About the Founder
Sarah Van Est
MA. Res/Human Rights
Sarah established Ujjayi Yoga Tasmania in 2018 in response to a lack of services in northern Tasmania offering body-based therapies for people healing from the grief and hurt of trauma. Combining 20 years of yoga experience, with her background of working with people impacted by trauma in the community sector, Sarah has authentically built Ujjayi Yoga into a centre for healing, growth, joy and empowerment, offering programs and a skill set unique to Tasmania.
Sarah is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and is also Trained in Hatha Yoga and initiated into a linage of Kriya Yoga. She has also practised extensively in Vinyasa, Ashtanga, Bikram, Yin, Bakhti, Hridraya (to name a few styles) and studied the history and philosophy of yoga, at schools across Australian, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico and Nicaragua. Sarah hopes to bring the best of 20 years of yoga experience to Ujjayi and share her knowledge of what really works to help her student develop an authentic connection with their yoga practice.
Working in the area of understanding and healing trauma for the pat 10 years, Sarah has developed various projects and programs to empower those in our community who have been impacted by trauma and has developed and delivered training for professionals in appropriate trauma informed care. She now delivers specialised trauma informed yoga and somatic, body-based therapies that aim to heal trauma, empower and create authenticity. Her work in understanding and healing trauma is informed by clinical discoveries and best practice in western medicines, and the ancient wisdom and knowledge of the body yoga has passed down through the ages.
Qualifications and Training
- Somatic Experiencing Practitioner™
- Master of Human Rights, Curtin University
- Bachelor of Arts, Utas, Major Philosophy and Entrepreneurship
- Certificate IV Population Health
- Xian Yoga, 500hr YTT, Yoga Alliance
- Hidraya Yoga, 100h Module 1
- Trauma Aware Yoga Teacher Training, Trauma Sensitive Yoga Australia
- Yoga and the Traumatised Body, 14hr, Trauma Sensitive Yoga Australia
- Trauma Informed Yoga for Youth, 8 weeks, Yoga Ed
- Healing Trauma Through Yoga, 4.5hrs, David Emerson, Trauma Centre for Trauma Sensitive Yoga
- Trauma, Neuroscience and the Evolving therapy of Traumatised Children and Adults, 2-day workshops, Bessel van der Kolk, Byron Clinic
- Treating Trauma Master Series, The National Institute for the Application of Behavioural Medicine
"Sarah is a wonderful, generous and thoughtful instructor. A gift for my sore body!"
About Our Yoga
Hatha Yoga
Hatha, translated to 'force', is an ancient branch of yoga that begins by preparing the body for life with physical activities such as yoga postures and breath work. This physical practise helps us to develop a strong platform for our inner mental, emotional and spiritual selves and outward relationships and actions to thrive. Hatha Yoga teaches that when our body is strong, resilient and unburdened by disturbances, we can truly begin to relish and explore the other aspect of living to the fullest. Hatha Yoga is all about cultivating your force (yes kind of like Star Wars) to live radically and victoriously!
During a Hatha Yoga session at Ujjayi you can expect to move through a gentle warm up of the whole body, proceed to make a series of strange shapes with your body on a yoga mat, whilst breathing with intention, and then led through to a gentle relaxation at the end of the practise. All the while you will be encouraged to notice what you feel in your body and connect to the present moment with helpful hints and tips along the way.
Our yoga typically moves at a slow pace so that you can experience what each posture has to offer before rushing on to the next. Expect to be clearly led through the movements with verbal directions and visual cues. Your teacher will not do any physical assists or adjustments, but will offer lots of useful tips to make your practise more rewarding. For a full description please see our yoga classes page.
Trauma Sensitive Yoga
Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TSY) is a practice of embodiment to assist people recover from the complex symptoms of trauma felt and held in the body. TSY aims to build awareness of the mind body connections and develop the personal tools to address and relieve trauma held in the body. Practicing yoga in a trauma sensitive setting allows people to build tolerance for feeling their physical and emotional bodily sensations and allows space to practise how to respond appropriately. Go to our Therapy page to learn more about TSY.
You do not need to have a diagnosis or history of trauma to practice yoga across any of our group yoga sessions. There are a variety benefits that come from practising yoga, being trauma sensitive means that you will be empowered to connect with your body and explore the benefits of yoga for yourself.
The Benefits of Yoga
The benefits of a regular yoga practice can be innumerable and the benefits for the traumatised body profound. The benefits of a regular yoga practice include:
- Increased fitness, strength and endurance
- Improved flexibility and balance
- Weight loss/management
- De-stressing, relaxing and calming the nervous system
- Improved bone strength and density
- Improved gut health and digestion
Yoga can also help you to understand and manage the very natural, but highly dis-regulating and distressing somatic symptoms that result from trauma, and can help:
- Release anxiety, intrusive memories, panic attacks and flashbacks
- Tolerate physical and emotional sensations felt in the body
- Manage hyper-vigilance or hypo-vigilance or other nervous system dis-regulations
- Make positive behavioural changes and manage impulse controls, addictions, sleeping or eating issues
- Relieve intolerable body sensations and somatic body complaints such as pain, tensions, headaches, tremors or other uncomfortable sensations trapped in the body