Nuku Yoga

🌞 our next Self-Practice Support workshop with Dan Fanthorpe is Saturday Sept 12th!

this monthly session is to empower your self-practice, to explore and get curious with āsana, for inspiration and support, taught with Dan’s love of keeping yoga simple.

We had so much fun last month, I was lucky to have my parents visiting, and they came along to Dan’s session. Neither of them has a regular yoga practice, but by the end of the session, they were both trying handstands and forearm stands!

Not because it was easy, but because Dan built the class in layers, foundational strength first, then the next shape, then the next,

So by the time you reach something that once felt out of your comfort zone, you’re ready to give it a try. A non-judgemental, safe space to try something new 🤸🏽‍♀️

That’s what this workshop offers, not showing up already capable, but leaving feeling more confident to try something you weren’t two hours before 🤎

Sat Sept 12th, 10am-12pm, sliding scale $25-35. book online at nukuyoga.nz/courses-workshops 🌞🌞

SOMATIC ASHTANGA · Tuesdays 5.30pm 🤎

Luli’s classes blend two schools of yoga that don’t usually sit together, the Ashtanga primary series and Terra Soma Awakening Arts.

When I found out about Luli’s teaching and training background, I was so inspired by such a beautifully juxtaposed practice. Schools of teaching that I see as opposing ends of the yoga spectrum.

Luli first trained as an Ashtanga teacher in Uruguay, a highly disciplined, linear practice, the same sequence every day, where you traditionally don’t move to the next posture until you’ve mastered the one before it.

Later she trained with Juliette McConachy in Golden Bay, who developed Terra Soma Awakening Arts. This is an exploratory, intuitive practice blending yoga with eco-somatics, felt sensation, and movement based on whatever’s alive in your body in each moment.

Two very different worlds, structure/ spontaneity, discipline/ deep listening, mastery of form/ felt sensation over perfection.

Luli’s class holds both beautifully. Anchored by the Ashtanga primary series, but with the focus shifted toward sensation rather than reaching a perfect shape, softened by space to feel and explore within it.

A really warm invitation to come and try this class for yourself 🧡🧡🧡

SEPTEMBERRRRR 🌞🌞🌞 spring is springing and we are heading into month two!!

Thank you so so blooming much to everyone who has joined us in our first month 🤎 It seriously means the world each time you choose to book a class, each time you to choose to show up and practise in our space 🤎 none of this would be possible without all of you !!

It has been such a joy to warm this space together, filling it with movement, sound, strength, kōrero, silliness, and laughter 💛

September’s timetable is almost identical, just a few tweaks to Mane with reo Māori flow @ 12.15pm and all-levels Vinyasa @ 4.15pm 🤎

hei te pūāio!!!

simplicity 💛
it seems to be in winter that I find myself looping back to this word, obsessing over what it holds and what it doesn’t.

I read it and feel a full-body exhale, an invitation not to over-complicate.

most of what I share here is an articulation of what I know I need to hear, and what’s often hardest to actually hear.

as humans we love to tinker, to let curiosity overflow in a hundred different directions. Spending time in this space is creative and fun and energising, and life is this beautiful balance of time spent in both states.

sometimes choosing simplicity is a practise in itself, there are seasons in life where it flows easefully, and others where boundaries are needed to bring ourselves back to somewhere simple enough to rest,

winter feels like one of those seasons to me, asking for moments that feel like an exhale.

that’s what I’ve been trying to build in class, elongated exhales through prāṇāyāma, mantra, and a bit of silliness with playful movement. my hope is that it ripples out past the mat, and we all get to spend a little more time somewhere light, silly, and simple 🤎

MEET JESS 🤎 Our kaiako for Slow Flow Sundays, 5:30pm, with Luli joining on the last Sunday of each month 🌞

Jess will be sharing her beautiful trauma-informed practice with us on Sundays. Expect a slow and accessible vinyasa flow 🤎

Some of you may already know Jess, she’s been a regular yogi at the surf club on Saturdays for the past year, and has recently shared a few of her own classes there. Others might know her from her lunchtime classes at Olympus gym 🌞

She holds a beautifully compassionate space, a calm and welcoming energy that makes anyone in the room feel safe.

Jess is also a māmā to two boys, navigating full-time work alongside teaching, and we feel lucky she’s chosen to share this practice with us three Sundays a month.

We are so excited to welcome Jess for her first studio class this Sunday, hope to see you there 💛

🌞 our first Self-Practice Support workshop facilitated by Dan Fanthorpe is this Saturday!

some of you may already know Dan from Body Logic, where he works as an Osteopath and hosts weekly stretch clinics.

prior to this, Dan was travelling the world studying and teaching Ashtanga Yoga, including (for the yoga history geeks) years studying under renowned teachers of Ashtanga Yoga, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and Sharath Jois, in India.

this monthly session is to empower your self-practice, to explore and get curious with āsana, for inspiration and support and taught with Dan’s love of keeping yoga simple, weaving traditional philosophy and āsana together to help students better understand, appreciate and apply yoga in everyday life.

as you can tell, we are so excited to share this workshop with you (and to experience it ourselves!)

this Sat Aug 8th (and then the 1st Saturday of every month), 10am-12pm, sliding scale $25-35. book online at nukuyoga.nz/courses-workshops 🤎

tuatahi rā, i have found my words 🌞 a vision and space that feels collective and touched my so many special humans 🧡🧡🧡

walls painted by beautiful friends who travelled here to share in the joy of a dream manifesting, billowing ceiling fabric sewn and hung by one of our wonderful teachers and her partner, yoga mat shelves handmade by one of our beautiful student’s Dad, old decorations from my parent’s house, crystal light catchers from Glenn’s wife, secondhand mats and props from a generous local teacher, and more beautiful creations on the way from some lovely yogi artists 🌞

for the about page on our website, I wrote:

I’m sure many of you can relate to the way Nuku began, from the heart of someone whose home compass had recently shifted and was wanting to feel a sense of belonging in a new place. I wanted to share the practice I love, and hoped in doing so, to find my people.

I have continuously been blown away and immensely grateful for what has grown in return. Nuku began as something I was creating, but it quickly became a shared creation. All of you who showed up, class after class, shaped Nuku alongside me. And I suppose that’s what makes Nuku unique, it grew not from someone hoping to open a yoga studio, but from someone hoping to form connection, community and belonging.

This studio is as much yours, as it is ours 💛

every time I step inside I can feel this, the collective energy, the beautiful sense of community, everything and so much more I could have ever hoped for.

🌞 in all our posts I keep using the reo Māori plural, tātou (we, us, all of us). I adore how Māori allows us to distinguish which “us” the speaker means, and I intentionally do mean, all of us 💛

thank you all so much for being here, I cannot wait to see you soon in our studio !!!!

Whakawhetai me arohānui, sam 🤎

🌞 deciding on pricing for our studio was hands down the hardest decision made throughout this whole process, one that I asked for a lot of feedback and advice around. I am so grateful to those who gave their input 🤎

a core value for me with saying yes to Nuku opening as a studio was being able to maintain accessibility and affordability. for the most part, as soon as you have a lease, that ideal becomes difficult. so I am forever grateful that the way Nuku will operate, sharing a space with Tui Architecture, enables us to carry out this pricing value 🤎

our pricing will run on a scale, we believe yoga should be accessible to everyone in our community, and hope this sliding scale is a step in that direction. the lower end of each range keeps our doors open and our teachers paid fairly. anything above that helps create space for someone else.

there’s no need to explain where you land. simply choose what feels right for you, today 🤎

I hope this scale serves most of you, though the kaupapa of Nuku is that it’s genuinely for everyone. if this scale still feels like a push and you want to access yoga, please just reach out and we will do what we can 🤎

Tahi (studio drop-in): $18-22
Tahi (surf club drop-in): $15-20
Tekau (10-class pass, studio & surf club): $150-180

this is a living commitment, one we’ve done a lot of thinking (and math, lots of math) to make sure is genuinely sustainable, for us and for you.

lastly, to echo my commitment from our initial announcement, a class at Nuku will always cost less than one hour’s minimum wage, that’s not negotiable. if the studio ever makes that impossible, everything goes back to the surf club 🤎