People
Susanne Thomas
Susanne Thomas
Susanne is the founder of ChirpYOGA and a highly experienced yoga teacher and bodywork practitioner, with an international teaching background that spans more than 30 years. Originally from Germany, she came to the UK in 1991 to train in contemporary dance at the leading conservatoire in London, and has since built a career in dance, choreography and bodywork practices. She is also Co-Artistic Director of the performance company Seven Sisters Group.
Yoga has been part of Susanne's life since 2004, and she completed her 200-hour Yoga Alliance teacher training in Bali in 2011, alongside Paul. Her teaching ranges from community classes to professional dancers and higher education, where she was Director of Choreography at Dartington College of Arts and Programme Leader at the University of East London. From 2014 she gave more of her time to yoga alongside her work in higher education. In Yorkshire she taught at Yoga Kula in Leeds and at The Coniston Hotel Country Estate & Spa, led yoga for dance students at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, and ran classes and retreat days at Goat Gap, her home studio in the Yorkshire Dales.
Susanne divides her time between the UK and the Sierra de Almenara in southern Spain, where she teaches in the new rooftop shala. Here she is building ChirpNEST, a place where her two great passions meet: intentional, conscious living, with mind, body and environment as one, and her lifelong love of dance and the arts, a language without borders that builds community through creativity and exchange, open to all.
She teaches Vinyasa, Hatha, Hot Vinyasa Flow, Restorative Yoga, Yoga Nidra and somatic practice, and is a trained Nuad Boran Thai Yoga Massage practitioner. She also holds certificates in Vinyasa Yoga, Restorative Yoga, Assisted Yoga using Thai Yoga Massage, Yoga Nidra, Chavutti Thirummal Indian foot massage and Yoga for Children.
A big thank you to all my teachers!
Paul Arnold
Paul started teaching exercise, aerobics and meditation in a local gym in 1986 before commencing training in radiography in 1988. Paul’s continued interest in anatomy and physiology drove him to specialize in computed tomography and has been teaching these subjects at University level since 1998.
Paul encourages people of all shapes, size and age to let yoga into their lives and is a firm believer that yoga at some level should be accessible to all and should most importantly be fun! His favourite classes run with a narrative of the traditional stories behind the asanas and he teaches a fun class for children, drawing on the animals in yoga asana and linking movements with music, taking his young clients on an adventure journey across land and sea.
Paul completed Yoga Teacher Training in 2011 and regularly attends workshops in specialised areas of yoga to expand his knowledge, including Yoga Nidra certificate in 2012. In 2019 he completed his studies at SOAS, University of London and now holds a MA in the Traditions of Yoga and Meditation.
A student of Thai Yoga Massage with Kira Balaskas and Amy Ku Redler of the School Of Thai Yoga Massage in London, Paul received his certificate as a practitioner in Thai Yoga Massage in April 2014, the award being recognised by and affiliated to the Institute for Complementary and Natural Medicine (ICNM) and Thai Healing Alliance International (THAI), insured through the Yoga Alliance UK.
Paul has also studied Chavutti Thirummal Indian foot massage under one of the foremost teachers in this ancient tradition, Prabhat Menon who practises Thai Yoga Massage and Chavutti Thirummal in Mumbai and Kerala and is credited as the first person to return Thai Massage to the country from which it was originally exported. Described in the textbooks as ‘one man, one rope, healing oils and two feet’, this invigorating massage involves the practitioner using his or her feet and has to be experienced, but is not for the faint-hearted.