Hi, I’m Natalie, and YogaNPilates.com grew out of something I kept seeing both in classes and outside them. People want to move more, feel stronger, and take better care of themselves, but fitness has a remarkable talent for making simple things sound complicated.
Yoga and Pilates do not need to be complicated.
You do not need to know the names of fifty poses before your first yoga session. Nor do you need perfect posture before trying Pilates. And you definitely do not need to become flexible before you are allowed to start stretching.
I created YogaNPilates.com to make both practices easier to understand and easier to actually use.
Here I write about yoga, Pilates, mobility, flexibility, strength, breathing, recovery, equipment, beginner routines, common mistakes, and all the little questions that tend to appear once you actually get down on the mat.
Some of those questions are very practical.
Why are my legs shaking?
Am I supposed to feel this exercise here?
Why can everybody else apparently touch their toes?
And how can something involving such a tiny movement possibly hurt this much tomorrow?
Those are usually the interesting questions.
Why Yoga and Pilates?
Honestly, because they get you to stop going on autopilot and actually pay attention.
Pilates has a wonderful way of making a movement that looks almost laughably small suddenly feel very serious once you slow it down and do it properly.
Yoga gives you a different challenge. Strength, mobility, balance, breathing, patience and, occasionally, accepting that your left side has apparently decided not to cooperate today.
Neither requires you to be the strongest person in the room.
Neither requires you to be the most flexible.
They give you somewhere to start and plenty of room to improve.
That is what keeps me interested.
Who I am
I’m Natalie Brooks, a yoga and Pilates instructor, occasional terrible joke-maker and firm believer that exercise can be worthwhile, without feeling like a punishment.
I started with yoga and found Pilates later, but what kept me coming back to both had surprisingly little to do with trying to achieve some perfect fitness ideal.
I liked noticing the smaller changes.
A movement became easier, and my balance improved. I understood how to control an exercise that I had previously been rushing through. Something that seemed impossible eventually became fairly ordinary.
Those small improvements add up.
Teaching also convinced me that people usually do not need somebody shouting at them to work harder.
Sometimes they need somebody to explain the exercise differently.
Sometimes they need an easier variation.
Sometimes they need to hear that wobbling, shaking, stopping, laughing, and trying again are all perfectly normal parts of learning something new.
And sometimes they need a gentle reminder that they said they were going to do the workout, so yes, we are still doing the workout.
I can be very helpful like that.
What I Care About
I care about movement that fits into real life.
Some weeks you might practise four times. Some weeks getting onto the mat twice feels like an achievement. There are busy workdays, children, travel, bad sleep, sore muscles, packed schedules, and days when motivation mysteriously disappears.
I am much more interested in helping you build something sustainable than convincing you that missing Tuesday means you have failed.
At the same time, consistency matters.
You cannot do three workouts in January and expect your body to remember the arrangement in June.
Progress usually comes from doing fairly ordinary things repeatedly and giving them enough time to work.
That may not sound glamorous, but it is useful.
And useful wins around here.
Who I Write For
YogaNPilates.com is for beginners, regular practitioners, people returning to exercise, and people who are still standing beside the mat wondering whether today is finally the day.
You may be here because you want to become stronger.
You may want better mobility or flexibility.
You may be trying to understand Pilates equipment, improve your yoga practice, exercise at home, complement another sport, or simply move more than you currently do.
You might also have no grand objective whatsoever.
Maybe you just enjoy it.
That is a perfectly good reason too.
My job is to give you clear information, sensible guidance, and enough encouragement to help you get started and keep going.
Have a question about yoga or Pilates? Maybe there is a topic you would like me to cover, or an exercise that never seems to make sense. Visit my Contact Me page and let me know. I would love to hear from you.
If you would like to know how I handle your personal information, take a look at my Privacy Policy. You can also read the Terms and Conditions for the rules that apply to YogaNPilates.com.