The Story
Deirdre Desmond and Susan Montgomery have been teaching yoga in Cork County for 7 and 10 years respectively. They are both deeply passionate about yoga. Having met in San Francisco back in 1999 where they both lived, they were fortunate to experience their first yoga class as well as many years of wild and wonderful places in California. This instilled a mutual respect in their friendship for nature and the outdoors which rekindled years later as they both moved at separate intervals to rural areas of Cork and their separate yoga journeys began. Between them have spent many years teaching and learning from their own practices, their students and other inspirational teachers.

Experiencing 'Bosca Beatha' (the mobile sauna) on their local wild West Cork beach in the winter prompted a conversation. A conversation that was also the original hope and intention for the creation of the Sauna project, a space to create a dialogue of hopes and needs, dreams and ideas amongst people and push creative projects into the future. Aside from the benefits they felt from the sauna experience that day, the beautiful and therapeutic combination of sauna and yoga practice, experiencing the 'Tapas' inner heat/ fire, a seed was sown, a weed began to tumble and they began to think about 'the elements' and how they could bring yoga to be experienced amongst them and also how fellow teachers and diversity of teachings might respond to the notion. 
Bosca Beatha features in all (where possible!) of Elemental Yoga’s Retreats.

Susan and Deirdre teach every retreat themselves and once a year they host a guest teacher. For retreat in 2016 Orla Punch was guest teacher. Taylor Harkness will be guest teacher for 2017.

Bios
Susan Montgomery has been teaching Yoga in Dublin and West Cork for the last 10 years. Her journey began in Dublin where she practiced with some  Iyengar Yoga teachers who inspired her knowledge for the foundations of body awareness and the anatomy of yoga. Her path grew deeper in India where she travelled to complete her teacher training in 2005 to receive her certification under Yogvidya Gurukul, a branch of the Bihar School of Yoga located in Nashik, Maharastra.. This immersive experience instilled a love and respect for the complete tradition of yoga in all of its aspects. She has continued to train in Pranayama one of the only living masters Sri O. P Tiwari of Kailvilyadham Institute in India who's teachings were rooted in the very key of her practice since training in India in 2005. She has continued to study under many other inspirational teachers, both in Ireland and abroad such as Dharma Mittra,U.S,.A,
Bridget Kramer Woods U.K, Dave Curtis and Orla Punch. Susan is a practicing visual artist and mother of three. Her practice and training has taught her the importance of remaining true to oneself and that life requires a balance that comes from deep within, we are always learning..
Her style of yoga is Hatha Vinyasa flow with a strong emphasis on Pranayama, Meditation and the Traditions of Hatha Yoga.
Her classes aim to strengthen, ground and calm the body, mind and soul. 

Deirdre Desmond has been teaching Hatha yoga in Cork for the last 7 years. She completed her training in 2005 under  the guidance of Maire Quail and Nicole Henkel-Murphy. She continued her training with The Radiant Child Program and now  teaches children and teenagers as well as her adult classes. In 2014 Deirdre resumed her studies, training for her 500 hours with Amy Matthews BMC, Christine Howitt and Lisa Peterson, a pupil of Donna Farhi and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. This has brought a lot of science to her knowledge of the body and an inspiring introduction to Body, Mind Centering.  In January 2015 she took a trip to Holland to a former teacher Esther Ekhart to make a series of children’s and teenagers  yoga tutorials  for the on-line yoga website, Ekhart Yoga.
Deirdre has also been studying Hanna Somatics, a therapeutic practice which helps us to realign ourselves and to release unconscious tension. This has taught her how important it is to be in the pose ‘ moment to moment’  and how ‘ mindful breathing movement’ brings ease and stability. In her own practice now she tries to embody all that she has learnt and read, staying curious and interested in sensations, moving from poses to free movement, trying to stay open to what may occur.  As Donna Farhi says... ‘Let the breath move you’.  


                                                                                                                                            

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