I’m Antje.
I founded Flow & Grow Family Yoga in 2020 in order to help parents and children connect, with themselves and with each other, through the power of yoga.
Being a parent myself, what excites me most about practising and teaching yoga is that it is one of the most joyous and effective ways to help us build a strong relationship with our children. It is this strong relationship that allows us and them to navigate life successfully.
I also love teaching family yoga because it lets me to bring together the "three loves of my life": parenting, yoga, and creative teaching.
I wasn’t always a yoga teacher. In fact, I was born with a club foot, which meant that as a child I was always told to be careful when exercising. Needless to say, sports didn’t rank highly for me, and I opted for a life in the arts instead.
I worked as an an actor, dramaturge and teacher for various South Australian companies and arts organisations. I also hold a PhD in theatre history from Flinders University. Between 2013 and 2019, I lived in Berlin, Germany, where I worked as assistant manager at a language school before discovering children’s yoga while on maternity leave with my son.
I had been practising yoga for myself ever since university. Through yoga, I learnt to accept my body as it is. I also learnt that “anyone can yoga”.
Children’s yoga struck a special chord with me because it allowed me to build on my theatre experience (where, incidentally, I was always drawn to more physical performance styles), while bringing the joy and benefits of yoga to some of the youngest members of society. It also fitted in well with my other passion, empowering parents by teaching paediatric first aid for BilderKraft Berlin.
I trained as a children’s yoga teacher with Nicolai Romanowski at the Pädagogisches Forum für Yoga (Pedagogical Forum for Yoga) and in parent-child-yoga with Andrea Helten of Kinderyoga Berlin. Before returning to Australia, I taught at various kindergartens and the SOS Kinderdorf Berlin. I'm currently studying Vinyasa Flow yoga teaching with Heather Agnew of Yoga Trinity, with a view to offer yoga classes for Grown Ups in 2021. Plans are also afoot for a very special kind of kids yoga - so watch this space!
I love learning and sharing knowledge. Above all, I love connecting with people - whether through the creative process of play rehearsals, discussions and interviews with academics, students and theatre practitioners, by helping people in fulfilling their dream of learning a foreign language, or by giving parents the tools to save their child's life in an emergency.
As Brené Brown says so eloquently, "Connection is why we're here."
And the most precious connection we have is the one with our children.
Flow & Grow Family yoga can help deepen that special bond in a fun way, and I would feel honoured if you joined me on our journey through life and parenthood.
See you on the mat!
Namasté
Antje
