About Patricia
Yin Yoga and Kundalini Yoga teacher in Sintra
I didn't come to yoga looking for it. The first thing I tried, in my early twenties and with life going at a hundred miles an hour, was an ashtanga class that wasn't for me. I left thinking it had nothing to do with me, and I set the idea aside.
The trip that changed everything
Everything changed on a trip. In 2008 I travelled the world and discovered meditation. In India, a teacher told me about Kundalini Yoga and predicted it would become my practice. I came home with no job and more questions than answers. As luck would have it, I found Kundalini Yoga right around the corner from home. By far, it was the one that hooked me.
Training so I could practise
Later I moved to Luxembourg, where there were no Kundalini Yoga classes anywhere. So I decided to train, at first only so I could practise on my own. I did my training in Madrid, at Mukande Ubuntu, a school in partnership with Gobinde Yoga, run by my teacher Siri Tapa. I travelled to Madrid countless times. That's where I received my spiritual name, Krishan Atma Kaur, which speaks of creativity and new life. And something I hadn't planned happened: the more I practised, the more I wanted to share it. It struck me as a fascinating practice, and I felt others deserved to discover it the way I had.
Kundalini Yoga and Yin Yoga, the two practices
Yin Yoga came later, almost by chance. I was already teaching Kundalini Yoga when I tried a Yin Yoga class, and it left me with a calm I had never felt before. During lockdown I trained with Carolina Drake, and ever since, the two practices have walked side by side in me. They don't compete, they complete each other: Kundalini Yoga lifts your energy, Yin Yoga teaches you to let go. I'm quite methodical, and I need that letting go as much as the energy. That's why I teach both.
Sintra and the little house at the quinta
I'm in love with this area. It sits close to Lisbon, has one of the most beautiful coastlines in Portugal, and an energy that's hard to explain until you feel it. It's nothing new: Sintra has long drawn people searching for something, and that old energy is still there in the hills, in the stones and in the mist that sometimes rolls down. My space is a little house at the far end of the Quinta. When I teach, the wind comes in, we feel the trees moving, we hear the birds, and this nature that comes in without asking is part of the practice. It's also my refuge. There are days I go there just to be, to lie down in silence and get some space back. Pé Descalço says exactly how it feels to arrive: you take off your shoes, you slow down, you're home.
In class
In class I'm close by. I listen to what each body needs and I respect it, starting with my own. You don't need to reach difficult postures to feel yoga fully. I've watched sceptical people arrive who now never miss a class, and people too shy to chant who now raise their voice without thinking.
Off the mat
Off the mat, I'm restless. I love to travel, to cook, and to share a table with the people I love, and I speak four languages out of that urge to know other cultures that never leaves me. And there are the animals of the quinta: Pepita, Río and Nina the cat, who sometimes sneaks into class and stays with us, giving off good energy.
“If you take one thing from practising with me, let it be this: your body is the temple of your soul. That person always rushing around outside isn't quite you. You are yourself when you're present, the way you were on the mat, whole.”