ABOUT ORDINARY PEOPLE ACADEMY
I taught yoga for ten years before I realised I didn’t know how to breathe.
Not properly. Not in a way I could have safely handed to someone else.
I’d been practising since I was 13. I’d taught thousands of classes. I could cue an inhale in my sleep. But nobody had ever shown me what breath actually does to a nervous system, or what to do when it does more than you expected.
So I went and learned. It changed how I teach everything.
The bit nobody told me
Breathwork isn’t hard to do. It’s hard to do safely with someone else in the room.
Most training teaches the technique and skips the person. What to do when someone starts shaking. When to stop. When it isn’t yours to hold. Who shouldn’t be breathing like this today at all.
That’s the bit I teach first. Everything else comes after.
Where this started
Youth worker by day, yoga teacher by night. That was me.
In 2006 I built Stretch & Play, a children’s movement and mindfulness charity that went on to win awards. In 2009 I started working with adults in Northern Ireland. In 2011 I ran Northern Ireland’s first Level 3 Pilates instructor training. In 2012 I put breathwork into my yoga teacher training, because I couldn’t teach yoga without it any more.
Then Covid hit. The people holding everyone else together were running on empty, and breathwork was locked inside yoga training where most of them would never find it. So I gave it a training of its own, for anyone who helps people for a living.
It became CIMSPA’s first ever endorsed breathwork qualification.
Who I train now
Nurse by day. Counsellor by day. Social worker, teacher, HR manager, accountant by day.
Most of the people I train already see clients and know the body is the missing piece. They want a tool they’d trust in the room. Others are getting ready to leave the day job and want to do it properly, not on the back of a weekend taster.
Julie, a social worker at a children’s hospice, now runs a government-funded breathing café. Laura took her counselling practice into groups. Michael teaches in care homes where yoga never could. Gemma left accountancy. Ashlene left the job centre and opened her own healing centre.
None of them needed white linen, a spiritual name or a guru. They needed to know they were safe.
I’m not anti-woo
I own black crystal singing bowls. I love a mantra and a candle. I just don’t think you need any of it to be good at this, and I’m sick of the guru worship and one-upmanship that tells you otherwise.
Ordinary people make the best teachers. They remember what it felt like not to know.
The proof
- CIMSPA’s first endorsed breathwork qualification, awarded the full 10 CPD points
- IPHM accredited executive training provider since 2023, with every CPD IPHM accredited
- Organisational Member of the International Breathwork Foundation since 2024
- Level 3 Pilates Instructor Training, accredited by YMCA Awards
- 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, accredited by GOYA
- Yoga Alliance Professionals Senior Yoga Teacher, teaching since 2001, over 10,000 hours
- Shortlisted, Health & Wellbeing Entrepreneur of the Year 2020, Great British Entrepreneur Awards
- Regional Finalist, Pitch UK 2024, where instead of pitching I ran a breathwork session
The people who teach with me
Lynne, COO and trainer
A practice nurse with 15 years’ experience in diabetes and women’s health, and the first nurse certified in Lifestyle Medicine through the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine. Lynne wrote the Breathwork for Special Populations module and leads Movement for Ordinary Older People.
Kellan, Breathwork co-trainer (they/them)
An OPA breathwork graduate, trauma-informed coach and somatic therapist. Kellan came to breathwork recovering from Covid fatigue, and now works mainly with queer folks and adoptees through Kai Ming Holistics.
Jen, Pilates co-trainer, Scotland
The Healing Rebel. Sport and exercise scientist, qualified FE teacher, Level 3 Pilates, 300-hour yoga, and more massage qualifications than fit on this page. Her approach is pure OPA: woo plus science, rebellious plus kind.
Claire, Yoga Teacher Training lead, Mid-Ulster
Left a corporate career to open Claire’s Yoga Studio in Magherafelt in 2014. Senior Yoga Teacher, and lead on our in-person Yoga Teacher Training.
Caroline, Pilates tutor, Belfast
Came to my Pilates class with a bad back. I told her she should teach. She’s taught Level 3 Pilates matwork since 2012 and now runs our Pilates Props Workshop.
Ordinary people, every one of them. That’s the point.
Not sure where you’d start?
Take the free Readiness Check. Fifteen questions, three minutes, and you’ll know what you’re ready for and what you’re not.
Not seeing clients yet? It still shows you exactly where to start.