Karen Maidment

I am Health & Nutrition Specialist with 10 years clinical experience and a Vinyasa Yoga Teacher.

I work from my own beautiful Centre for Wellbeing, Pure Body balance, here in the Forest of Dean.

I am a 500 hour advanced yoga teacher with a interest in fusing the western practices of correct alignment to support rehabilitation and injury prevention, with the eastern philosophies of breath and subtle body awareness to increase mental stillness and physical ease.

In my active classes you can expect to move your body in creative and dynamic ways that keep the mind busy so that you can be fully present in your body.

In my gentle classes you can expect to be given the time to focus on mindfulness and breath practises that gently encourage stillness and restoration for mind and body.

My classes are fully inclusive. I offer mixed level flow classes, sports specific yoga, restorative yoga, aerial yoga and stand-up paddle board yoga during the spring and summer.

Vinyasa Flow Yoga
​These classes are designed to increase flexibility, improve strength and encourage greater awareness between the mind breath and body. You will enjoy a flowing class of interlacing poses accompanied by music.

Yoga for Mountain Bikers
These classes are designed to enhance optimal physical and mental performance on the bike, reduce repetitive MTB injury, balance over used muscle groups that become tight and inhibited through regular riding and improve recovery time post ride. Ideal for riders suffering with back, neck and shoulder pain, tight hips, quads and hamstrings, weak core muscles.

SUP Yoga
​Stand-up Paddleboard (SUP) Yoga is ideal for those looking to deepen and develop their yoga practise. From beginners to advanced teachers it offers fun, challenge and peace in equal measures. Falling in the water is all part of the fun. The freedom to fall, to embrace what you might see as failing in a regular yoga class helps you to let go of expectations and self-judgement.

Restorative Yoga
​Restorative yoga is a restful way of practising yoga with props. This nourishing candlelight class focuses on gently stretching releasing and opening the mindbody through supported poses using blankets cushions and bolsters. As the body resets in the restorative postures the nervous system switches to calmness and a deep inner healing mode. It is a yoga of being rather than doing.

Aerial Yoga
​Discover a true appreciation of what your body can do when supported, released from the confines of gravity. In this class you will enjoy therapeutic flowing poses with a soft fabric hammock, suspended a few feet off ground. The hammock is intended to assist alignment, deepen awareness and provide the immediate benefit of spinal decompression.