In this third installment of “Meet the Teachers” of the Kilifi Wellness Festival, iN caught up with yoga teacher Alice Faulkner at Arcadia Bush Camp near Kilifi, where she is currently spending time.
Alice Faulkner is a Hatha, Vinyasa, and Trauma-Informed Restorative Yoga Teacher and Reiki Practitioner visiting from the UK where she teaches “Yoga in the Woods” – an outdoor yoga experience that helps people reconnect with nature while bringing balance to mind and body.
Alice describes her classes as “slow, enriching, vinyasa flow [a style of yoga that links breath to movement, flowing through a sequence of postures], inspired by nature. I use a lot of my cues around nature. It’s all about connecting in yourself and connecting with nature and the environment around you to feel fully grounded, but also uplifted and rejuvenated”.
Alice comes from a medical background and is a qualified Emergency Medicine doctor. She says: “My wellness journey began alongside my medical career, where I saw the crucial need for balance between physical health and mental/emotional care. Working in the fast-paced environment of Emergency Medicine made me recognise how important it is to have tools that support long-term wellbeing and stress management.”
She began practicing yoga about nine years ago, dabbling here and there, sometimes more, sometimes less, but always found the transformation that came from practice incredible. Ultimately, Alice felt she wanted a life that was more holistic and spiritual. She shifted her focus from medicine to teaching yoga full time.
Alice aims to offer a serene and supportive atmosphere in her classes, aided by the natural surroundings of the woods where her classes are set. There is an emphasis on the fundamentals of yoga including asanas, philosophy and history. She guides those in her class to connect with their breath and body, and through those, their intuition. She hopes that people will leave her class able to feel stronger, have greater self-trust and to feel more authentically. These steps can help to realise and embrace one’s full potential across all facets of life.
Although her class is not strongly alignment-focused, Alice says of having a medical background, plus yoga teacher training, “I have studied anatomy and that kind of thing, so I do have that knowledge, [but] when I’m teaching my yoga classes, it’s much more about the softer side, much more about the nature, the connection, the breath, the fluidity, than it is about the physiology”.
“For me, the ways that I like to offer with myself as a yoga teacher is as a way of creating space and the illusion of time, for people to quieten, to connect inwards, to reconnect with themselves, reconnect with their true self [that may be] hidden, to allow them to discover their potential and to reach that potential and see what’s available to open up and stretch, not just physically but also mentally, spiritually, and in all aspects of their lives.”
Alice’s yoga practice has its roots in personal growth, fostering connection and a deep reverence for nature. She believes that yoga in nature offers the ultimate calming and immersive yoga experience.
We have all heard of forest bathing in recent years, the practice of immersing yourself fully in a forest or other nature spot, with no phone, no connectivity and a focus on mindfulness and your senses. Benefits include improved mood, better sleep quality, reduced stress, improved concentration and memory, and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
Alice spoke of this phenomenon: “there’s so much increasing evidence [around] forest bathing, so much advice from mental health charities: go for a walk, spend time outdoors. And there’s a reason for that. We are designed to be outdoors. It just has so many different identifiable elements, but also spiritual or micro elements, just in leaves when you smell them, the hormones and chemical changes that it makes in your body, I think it just transports you a little bit further than being in a building“.
Alice has always been drawn to nature. “When I have been doing my independent practice, I’ve sort of noticed over the years that I would always crack the window and as soon as I felt the breeze on my skin, it would just help to drop me into the practice deeper. I’d always prefer to practice in the garden. I just found the energy and the influence of nature into my practice really uplifting and renergizing”, she said. Alice even did her yoga teacher training in an off-grid national park in Portugal.
Here in Kenya, Alice is experiencing a different kind of nature than the forests of her home base in Yorkshire, England. But not an entirely unfamiliar one. Alice was born in Zimbabwe and spent her childhood in Zambia and South Africa. As part of her personal development and reconnection with her inner self, Alice felt drawn to return. Her parents had spent two years in Nairobi before having children and travelled around Kenya. Alice wanted to see this country that had influenced her parents some thirty-odd years ago, making a circular journey and connecting with the land, in more ways than one.
Alice will be teaching 2 yoga classes at Kilifi Wellness Festival:
Grounding Slow Flow – a nourishing yoga class of creative Vinyasa Flow sequences inspired by nature, suitable for all levels.
Nature-Inspired Yoga Flow – a grounding yoga class of creative Vinyasa Flow sequences inspired by nature, suitable for all levels.
You can find out more about Alice & her practice in the UK on alicefaulkner.com
You can easily reach Kilifi for the Wellness Festival flying with Skyward Express to Malindi or to Mombasa, where you will currently find discounted flights.