Ayesha Ali Yoga & Massage - Banbury

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Ayesha Ali Yoga & Massage - Banbury

Looking for something? Want to find inner peace, learn how to do the splits or just touch those toes? Find the class that makes your heart sing.

ayesha, she who lives ॐ
𖦹 Practices for life & liberation 𖦹
𓆗 soul-centred Dharma yoga
𓆸 massage & energy medicine
✡ vedic astrology
☾ moon circle gatherings for women Whatever the goal for your yoga practice, I can help.

My Vinyasa classes are upbeat, flowing and set to music to get your body moving and your heart beating. Drawing from different yoga traditions, graceful flowing movements are

fused with alignment-focused cues and eclectic beats. With no guru or posture series to rely on, the Vinyasa system enables the teacher to develop and build classes intelligently with a specific purpose in mind.

If you're looking for a gentler way into yoga, try my restore classes - a combination of restorative and yin postures to leave you feeling refreshed and renewed.

Yoga is for everybody.

19/08/2026

Hi, I'm Ayesha

For as long as I can remember, I've been drawn to the deeper questions. Who are we beneath all the roles we play? What does it mean to live well? How do we become a little kinder, wiser and more loving?

Yoga has been my way of exploring those questions for more than twenty-five years, and I've been teaching for almost twelve.

I care deeply about teaching with integrity. I'm a depth-over-speed kind of person, drawn to immersive trainings and long-term relationships with my teachers. My primary teacher is Sri Dharma Mittra, whose teachings and lineage through Swami Kailashananda have shaped my practice for many years.

But I don't believe we're here to become copies of our teachers. The teachings come alive through our own experience of being human.

Mine is the experience of being a woman, wife, mother, daughter, student and practitioner. And increasingly I'm drawn towards the mystical heart of yoga: mantra, meditation, ta**ra, the Goddess, devotion and the quiet mystery beneath ordinary life.

I still love asana. I love moving and exploring what the body can do. But I'm increasingly interested in where the practice leads.

As the body becomes steadier, the breath quieter and the mind a little less turbulent, we create space for different questions: How do we become kinder? Less reactive? More able to listen, love and serve? How do these ancient teachings help us become better partners, parents, friends and members of our communities?

For me, that's where yoga becomes truly transformative.

This little corner of Instagram is where I'll be exploring those questions — through Dharma Yoga, philosophy, the Goddess, ta**ra, mysticism, psychology, motherhood and the places where ancient wisdom meets modern life.

I don't have all the answers. But I believe these teachings still have the power to transform the way we live, love and meet one another.

If these are questions you're living with too, welcome. I'm so happy you're here. 🤎

08/07/2026

There is something deeply beautiful about mantra becoming part of the rhythm of our home.

Not reserved for temples or special occasions, but woven into the ordinary moments of family life. Carried on the breath while Maya plays beside me, offering her own little sounds to the chant.

Today I was singing Om Gam Ganapataye Namah.

Gaṇapati—Lord of the Gaṇas, Śiva's devoted attendants—is the guardian of the threshold.

Before we approach Śakti, before we enter more deeply into practice, we first bow to him.

Most people know Gaṇeśa as the remover of obstacles. But over the years I have found myself drawn just as much to his role as protector.

The guardian of what is sacred.

The one who lovingly keeps out what should not enter, so that what is tender, powerful and life-giving can be nurtured and protected. Sometimes what feels like an obstacle is itself a blessing. Sometimes the doorway remains closed because something precious is being cared for.

Perhaps that is one of the gifts of mantra.

I don't sing these mantras because I have understood them completely. I sing them because, over the years, they have quietly shaped me. They have softened me, steadied me and, again and again, gathered me back to what is essential.

To hear these sacred sounds now filling our home, with Maya beside me, feels like another kind of grace.

A reminder that the sacred has never been separate from life.

It lives in the kitchen, in the laughter, in the interruptions, in the silence between the sounds.

It lives in us.

Om Gam Ganapataye Namah. 🙏

07/07/2026

One of the questions I've been sitting with recently is whether anger has a place on a spiritual path.

There can be an idea in spiritual circles that we should simply let everything go.

Be loving.
Forgive.
Practise non-attachment.
Don't be angry.

But I've never been entirely convinced.

Three months ago our little dog Coco was killed by another dog on the street outside our home. Since then we've experienced a series of failures in the response that followed. At times I've questioned myself. If I practise yoga, if I believe in compassion, should I simply let this go?

The more I reflect, the more I think we've sometimes misunderstood what spirituality asks of us.

The opposite of anger isn't always love.

Sometimes anger is an expression of love.

If we love the vulnerable, we will feel something when they are harmed. If we love justice, we will feel something when justice isn't served.

The Bhagavad Gita has been returning to me. Arjuna doesn't want to fight. Faced with the suffering before him, he wants to lay down his bow and walk away. Krishna doesn't tell him to abandon the battlefield in the name of peace. He reminds him to act according to his dharma—to do what is right without hatred, without attachment, and without acting from ego.

Perhaps that is the teaching.

Not that we should never feel anger, but that anger itself is not enough. It must be transformed. It must be held in the heart, refined by compassion, and expressed in service of justice rather than revenge.

That feels very different from spiritual bypassing.

For me, yoga has never been about becoming indifferent to suffering. It is about cultivating the courage to meet suffering with an open heart and, when necessary, to act.

I'm still learning. Perhaps I always will be. Learning to discern when to soften and when to stand firm. Learning how to let love lead, even when anger is present. Learning, refining, and returning to the practice, again and again.

23/06/2026

I've been thinking a lot lately...
..about what it means to walk this path with integrity.

The reality is that our studio is struggling. Like many small independent businesses, we're working incredibly hard to keep the doors open. And when people hear that, the advice often comes quickly.

"You need to advertise more."

"You need to make it more fitness focused."

"You need better social media."

And inevitably someone sends me the Instagram account of a beautiful young woman practising yoga in very little clothing.

Because s*x sells.

It always has.

You can sell almost anything when wrapped in beauty, youth and aspiration.

But yoga is too precious to me to reduce it to that.

For more than twenty years I've watched yoga become increasingly commercialised in the West. A practice designed to turn us inward has become something we often perform outwardly. The teachers with the largest audiences are not always the most experienced, knowledgeable or wise. Often they are simply the most visible.

And I understand why.

Beauty attracts attention.

Aesthetic attracts attention.

A perfectly curated feed attracts attention.

But I find myself asking different questions.

What about wisdom?

What about knowledge?

What about the teacher who has spent decades quietly studying, practising, serving and learning?

What about experience?

The irony is that I'm not standing outside this system pointing fingers.

I'm in it too.

I've run the ads.

I've learned how to use AI.

I've spent hours creating content.

I've offered promotions and introductory offers.

I've tried to understand what works online.

Because I want this little studio to survive.

I want it to be here for the people who need it.

I want there to be spaces left where yoga can be more than a workout.

The challenge is not whether to market yoga. The challenge is how to market it without losing its soul.

Many of the teachers I respect most have never mastered social media. They write newsletters. They send thoughtful emails. They teach the same small group of students year after year. They devote themselves to practice rather than performance.

And yet, increasingly, it feels as though the digital world rewards the opposite.

I'm not writing this because I have the answer.

In truth, I'm wrestling with the question myself.

How do we share something sacred in a world that rewards spectacle?

How do we make yoga accessible without turning it into a commodity?

How do we survive financially without compromising the values that brought us to the practice in the first place?

Perhaps every generation of practitioners faces this question in one form or another.

For now, all I know is this:

I want to keep walking the path with integrity.

To teach what I believe in.

To honour the lineage and teachers who shaped me.

To resist the temptation to become something I'm not simply because it might sell better.

To trust that depth still matters.

And to hope that somewhere beneath the algorithms, the aesthetics and the noise, there are still people looking for something real.

21/04/2026

A new kind of love.

A love that asks for everything and gives everything at once. A love that is not transactional, not convenient, not dependent on how you feel in the moment. In caring for this tiny being, something in me has softened and expanded beyond anything I’ve known before. It is a selflessness that isn’t forced, but revealed—again and again, in the quiet, unseen moments. A love that strips you bare and rebuilds you, wider, deeper, more open.

I thought I understood devotion before. I didn’t.

Because now I see—this is Her too. This relentless, tender, all-consuming love. In learning to give myself so completely here, my relationship to Ma has shifted. Devotion is no longer something I do in ritual or practice alone—it is something I live, moment by moment, in the giving, the holding, the surrender.

To love like this is to know Her more intimately. And in that knowing, my devotion is no longer something I reach for—it is something that is continuously being made through me.

This is what initiation feels like.

Not separate from life—but through it.

**ra divinemother pathofawakening innerwork selfrealisation surrender embodiedspirituality sacredtransformation

03/04/2026

Dear Coco, my sweet pea ❤

I'm so sorry. The past 6 months I have been so busy. Busy with Maya. Busy complaining about your barking. Busy telling you off for sitting on Maya's play rugs or picking up her toys.

I've been so distant and cross. Cross because of how sad I've been. How hard it's been having Maya. And how alone I've felt at times. Even though you were right there to comfort me.

I didn't cuddle you as much as I used to, or tell you how much I love you. I kept saying, in a few weeks it will be easier. In a few weeks I will be able to spend time with you again. In a few weeks Maya will be sitting up or walking or more settled. And I will be your mummy again too. Just give me a few more weeks.

But there are no more weeks. You are gone. I can't remember if I gave you a cuddle this morning. I stroked you whilst I held Maya. I remember that. You looked at me. You wagged your tail.

There are no more weeks and I can't make it up to you. I can't let you come into the bed for a snuggle or give you a comfy rug to lie on to replace Maya's blanket I took away from you. There is no more time to stroke you or hug you or kiss you. There is no more time to get you ready for our walk or to take you to the studio for class.

My heart. My heart is broken. I knew one day it would come. That I would have to say goodbye to you. My first baby. But I thought we had more time. I saw you and Maya together playing. I saw you getting old. And just like that the light is gone. Your little light has gone out. And all I can do is sob. And then fold some clothes. Kala. Kali. Time swallows everything.

And suddenly I'm back in Spain buying you a doggie ice cream, or back in the studio chanting Om Shanti and hearing your little paws as you run across the studio to give everyone licks at the end of class. I keep hearing your paws on the stairs and expecting you to jump up onto the bed.

You were the sweetest being. The best teacher and the best friend. You touched so many people. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I couldn't save you.

I know somewhere you are with Duchess, Faye and Humbug already and that I will see you again. Rest now my love. I will throw the ball again for you soon.

26/09/2025

A rite of passage 🍂🌸

On the solar eclipse in Virgo, my ascendant sign, the autumn equinox, and the eve of Navaratri, Eddie, and I celebrated the anticipation of a new chapter - becoming parents.

So many key moments go unmarked in our culture. Our glorification of busyness, achievement, and productivity means that there is rarely time to mark completions, endings, or new starts. We wanted to make sure this moment did not go unmarked.

For me, the birth of a child is far more significant than marriage, yet there is often so much more consideration put into a marriage ceremony. Sometimes years of planning, financial investment, careful consideration of who will support the bride and groom, flowers, special clothes, a feast, the list goes on. Yet, when a child is brought into the world, there is often relatively little preparation. Parents often feel unsupported and under-prepared, and many women are left feeling lonely, exhausted, and confused.

These first days of Navaratri have been the perfect time to contemplate the role of mother. The Goddess is often understood as the mother of the universe. She is the creatrix. She is the cosmic womb as well as the creation itself. She gives rise to matter (matter and mother share the same root). She is prakriti, maya. She is movement, activity, shakti. She is everything we know through the body and the senses as well as being the body itself.

Whether we become mothers/fathers of children ourselves, or not, we all contain this creative principle. This ability to give birth to beauty, to love, to art, to technology. We are all of this incredible power, that creates out of an overflowing, an outpouring, an effulgence of love.

This ceremony was a reminder to us both of that. That our little girl was created in love, and that we always have the capacity to love completely, one another, and all those we come into contact with. Yes, it's not always easy. Yes, our conditioning, experiences, egos, and personalities get in the way sometimes. But at our core, we are Her. We are
God/dess. We can move through the world from this place. If we so choose.

Jai Ma 🔻

15/08/2025

Growing a human for the first time at 39 years old 🌱

I've been reflecting on societal norms and messages around motherhood these past months. I'm now 33 weeks pregnant 🤰 for the first time at 39.5 years old.

In so many ways, my yoga journey and my deepening relationship with the divine feminine has prepared me for this rite of passage. At 23, when on paper I would have been more likely to conceive naturally and have a healthy pregnancy and baby, I was overweight, searching frantically for meaning and purpose, and my my body was literally falling apart.

I returned from working in Cairo in December 2009, where I had been working for around 18 months. I moved home with my parents after 5 years of university and living overseas, and to keep myself occupied ran a half marathon and passed my driving test whilst I looked for work. I eventually managed to get a job and enrolled on a masters programme part-time. I thought I was finally on the road to whatever it was that would bring fulfilment. But, it took another ten years at least to realise this wasn't going to come from my work or indeed from anything outside of myself.

Fast forward 15 years to present day me, and I feel like I am so much better prepared for motherhood. Everyone is different,of course. We all walk our own paths. But, for me, 20 years of yoga practice has strengthened not only my body but my mind and my heart too.

I am so much more resilient to the pressures and challenges of life. Im more optimistic and hopeful, more joyful, kinder, more generous, and more compassionate. I still have a long way to go, and I'm far from perfect, and of course, no one is ever completely prepared to become a parent. But, this journey, this spiritual ripening that at least in part required the development of a healthy vessel, a body temple, has provided a holy place for this little one to grow.

She has already participated in hours of physical practice, hours of spiritual ceremony and ritual, mantra,and breathing practice. She has been with me as I've danced and sang, as I've cried and cuddled and laughed all in my devotion to Her.

Continued in comments

10/07/2025

🌕✨ *Full Moon in Sagittarius & Guru Pūrṇimā Blessings* ✨🌕

📅 **Tonight – Wednesday 10th July | 9:37pm UK time**

This evening’s **full moon** rises in the sign of **Sagittarius (Dhanu Rāśi)** — a fiery, expansive sign in Jyotish (Vedic astrology), ruled by **Jupiter (Guru)**, the planet of wisdom, truth and spiritual guidance.

Sagittarius energy invites us to reflect on:
🔭 What gives our life deeper meaning
🔥 Our spiritual path and personal truth
📚 The lessons we've received through experience and mentorship

This full moon is especially powerful because it coincides with **Guru Pūrṇimā** — the most sacred full moon of the year in the yogic and Vedic traditions.

**Guru Pūrṇimā** is a time to pause and honour the *teachers, guides, and wisdom-holders* who have illuminated our path — both external and internal. Whether it’s a yoga teacher, a mentor, a parent, a spiritual lineage, or your own inner voice, this is a night to remember and give thanks 🙏

—

🪷 **FREE Full Moon Ritual – Tonight at 9:30pm (UK)**
I’ll be holding a **free online ritual** at the time of the full moon — open to all.

📍Join me live on **Instagram**
💻 or via **Zoom** (*book your spot here https://bookwhen.com/templeofyogastudio/e/ev-sjdt-20250710213000*)

We’ll share:
✨ A short satsang (talk)
🌬 Gentle prāṇāyāma
📿 Mantra chanting
🌕 Reflection and stillness under the light of the full moon

No previous experience needed — just bring yourself, your breath, and maybe a candle or journal if you’d like to create a simple space at home.

—

Whether or not you can join live, I encourage you to take a quiet moment this evening:
🧘🏽‍♀️ Reflect on those who’ve guided you
🕯 Offer a prayer, mantra, or silent thank you
💫 And allow the moonlight to reconnect you with your path

With love and gratitude 🕊

\

25/06/2025

🌑✨ New Moon in Gemini | Jyotish Perspective ✨🌑
Wednesday 25th June | 11:31am UK Time

Today’s new moon occurs in the dual, airy sign of Gemini (Mithuna Rāśi) at 11:31am UK time. In Jyotish (Vedic astrology), this is a time when the Sun and Moon come together in the same sign, marking a potent moment of inward turning, reflection, and mental renewal.

Gemini is ruled by Mercury (Budha) – the planet of communication, intellect, curiosity and learning. With both luminaries aligned here, there is an invitation to recalibrate how we think, speak and connect – not only with others but within ourselves.

This is a powerful moment to:
🪷 Examine mental habits
🪷 Set intentions around learning, teaching or communication
🪷 Ground into stillness before the mind starts to move too fast

As always, new moons are subtle but immensely fertile spaces – beautiful times for quiet ritual, reflection and intention-setting.

🕯 At-Home New Moon Ritual
You might like to try this today, ideally close to the time of the new moon or before sunset:

Cleanse your space – light incense, sweep, open a window

Sit quietly, perhaps with a journal

Write down three things you’re ready to release from your thinking patterns or speech

Write down three intentions related to clarity, curiosity, or expression

Chant the mantra: “Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya” 108 times

Sit in meditation for 5–10 minutes

Let this be a soft beginning – no need to force or fix. Just offer your awareness.

📿 Join me LIVE on Instagram at 1pm
I’ll be offering a short Satsang (spiritual talk) on the jyotish meaning of this new moon, followed by:
🌀 Gentle prāṇāyāma
🔔 Mantra chanting
🧘🏽‍♀️ Meditation to anchor your intention

Whether you're a long-time practitioner or just moon-curious, you are so welcome to join.

See you at 1pm ✨

Address

West Bar Street
Banbury
OX169RZ

Website

http://www.ayeshaaliyoga.com/

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