Teacher Spotlight – Claire Naisby

PRACTICAL ⛰️ + INVITING 💚 + MINDFUL 🧘‍♀️

Claire began her yoga journey a decade ago, driven by a dynamic approach to counterbalance her demanding career in insurance and investments. Over the years, the practice’s slower moments and accompanying philosophy gradually reshaped her perspective, shifting her focus. 

With five years of experience as a yoga and mindfulness instructor, backed by 600 hours of training and over 1,000 hours of teaching, Claire incorporates psychological, neuroscientific, and experiential insights into her classes. Claire’s corporate background brings a practical perspective to her teaching, encouraging a transition from purely logical thinking to a more complete mind-body experience. She invites people of all backgrounds and skill levels to her classes, creating a welcoming space where students can reconnect with their inner selves, grow personally, and feel at ease.

Q: What made you fall in love with yoga?

A: I fell in love with yoga whilst juggling full time work in a graduate job in insurance, professional exams and live in the beautiful and bustling city of Edinburgh. I managed the heat of my lifestyle in the best way I knew how: throw in some more heat by rigorously practicing hot yoga. What I fell in love with was the way I would float home after classes, significantly less bothered by the chaos of the world and more connected to what actually mattered which wasn’t the job, the exams or pretty city life. And once the genie was out, there was no going back.

Q: How do you take your yoga off your mat?

A: I define yoga as encompassing a wide set of mindfulness practices and underlying philosophy that I try to weave into my everyday life. So for me I’m practicing yoga when I take a few moments to meditate in the morning, or when hurtful words are spoken to me, or when my train is three hours late. Nurturing allowing presence and compassion, the foundations of what makes yoga yoga, and not something that kinda looks like gymnastics can be cultivated anywhere in life.

Q: How has being a yoga teacher evolved for you over the years? Are there some things that have not changed?

A: I started teaching ashtanga and vinyasa yoga with a love for rules and alignment and my hashtag yoga every day was a repetitive sequence that my body didn’t eventually thank me for. I taught from this place: three cues for alignment per posture, set and solid shapes. I have studied many styles since and what has most resonated personally is an intuitive, embodied approach. I’m a classic yogi – a type A perfectionist with an over functioning left brain. What has really opened the doors for me to transform personally has been to let go of rules and rigidity and spark more right side: play, creativity, permission to move freely. What hasn’t changed are the awkward jokes I like to crack mid class.  

Q: Who inspires you?

A: Sally Kempton. I was introduced to her by my teachers Tara Judelle and Satu Tuomela. The world lost her physical presence earlier this year but her impact on the world was and continues to be unboundless. She was a trailblazer, a woman moving through the world on her own terms with so much love, power and wisdom. At the moment I’m re-reading her book Awakening Shakti – it brings a language and light to feminine energy we can all stand in and I see a different perspective, truth, each time.  

Q: How do you handle stress and pressure? 

A: I watch deadlines loom and think how nice it would be to be the kind of person who chips away at these things, gives themselves an easy ride. In reality I leave things until they must be done and find some sort of inner super power that always gets me over the line. Mindfulness helps me notice this tendency and find ways to not rely so much on the superhero, because my body keeps the score and I always end up paying the bill eventually.

Q: Besides yoga, what are some other things you’re passionate about? 

A: I’m a beachy soul who loves to be in the water so I’m often adventuring to find places to swim and surf and I love to trail run with my dog Ziggy, who pulls me up hills like a husky. I’m currently spending my summer in a van in Europe teaching yoga at various holiday hotspots, so I am lucky to have had the freedom to explore the abundance of the Mediterranean coastline these past few months. And I wish the endless summer could continue…

Explore Claire’s Classes on Practyce: