+ WHAT IS JOY BY NATURE?
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
This website is the culmination of my work, a space where I can share my story of change and live a life that I love.
A wanderer, a student of Life, a dancer by nature and a child at heart, I have always tried to trust my journey. I wasn’t in the right place for a long time and after many hard lessons, bad choices, and defiant rebellion, I somehow found my way to yoga.
I am not here to tell you how yoga changed my life and how it can change yours. The truth is I changed my life, but yoga gave me the understanding and the tools to do so. Yoga ignites my passion and my joy, it makes me want to go deeper, to learn more, to be the best version of me through knowing myself.
That’s why I love to teach. Sharing my joy and my love of yoga with people from all walks of life is the best thing I know. People come to yoga for all sorts of different reasons. The beauty of it is that no matter where you’re coming from, there is a universal truth within it that people feel when they do it. And when I teach, I always say: don't worry about how it looks, connect with how it feels.
I hope you like what you see here. Because this is me. It’s been crafted with love and hard work. I hope to see you in one of my classes one day. I look forward to breathe, connect and flow with you.
Vivian Choi
+ THE JOY BY NATURE PHILOSOPHY
Joy By Nature is a force for connection between people in joy and laughter, in movement and stillness. It represents the belief that yoga is an attitude for living life. That yoga is for everyone to discover, to use as an opportunity to be curious about yourself, to grow from understanding your mind and your body and from that, to celebrate who you are with full acceptance and no apologies. It represents the belief that when you fully recognise your own unique beauty, you will readily recognize the beauty in others. Then real connection starts to happen, not just to yourself but to everyone and the world around you as well.
This belief is reflected in my classes. I will always teach in a way that is accessible to anyone, no matter what your experience or background. My attitude when teaching yoga is that everyone is different, that there is no such thing as a “perfect pose” and that you do yoga for yourself, to seek and find barriers within yourself that you have built and to overcome them through your practice. To liberate yourself and connect to how it feels when you do it, when you allow yourself to let go, not think about it too much and just breathe, connect and flow.
+ BIO
I started practicing yoga and meditation from the age of 18 for a few years but then stopped due to Life happening to me. I needed to take a round trip! I worked for a huge international corporate in a pressure-cooker environment, burning the candle at both ends. Work hard, party harder. Through this chaotic life, I somehow found my way back to yoga after many years and this time, it hit something deep inside of me that was crying out for change. An inner voice that I had ignored and tried to cover up for years. The pull of it brought me to India where I trained as a yoga teacher.
As soon as I qualified as a yoga teacher, I resigned from my media job in London, threw myself in at the deep end and just started teaching. I am now a RYT certified yoga teacher, with my own studio, having earned my qualifications with:
- Siddhi Yoga (200 hrs, Mahi)
- Bryce Yoga (300 hrs, Briohny Smith and Dice Iida Klein)
- AYP (200 hrs, Tristan Dorling)
- Inside Flow (150 hrs, Young Ho Kim)
- Yoga Anatomy (20 hrs, Tiffany Cruikshank)
- Energetic Alignment and Intuitive Sequencing (50 hrs, Janet Stone)
- Hands on Adjustments (20 hrs, Alanna Kaivalya)
My teaching style is joyful, energetic and free. My love of dance comes through in the free flowing movements of my sequencing. My hope is that people will come to my classes to have fun, be delighted, not take themselves too seriously and feel liberated, liquid, loved.
My loves outside of yoga are: dance, massage, design, travelling, cooking, fashion and photography.
You can follow me on Instagram: @joybynatureyoga (click on the link at the bottom of the page) or on Facebook - Vivian Choi Johansen.
