I know what it feels like when your body stops cooperating.
For years I navigated daily chronic pain, inflammation, and significant loss of mobility — living with hypermobility and autoimmune conditions which worsened over time and the shifting terrain of menopause.
I had been a yogi for over 15 years, practicing many different styles including Iyengar, Ashtanga and Kundalini - but was drawn particularly to Anusara Yoga upon discovering it just before I moved to Florida from the UK.
Having grown up in a Hindu household, yogic philosophy was simply part of my daily life. Yoga was not simply something I did — it was how I understood myself and my body.
Which made it even more devastating when, as my conditions worsened, even my practice could no longer help me navigate the inflammation, the pain, and the loss of mobility. Land-based movement had become inaccessible to me.
Getting back into the pool changed everything.
Discovering aqua yoga, I was able to start moving again — gently, safely, and without bracing against my own body.
The water gave my joints the relief they needed. It gave my nervous system permission to let go. And it gave me back a relationship with my body I thought I had lost.
I am now a certified RYT-200 yoga instructor and certified Aqua Yoga therapist, trained in therapeutic and somatic approaches to movement.
I am also a freediver — because water is not just where I work. It is where I feel most at home.
I created Water Woman Wellness for women who are where I was — ready to move again, but needing a gentler, smarter way in.
Sushi Chanrai