Meet Cat - The Teacher Behind Yoga Strength at Living Yoga Johannesburg
- Ashleigh Christie
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
If you've ever wondered who's behind the Yoga Strength class on a Wednesday morning at Living Yoga, this is Cat.
She teaches at 6:30 am; she's been in the movement world for years, and once you know her story, I think it changes the way you show up on the mat.
Cat came to yoga the way a lot of people do, sideways, through something else. She'd been teaching Pilates for years and was curious about how yoga compared. So she did her yoga teacher training to understand it.
She didn't expect to fall in love with it.
"More than just movement," is how she describes what she found.
And that shift, from yoga as a physical practice to yoga as something deeper, is exactly what she brings into every class she teaches.
Her Yoga Strength class at Living Yoga is where Pilates and yoga meet.
It's conditioning work, but it's also the kind of class where you're encouraged to ask questions, understand your body, and actually figure out why certain poses feel the way they do.
Cat describes the sessions as sometimes feeling more like a workshop than a class. And that's intentional.
"They learn about the fundamentals," she says of her students, "often identifying ways they've been working against the body instead of with it." That insight, that small paradigm-shifting moment of realising you've been fighting your own body, is what her regulars carry into every other class they attend.
They don't just get stronger.
They get smarter about how they move.
In another life, she'd be a forensic anthropologist.
What Cat changed her mind about, after years of practice and teaching: she used to think yoga was cliquey. That if you didn't know the lingo, you didn't belong and you'd be judged. That's why she makes a point of breaking things down, keeping it accessible, and reminding people that the joy is the whole point.
"I always encourage people to find the joy in yoga," she says. "As a movement practice and a lifestyle."
What she wants you to walk away with, above everything else: the knowledge that you are in control. Of your body, your mind, your choices. On and off the mat.
Outside of Living Yoga, Cat runs her own studio in Greenside where she teaches Pilates, fascia release, and hands-on assisted stretch sessions.
She walks in nature, sews, is part of a singing group, and watches silly TV with her two cats.
She is currently twelve seasons deep into Bones, because she loves the human body and in another life she would have been a forensic anthropologist.
She teaches because, in her own words: it's what she was born to do.
Yoga Strength with Cat
Wednesdays, 6:30 am at Living Yoga
A combination of yoga and Pilates designed to build strength, body awareness, and confidence in your practice. If you've ever wanted someone to actually explain what's happening in a pose, this is the class.