Emma Landolt

Movement as Prayer, Breath as Medicine

Approach

In Emma’s class, the cue arrives as a suggestion, an intuitive knowing in the body. She teaches in long, looping mandalas that travel the whole compass of the mat, building heat through Rocket-infused Vinyasa before settling into Yin’s longer holds, then dissolving into Nidra. Students describe leaving lighter, looser, more themselves. Emma’s teaching is authentic and alive in the moment. Nothing is formulaic, forced or performed. There is always philosophy, self-enquiry, contemplation. The pace is generous and playful – a balance, an inversion, a moment of reflective pause to find the breath again. Emma is passionate and creative, dedicated to exploring the expanding awareness of conscious itself.

We are not separate from nature -we are nature. The elements live within our breath, bones, emotions, and spirit.

Early years

Emma came to yoga the way many of its most devoted teachers do: through injury. A shoulder that wouldn’t heal pulled her onto the mat in her early twenties, and what began as rehabilitation turned naturally into vocation. By then she was already a mover – trained in dance, teaching Capoeira through her twenties – and yoga met that knowledge with ease. Rhythm, gravity, the conversation between weight and breath: these were the languages she already spoke. India was the next step, and the Ashtanga Vinyasa lineage was the one that claimed her first.

Training & influences

Emma’s teaching is a confluence rather than a single river. India gave her Ashtanga’s discipline; David Swenson refined it. Patrick Beach unlocked the inversion practice that students now associate so strongly with her classes. Josh Summers gave her Yin’s patience and healing. The Yoga People – through Rocket, and the architectural rigour of Tripsichore – taught her how a sequence can be creatively challenging, dancing and spiralling through both traditional and new shapes and poses. Dulce Aguilar taught her the beloved Mandala, weaving Shamanic Practice with elemental theory and transpersonal psychology. And Uma Dinsmore-Tuli opened the door to Yoga Nidra, the ancient practice of deep rest that now bookends almost everything Emma offers. What ties these teachers together, in her telling, is not a single lineage but a shared insistence: that yoga is a living, breathing ever evolving practice and a lineage that each practitioner carries through devotion and discipline.

Teaching today

Emma teaches weekly classes and workshops at Vahni in South London and has led many retreats in India, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Peru, in the UK and across Europe. At The Shala School of Yoga she is the lead teacher for the Elemental Mandala Vinyasa and Elemental Yoga Nidra trainings, both running on the 300-hour pathway and as CPDs. Her current focus is the same as her own practice: harnessing the elements of earth, water, fire and air to activate the bodies energy and to build a powerful architecture for sequencing, theming, and deep rest.

Yoga Nidra — the sacred yoga of sleep, is a treasure of true awakening.

Specialisms

Elemental Mandala Vinyasa · Rocket · Ashtanga Vinyasa Flow · Yin Yoga · Yoga Nidra · Inversions · Elemental & Chakra-based Sequencing · Retreats · Cacao Circles & Ceremonies