Our Teachers

FOUNDER of Bikram Yoga & Wellness

Jodie Petersen

When I practised my first Bikram Yoga Class in 1996 I could barely touch my toes, but I knew that day I had found something so special that would be part of me forever.

I loved how quickly my body become leaner, stronger, fitter, flexible but more than anything I felt happy for the first time in a long time. My dark moods lifted, my negative thoughts dwindled, I worried less and slept better. I felt amazing.

I knew I’d found my passion in life.
In 1997, I travelled to the States to train as a Bikram Yoga teacher and returned home to Oz inspired and prepared to open my very own yoga school on the Northern Beaches.

In 1998 I opened the first Aussie owned Bikram school in Australia.

After 25 years I fall more deeply in love with the infinite tangible and intangible possibilities and potential of Yoga. I continue to learn and grow. I am excited to share my growth and have recently qualified to teach Ghosh Yoga, a therapeutic modality from which Bikram Yoga developed.

I am blessed to have some of the country’s most experienced teachers in our team. Together, we are absolutely devoted to bringing yoga and its myriad of benefits to all.

Bikram Teacher

Richard

If you’d told me on 30 December 2008, the day I took my first Bikram Yoga class that I’d one day be teaching this stuff, I’d have laughed at you.

Like a lot of newcomers, I went to my first class for a straightforward reason. For the previous 5 or so years I’d been doing a lot of endurance sports. I loved the training and racing, but I always seemed to be injured. I must have spent $10,000 on just about every therapy under the sun trying to fix my body. Mates of mine had long ago told me about Bikram Yoga, but I avoided it because “I can’t touch my toes”.

I can’t claim that anything Earth-shattering happened during my first few classes, but I sensed that Bikram Yoga was good for me – it hurt so much it better have been! – so I kept it up. As I practised regularly, my body started to change and a few interesting things happened. I touched my toes, my spine opened (I mean I stopped snorting during back bends), and all those injuries? – they vanished somewhere in a pool of Bikram sweat.

For nearly 5 years I was something of a dedicated Bikram Yoga student, but I couldn’t imagine being a teacher. The truth is, I fell into teaching in 2013 when I simultaneously decided a short career in law was too long and I might just be able to survive the teacher training program. It wasn’t an inspired decision, but it was one of my best.

Bikram Yoga is a tool that any of us can use to improve our lives. It won’t make everything perfect. But it can help. It doesn’t matter what shape you’re in. I’ve taught elite athletes. I’ve taught the sick and injured. It doesn’t matter what you believe in. I’ve taught spiritual seekers. I’ve taught materialists. And it doesn’t matter if you can’t touch your toes.

Just come to class, do your honest best and the yoga will work.

Catch you in the hot room.

Bikram Teacher

Barbara

I grew up surrounded by my sporty family and I’ve always been active and enjoyed sports.
But it wasn’t until I tried Bikram Yoga that I truly found myself. I found something that makes me feel good from the inside out… and the best thing is that great feeling doesn‘t stop… it stays with you.

I’ve been practising Bikram almost daily since 2006. Until my 2 beautiful boys came along it was daily but now it’s a blessing when I can!
I completed the Bikram Yoga Teacher Training in Spring 2007 and taught in Singapore for the next two years. Then I returned back to Australia where I spent 6 months teaching at a newly opened Bikram studio at sunny Noosa.

Now I have finally returned back to Sydney where I first started and where I feel I belong the most.

I am thrilled to teach along with so many amazing teachers here. Teaching is my passion and I’m blessed to be able to share something I love with others around me

Bikram Teacher

Castro

I was studying landscaping when I first decided to come along to a Bikram class to help with my concentration.

It was 2010. I can remember my first class – it was a Thursday at 6am with Phee. I loved it! I loved my 2nd and my 3rd class but my 4th class I walked out of the room, I really struggled with the heat in that one. I spoke to Sheriff about struggling with the heat and he said if you’re struggling with heat then you’re not breathing. So I started to concentrate more on my breath.

My concentration did improve and my whole body changed. I lost a lot of weight, felt much more flexible and strong.

I went to teacher training in 2013 because I loved the yoga so much I just wanted to be part of it.. What I love most about teaching is the exchange of energy with the students.

Bikram Teacher

Heather

I’ve been a nurse for more than 20 years, working in a variety of fields – oncology, palliative care, rheumatology and research to name a few – and as a result am passionate about promoting holistic health and well-being to everybody.
My own battle with breast cancer prompted me to follow my dreams and move to Australia in 2003.
I confess that I’m a heat junkie but had never heard of Bikram yoga before I tried my first class in 2005 – my practice was sporadic initially until I did my first 30 day challenge. Then I was hooked!!

Reasonably fit, I was well aware of the changes to my body with regular practice – but the changes to my psychological health continue to amaze me!

I decided to go to Bikram Yoga Teacher Training in 2014 and I truly believe Bikram yoga makes us bullet proof.
Forget what you can’t do- it’s what you CAN do that counts!

Bikram Teacher

Phiona

I had been promising a friend for months that I would join her for a Bikram class but eventually I ran out of feeble excuses as to why I was not living up to my promises and this, along with a vague sense of guilt I had developed over being such an unreliable friend, finally brought me to my first Bikram class right here at the Brooky studio.

It was 2004 and the moment I walked through the studio door I was instantly and absolutely … appalled – so many people, so hot, so sweaty. Eeew. I wanted to leave but I couldn’t very well do that given my months of yoga evasion, my excuses and my guilt. Thankfully, I stayed. It was my first ever yoga class and I was absolutely blown away by the profound feelings of euphoria and utter peacefulness that I discovered during that first class. I have been a devotee of yoga ever since. I will be practising for life: with every passing age and stage, I will practise; as my body changes and my days here become numbered, I will practise; probably on the eve of my death, I will practise. I will meditate.

From my first class I knew that I would become a Bikram teacher. People talk about experiencing ‘a calling’ and in that class I heard my name echoing on the winds of destiny. In 2006 I completed my Bikram Teacher Training in Los Angeles and I have been teaching Bikram, Advanced and other forms of Hatha yoga continuously (give or take a child or 2) since. I do what I love. I am blessed indeed.

Bikram Teacher

Kimmi

In April 2001, I did my first ever Bikram class. It was 6 months after my first child was born and I wanted to start exercising again, but needed to avoid any jarring as I’d seriously damaged my knee in a ski accident in 1999 and it hadn’t been right since.

I had no idea about the benefits of Bikram Yoga when I started, I just knew from that first class that I loved it. It was hot, it was hard, but afterwards I felt like I had had the best workout ever. I felt incredibly calm, centred, and ready to take on anything! I also found my knee pain was disappearing, and the flexibility of the joint was improving hugely.

I kept on coming. I did no other form of exercise. As a new mum Bikram seemed to give me everything I needed! I bored all my friends about this yoga. I couldn’t believe how it helped me on so many levels.

The more I came, the more I loved it. I learnt a little something about myself, or about my postures, my life outlook, in every class. Although I rarely loved being in class, I loved the challenge that it presented and how I felt afterwards. Besides making me physically stronger, it has definitely made me emotionally stronger. And here was the meditation I’d always felt I needed to calm my monkey mind, wrapped up in a yoga class.

I started working in the office at the Bikram studio in March 2007, but become a teacher? No way – training seemed too hard, too long, too hot, too difficult.

Hang on, isn’t that a Bikram class defined? Isn’t that what I love about this yoga……

So I can honestly say I didn’t consciously make the decision to become a Bikram teacher. One day in July 2009, I simply was going to teacher training. That was it. No questions, no doubt. If you don’t make the decision, the universe finds a way of doing it for you!

I love the community that we have. Bikram Yoga is different for everybody who walks up those stairs. We often start coming for one reason, and all sorts of other things start happening. I love this yoga. It is so unique and multilayered.  I love the honesty and truth that it brings you. 

Bikram Teacher

Mel

Ultimately, yoga is all about the mind and it was for this reason that I knew I had found something really special following my very first Bikram class back in February 2010 right here at Brookvale. 

I had previously practiced various forms of yoga, but nothing came close to the mental stillness I felt following a Bikram Yoga class. As a runner I have always used saunas as part of my recovery so the combination of a yoga practice and the heat also made therapeutic sense to me.

At the time of my first class, I was a “recovering Corporate Executive” and an anxious new mum who was learning to navigate motherhood following the traumatic birth of my second baby. It was an incredibly wise GP who suggested I try yoga again and I guess, the rest is history.

Bikram Yoga is without a doubt the foundation to all my health and wellness today.  It was the catalyst for my healing as well as the springboard for all my subsequent studies.

 I completed my 500-hour Hatha Yoga teacher training in 2016 with Raja Yoga Academy and I am soon to complete a Post Graduate Diploma of Yoga Therapy at The Yoga Institute. I have studied Yoga Psychology with the Australian Institute of Yoga Therapy and will soon be eligible for my International Accreditation as a Yoga Therapist.  I am also a certified Buteyko Breathing Practitioner.

 In 2017 (while living in Canberra) I developed a Yoga in Schools program that was formally recognised by the ACT Education Directorate.  I have worked with children with special needs as well as adolescents with mental health challenges.

 I am hugely passionate about the overall health benefits that a regular yoga practice can provide.  It is a holistic practice with physical, mental and energetic dimensions. It develops a strong and flexible body and helps to create the mental stability and peace of mind to deal with the stresses of life.

 I will forever be a student and so grateful for this opportunity to teach and do what I love.