I’ve just come to the end of a year of advanced training with a wonderfully knowledgeable teacher called Sarah Ramsden. Sarah is a highly respected and very well known yoga teacher specialising in yoga for athletes and is currently employed by two Premier League football clubs (Manchester United and Manchester City) to provide yoga flexibility and stability training to the players. Her workshops at the recent Yoga Show were entitled ‘Let’s look at Ronaldo’s legs’! (he wasn’t there unfortunately). She is credited with assisting Ryan Giggs to play football well into his 40’s.

My reason for signing up for the course (The Body Athletic) was to offer more knowledgeable teaching to a group of tri-athletes and a rugby team I already teach. It helps to be able to talk ‘physio’ talk to these groups and their other trainers, and yoga training can be patchy on anatomy and physiology. But I learnt so much more about the mechanics of breathing, how we can really achieve flexibility and how to create stability in the body so that we can protect our backs and build better foundations for whatever sport we do, whether we are weekend warriors or professional athletes. The learning was broad and the teaching expansive.

Yoga is one of those subjects where the training and education never really ends. There is always a new part of the journey to discover. And yoga teachers are renowned for signing up for new training and probably spending more on the training than they ever earn in a lifetime.

I don’t just plan to use this new- found knowledge on sports men and women, although if Chelsea FC are looking for a new yoga coach I think I’m available. I have been using my new skills, since the first session, on my unsuspecting yogis, working on mobilising the spine and strengthening the torso, and creating flexibility in those hard to reach places like groins and inner thighs.

I remember sitting at my desk in January plotting a whole year of training dates and it’s difficult to believe it’s all over. I won’t miss those long midnight drives up to Chester on a Tuesday evening after teaching and although I grew to love the Premier Inn Chester I won’t miss the late night revellers that used to sing in the street below the hotel bedrooms. But I will miss the camaraderie of the amazing group I was training with and the lovely feeling of realising that you are listening to a person who really knows what they are talking about and knowing that you can only be better for learning from them.

And so my education in yoga continues. I learn from every class I ever go to, and pick up something new and interesting from each new teacher and from the students. This is a lifelong learning and whilst I used to feel embarrassed by gaps in my knowledge, now I just think how I can fill them, and look forward to the challenge. And yes, I have just signed up for more training in 2017, a different course which is slightly less time consuming but will add another layer of wisdom to the yoga pile.

So I am grateful to anyone who ever taught me anything, yoga or otherwise. Your wisdom is invaluable and I am lucky to be able to pass it on.