveballs life can throw at you – I found my way to a different kind of work with the body and mind. Not as a researcher studying it from the outside, but as someone learning to live in it, work with it, and support it day to day.
Why I do this work
My study of yoga begain in 2002, almost by accident, in a university gym hall where I joined a vinyasa flow yoga class. I kept practicing throughout my studies and my career as research scientist, exploring vinyasa, power, and hot yoga-style practices.
Stress and my own health challenges eventually pushed me to slow down and look for something different. I started exploring gentler movement and mindfulness practices, not as a side interst, but as something I genuinely needed. Through my own practice and studies, I found practices that didn’t ask me to push harder or perform better, but to actually meet my body and mind where they were, day to day.
That shift changed how I understand health and the benefits of these practices altogether. My scientific training had taught me a great deal about disease and the body, and how to perform in high pressure environments – but it hadn’t taught me how to live well inside a body that wasn’t always cooperating, and how to work with my mind and decrease unhealthy stress. Movement and mindfulness did. And the benefits I saw, made me want to share these practices.
My training
I bring two distinct kinds of training to this work, and I think the combination is what makes it useful.
The first is scinetific. A PhD in cell and molecular biology, and years spent in scientific research, studying topics such as cancer, diabetes and virology, shaped the way I think about the body, the nervous system and the power of our mind – and what the evidence does and doesn’t tell us about practices like yoga, breathwork and mindfulness.
The second is practical and personal. In 2018, I completed by 200-hour Vinyasa teacher training. Since then, I’ve continued my training in Yin Yoga and Functional Range Conditioning, working towards my 300-hour yoga certification and deepening my understanding of functional movement for different body types and health conditions.
Alongside my movement training, I’ve pursued mindfulness through several paths: completing the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme, attending intensive mindfulness retreats, and training as a facilitator through Mindfulness Works. My approach is grounded in the evidence-based MBSR training developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and shaped further by my own extensive reading and study of the research.
I don’t bring this training to you as a list of credentials. I bring it because it means I can explain why a practice works, not just what it does – and because I’ve tested all of it on myself first, through a body that hasn’t always made things easy.
My approach
Forget the image of yoga as lycra-clad athletes folding themselves into impossible shapes. That can be fun. But that’s not what I teach, and you don’t need to look like that to belong here.
I believe movement and mindfulness should be accessible regardless of fitness level, flexibility or health condition. Whether you’re simply looking for more movement in your life, navigating stress, or managing a chronic illness, I aim to offer a space and practice that’s welcoming, non-judgemental, and genuinely useful.
In my yoga classes, I focus on breath-led movement and mindful awareness, using yoga and functional mobility work to help you reconnect with your body as it actually is today – not as you think it should be. I draw on the science where it’s useful, and on lived experience where the science runs out.
Every session – whether in a group, one-to-one, or online – is adapted to the person in front of me. My goal isn’t to take you through a fixed sequence or teaching. It’s to help you build a personal toolkit of practices you can actually use: on strong days, tired days, and everything in between.
I call this approach Steady Ground. It’s a toolkit of practices that gives you something steady to stand on, even when your body, your energy or your circumstances are not.
A bit more about me
Outside of teaching, I love the outdoors, adventure sports and spending time by the coast at Southern Coast Lodge, where I now run many of my classes and retreats. I care deeply about environmental conservation, and about building a life – and a way of working – that’s sustainable for my body and mind, rather than relentless.
I’d love to help you discover how movement and mindfulness can support your own life, in whatever way is actually useful to you.
Ini x
As our lives get busier, and the world around us feels increasingly uncertain, movement and mindfulness practices can help us think more clearly, breathe more deeply, and navigate both our inner world and the one around us.
Any questions?
If you have questions about how I might be able to support you, please get in touch.
Ready to start?
Take a look at the ways we could work together, or get in touch and tell me a little about what you’re looking for.