Valerie May Yoga, Green Lane, London (2026)

29/08/2026

You can't control your birth. But you can change how you meet it. These words are written by my lovely client who gave birth to her baby shortly after my pregnancy yoga class last weekend.

"After a traumatic first birth, I honestly didn’t know what to expect from my second.

Both of my births were vaginal, but my first was a very long labour that ended in an instrumental delivery in a hospital setting. This time, I was determined to approach birth differently. I wanted to feel informed, prepared and, most importantly, connected to my body.

I truly believe my yoga practice anchored me through it all.

I had the most beautiful, empowering water birth — unmedicated and on my own terms. The breathing techniques I had practised over many months became my anchor through the contractions. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the intensity, I was able to stay calm, focused and present.

Understanding the physiology of birth also made such a difference. Knowledge replaced fear. I understood what my body was doing, why it was happening and how I could work with it rather than against it.

This experience was not by chance. It came from consistent practice, preparation, building knowledge and learning to trust my body.

Leaning into my body, knowing what to do and having the tools to support myself gave me such a positive and empowering birth experience.

Having a supportive and present birth partner also made all the difference. I felt held, heard and supported throughout. My husband reminded me of my affirmations and my why — also practised during yoga classes.

This birth taught me just how powerful preparation can be — not in controlling birth, but in feeling confident, informed and connected to yourself through it.

I’ll forever be grateful for the yoga practices, knowledge and trust in my body that helped me welcome my second baby into the world."

27/08/2026

This is my birth story and how life can throw you curve balls. This is me shortly after giving birth to my daughter.

Whilst pregnant I was adamant I would have a natural birth and did all the things to help me get there. Yoga, diet, Acupuncture, lying on my left side & raspberry leaf tea. I was so focussed on all of that I hadn’t considered other possibilities.

I had visions of my natural birth but when I went into labour I was told that she was breech and promptly wheeled out of the birthing centre straight to theatre for an emergency C-section.

I was put in a room on my own, my husband only allowed to visit for an hour. My worst memory was calling a nurse to help me lift her and being told “I’ll do this once and then you’re on your own tomorrow you’ll walk to the toilet and produce 750ml of fluid before you can be discharged.”

Talk about bedside manner. The thought of walking and going to the loo after a major op was petrifying. Next came the recovery with a new baby, no help or advice. I was angry and felt like I had let myself down and jealous of the other mums that had experienced it.

Yoga helped me so much to get over that.

I went to an amazing postnatal yoga class which was my lifeline, that gave me space to recover from feeling like a train wreck and started to help me get to know my daughter and being a mum.

We would stay till the very last second and it wasn’t just about Yoga. It was getting out of the house, being with other mums, having time with my baby. We even kept going when she started solids and I would bring her lunch to class.

Looking back I think those classes helped me realise that whatever birth I had it was ok. It wasn’t what I wanted or had prepared for and it certainly wasn’t the experience I had imagined, but it was my birth story.

Sometimes we spend so much energy wishing things had been different and feeling like we have failed that we don’t give ourselves the space to accept what has happened.

15yrs on I can look at this photo and still see the shock but also know that this was the start of a life changing journey of becoming a mum plus a whole new career and that Yoga was the key to help me get there.

25/08/2026

You have changed so much throughout pregnancy and birth that it feels like your body doesn’t belong to you anymore.

You are so weak and can’t even do a simple push-up or squat without thinking what has happened to me. You run for the bus and suddenly need a wee or are out of breath.

You just want to get back to how things were before.

Remember your body has been through a lot. It has grown and given birth to a whole human being! And just when you think the hard part is over, the 1st year of motherhood begins.

You’re exhausted while carrying baby in weird positions, so your back feel like a brick wall. You’re learning to feed, your b***s are massive and everything hurts.

There may C-section recovery, a painful scar, strange pelvic floor changes which feel unfamiliar.

So of course your body doesn’t feel like it used to.

You don’t have to race to get back to who you were before. Because when return to exercise it might not look the same as it did before. And that’s ok.

Yoga has taught me that life changes all the time. You learn to accept change rather than fighting against it.

So you don’t have to force your body into its old shape or push yourself to prove that you’re back. You start by meeting the body you have today.

Through movement, breath and paying attention to how you feel, you can start to rebuild strength, reconnect with yourself and feel more at home in your changed body.

So you end up not worrying that your old jeans don't fit anymore or that you have to wear massive granny pants to hold everything in.

That your wider hips and wobbly belly aren't something to detest as they are the story of how your baby got to be here.

When you accept your body as it is now, you might find you spend less time worrying and more time being present with baby, enjoying your new life that you wouldn't change for a second.

Yoga helps you realise that you don't have to love every part of yourself and you shouldn’t have to fight against it either. Dropping the pressure to get your old body back.

Remember your body isn’t something that motherhood has taken away from you. It’s still yours..

And mummy and baby yoga class can help you remember that.

20/08/2026

Should living really be about tracking every metric constant restriction, carrying an umbrella everywhere in case the sun damages your collagen & obsessing over supplement spreadsheets.

Your bloodwork is perfect, but when you look in the mirror, you feel s**t as you think you’ve aged too much .

You hit your daily 10K steps but are unaware of your surroundings as you rush to get to work at the same time .

And when your kid tries to talk to you, you’re totally distracted because you’re busy thinking about tomorrow’s workout.

Right now you’re treating your life like something that you need to optimise by tracking, measuring and looking for the next thing to do to stay healthy & in control.

But all that does is pull you out of the place where your life is happening.

You’re so busy trying to protect your future self that you’re missing the experience of being present.

Instead of living your life, you’re managing it. Instead of feeling your body you’re monitoring it.

The irony of this is that the more you perfect your health the further you are from the actual experience of being alive.

But yoga has something beautiful to offer. The traditional practice of yoga is not a way to optimise yourself or a self improvement project.

A good yoga practice teaches you to stop, breathe, feel your feet on the floor and notice what is here without trying to change it.

It strips away the noise you’re constantly distracted by until you can see clearly that you don’t have to change anything

So that when you go for a walk, you notice the trees & sky.

When you eat your dinner, you stop calculating your protein and start appreciating the taste of your meal.

When your partner speaks to you, you’re there to hear them.

And when you look in the mirror, you see yourself as you are rather than a face that needs fixing before you can enjoy your life .

Freedom isn’t waiting in the future it’s here right now found by doing less of what pulls you away from yourself and more of what brings you back

So maybe the goal isn’t to reduce your biological age to 30 when you’re 20 years older . The goal should be to make sure that while you’re here you’re actually here.

12/08/2026

Being a new parent is a beautiful thing, but it’s also f-ing hard.

No one really warns you how lonely the new parent journey can be.

People spend so much time telling you, “Sleep now because you won’t ever sleep as well again,” or “Long days, but short years.”

But no one tells you about spending most of your day with your baby, yet sometimes feeling incredibly alone.

You haven’t felt like yourself in 5 months. You totally love your baby. They’re hitting their milestones, becoming more interactive and yet there are days when you feel really sad.

That then makes you feel guilty. Because you desperately wanted this baby.

So why aren’t you happier? And why do you dream of just having 5 minutes where someone doesn’t need you?

Right now you deal with that loneliness by scrolling your phone, or keeping busy with jobs around the house,.

It feels like everyone else is getting on with their lives while you’re stuck in this world of feeds, nappies and broken sleep.

But when you spend time with other women who are going through this same exhausting, brilliant mess, something shifts.

As you realise it isn’t just you.

This is one of the reasons I love mummy and baby yoga classes so much.

Inside these classes you’ll find the occasional recognisable downward-facing dog, but you’ll also find other new mums who are where you are at too.

You can chat about what being a new mum is and feel supported when someone says, “OMG, me too,” and you know they deeply get it.

You’ll laugh, start to recognise the same faces, make plans for lunch after class. And nobody will bat an eyelid at the cafe when you bring your 6-month-old along because they’ve brought theirs too.

It becomes somewhere you can turn up exactly as you are. Tired, emotional, baby attached to you, unsure whether you’ve brushed your hair.

And slowly, you start to build your people.

Because sometimes what you need isn’t another piece of advice about how quickly these years will pass.

You need someone sitting next to you saying, “Yep. Me too.”

And that’s what mummy and baby yoga is about.

Come for the yoga. Stay for the community. Leave knowing you’re not doing this alone.

11/08/2026

Midlife reinvention for women is massive right now.

We all know someone who is moving to Lisbon or just bought a house in the countryside. If it’s not the house, it’s the divorce, or the qualification, or the practice, or the brand she is about to launch about the thing she learned from the qualification and the practice.

We all know her. Some of us are her. I am often looking up villas for sale that I can’t afford on a Greek Isle I have never been to.

So as you’re around 50, right now you’re apparently supposed to be considering blowing your whole life up.

Your marriage, your job, your house, the whole version of yourself that got you here to become someone new and shiny.

You’re told that real midlife is waiting behind a wellness retreat. Or a novel you haven’t written. Or a man fifteen years younger. Or a skincare protocol with a waitlist.

But the message is the one you have been hearing your whole live. That who you are now is not quite right, and if you just try one more thing, you will finally arrive.

Spoiler alert you will not.

Instead of thinking you have to find a whole new self, shed everything that apparently was never really you. You need to start accepting yourself.

Because when you stop trying to fix yourself, you create space to actually experience and appreciate the life have.

And this, to me, is a huge part of what a good yoga practice can teach you.

Not that your life needs perfecting. But how to notice what is here, and stay with yourself instead of constantly judging it.

So the pitch for the second half of life shouldn’t be about becoming someone new.

It should be about becoming more of who you already are and to stop apologising for being her.

This is what a yoga is meant to teach you.

It allows you to sit alongside your 50-year-old face, your changing body, your complicated emotions, your brilliant bits and your less brilliant bits and say.

Yep. This is me.

You don’t need a house in Morocco with a vintage tiled floor. Or a field in the Cotswolds with a mini donkey in it.

And you certainly don’t need to become a different version of yourself to fall in love with the 50+ you.

You just need a practice that shows you how.

10/08/2026

It might seem counterintuitive if you haven’t given birth before, but the last thing you want to do is stay still through contractions and up to delivery. That’s because when you stay still, your body is more tense, your pelvis can't move freely, and its harder to find comfortable positions through contractions.

Moving during birth is highly recommended and beneficial because it helps with staying comfortable and in control to find positions that feel right for you.

Knowing and practicing all of this ahead of time is key, so that you can advocate for yourself during labour

This is really why a prenatal yoga practice comes in so handy.

All 4’s with cat/cow or body circles, leaning against a wall or shifting from side to side, or anything that helps move your hips and keeps your body relaxed so that your pelvis can move and your baby has room to descend.

Upright movements help as they use gravity to your advantage and free the bones of the pelvis to shift and allow your baby to descend down through the birth canal.

Moving also helps you to connect with your breath, making enduring birthing pain more doable.

My pregnancy yoga class is basically a preparatory laboratory for birth.

Inside class you’ll learn how to connect breath and movement so that when you are in labour, there is already a familiarity with utilising your breath to help stay calm and relaxed, even when there is strong sensation happening in the body.

When all of that is practiced it becomes like second nature, you’ll far more easily be able to breathe through intense sensations, move into positions that feel supportive, and stay connected to your body instead of feeling overwhelmed, when the day comes.

You don't need to be confined to a wheelchair or bed during labour.

You can move, change positions, use your breath, and find ways of working with your body that help you feel more comfortable and empowered, while advocating for what you need throughout your birth.

So get your cat/cow on, take a walk, rock your hips, do some gentle squats on the way to seeing your baby’s new face.

That’s exactly what we do on Saturday morning inside my prenatal classes. So come join us.

04/08/2026

Can’t believe this class has been running for 12 years some of the babies that started off with me are now at secondary school!

Some of these lovely pictures were taken at one of my original venues which was Livingstone House. Almost like a stately home and it had an amazing ballroom which I could fit up to 20 mums plus their babies! I used to run two of those classes back to back. This was when I had more energy!! Then the lovely horse Maria would offer the ladies home-made cake and there would be community time afterwards..

All of that came to an end during the Covid era when we went online . We did manage to do the class but it was easier for me than it was for the mums who had extra children running around and orphan dogs and cats went across the screen. Some mums even go to Dad’s to do the baby yoga so they could have a lie down. Then we always had a chat at the end to see how Mum’s coping with the isolation of that time period as a new mum.

Six years ago, I opened my little garden studio. Smaller more boutique style in terms of numbers but still lots of amazing memories here. Mum’s get a cup of tea or coffee even if I don’t manage to make the lovely cakes.

I’m back for some taster sessions at the end of August on 25th & 28th. There are limited places so get in touch if you would like to join me.

For those that have joined me before, what are your lasting memories of the class?

31/07/2026

Giving birth stressful. All the prep, the worry of the unknown, it’s common to be overwhelmed and arrive at hospital in early labour, only to be shocked that contractions have slowed,, spaced out, or maybe stopped altogether. It feels like you've made no progress at all.

That's often the moment the panic sets in. You start worrying why your contractions have stopped, if you’ve done something wrong and whether they are going to send you home.

But you're not doing anything wrong and your body is NOT failing. This is a normal physiological response.

Your brain constantly scans for safety, so a new environment, a busy hospital ward, unfamiliar people, bright lights, different sounds and smells, can trigger your nervous system to become more alert. When adrenaline rises, it interferes with oxytocin, the hormone driving your contractions, so labour temporarily slows.

So here’s an example You arrive at the crazy busy hospital and your thoughts go into overdrive. Where do I go? Who is that in the room and is everyone watching me? You need to answer loads of questions. Another contraction is coming, they want to do an internal exam...

At this point your brain asks one question to your nervous system. Am I safe? Until it gets the answer yes, stress hormones will rise and labour will slow.

That's one reason many women are encouraged to stay at home during early labour. Arriving at hospital in established labour means the change in environment has less impact on the flow of labour.

The good news? You can support your nervous system with:

Longer exhales which to help settle the nervous system. Gentle rocking movements and positions that encourage the body to soften. Jaw release and sounds. Positive affirmations and guided relaxation.

These are practical tools to calm your nervous system, so that when adrenaline starts to creep in, you'll be able to stay grounded, work with your contractions and trust your body instead of fighting against it.

So If you don't want a long labour, don't just prepare your birth plan. Prepare your nervous system.

If you would like to learn these techniques, I'd love to welcome you to one of my pregnancy yoga classes.

Valerie May Yoga

29/08/2026

27/08/2026

25/08/2026

20/08/2026

12/08/2026

11/08/2026

10/08/2026

04/08/2026

31/07/2026

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