TEACHERS
Sue Barlow
Director/ Founder/Teacher
When we follow the flow in our life we find ourselves exactly where we’re supposed to be, doing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing, sharing it with exactly who we’re supposed to be sharing it with. Sue has followed her flow. Working as a district nurse in her local community for many years while raising her children and helping run the family farm near Rushworth in country Victoria, Sue felt inspired to work in a way that would enhance people’s well-being rather than working with people once they were already unwell. A love of yoga and an inability to access classes easily in her rural area, led Sue to undertake a yoga teaching course. “Initially I thought that the training would further develop and sustain my own practice at home without really considering being a teacher.” With Sue’s passion for yoga it’s no surprise that she created Mud Hut Yoga Studio and began teaching in 2010.
Sue’s commitment to learning has resulted in extensive ongoing yogic studies with different teachers and various specialties. In 2018 she completed a 2 year comprehensive Yoga Therapy course and is now a fully qualified Yoga Therapist. Sue has also completed training in Antenatal Yoga, Yoga for Chronic Stress and Yoga for Chronic Disease. These studies inform an evolving and intuitive teaching style which supports each individual with their own unique needs.
Always welcoming you with a smile, Sue‘s passion for yoga is contagious. Expect to feel relaxed but energised after one of her classes.
“Yoga is an essential part of my life and being able to share it with others is a great privilege and joy.”
Cat Rathjen
Teacher
Cat began practicing, here at Mud Hut Yoga, in 2010. 5 years of experiencing the tremendous benefits of practice led her to begin her own teacher training. Commencing in 2015, she began this journey at Yoga Jivana, a highly respected Iyengar Yoga teaching institute in Northcote, Victoria. After finishing her training in 2017, Cat has since completed training specialties in teaching Antenatal yoga as well as yoga for those with Autism and individuals experiencing Chronic Stress. She has recently become a qualified Yoga Therapist which further increases the depth and sensitivity of her teaching.
She thrives on the challenges and rewards of teaching yoga, taking particular pleasure in finding practical solutions for individuals with varied needs. Cat uses this supportive approach to explore the mechanics of asana and finds it invaluable for students with physical restrictions. Her teaching is practical, pragmatic and fully inclusive of all shapes, sizes, abilities and ages.
Cat is passionate about Yoga and the positive impact it can have in our lives. She brings a light energy and an ever-present smile to the studio.
“Yoga is a marvellously varied tool kit for life. All we need do is open the toolbox and rummage around – there is something in there for everyone.”
Marie Wycisk
Teacher
Marie’s greatest discovery through yoga and mindfulness is the freedom of spaciousness to sit with the comfortable, uncomfortable and humdrum truths of life.
To notice the busyness of mind and body and how she responds, giving her choice to see the quirky side of life cherishing the little moments.
Marie trained in chair yoga in 2018, has studied Knoff yoga since 2015, seeking to know and understand herself and the world.
Marie is a qualified Level One MBSR teacher and hopes to achieve international certification as a level 2 teacher in the next few years . Marie also completed a Mindfulness Self Care for Health Professional Teacher Training in 2021 and is currently learning trauma informed mindfulness , providing a safe space through noticing, nourishing and nurturing.
Yoga and Mindfulness practice allows us to focus on NOW.
GEN BARLOW
Yoga has been a great and growing source of stillness, energy, joy and discovery for Gen for the greater part of her life. She practised on and off intermittently with teachers such as Paul Wooden, Jacqui Bohuslav-Andrews, Deb Lisyak and Antonia Pont for decades. Then, in 2019 Gen trained as a yoga teacher at Gina Macauley’s Yogahara studio.
Since then Gen has completed 50 hours of Yin Yoga teacher training with Hugh Lee and continues to be inspired by Neriman Kemal of Bliss Physics, whose classes she attends regularly.
She has an abiding interest in meditation, increasing curiosity about how the qualities of goddesses can be drawn upon to guide our yoga practise and has found the breath a great guide in developing her own practice.
“Breathwork and using the gentle breath to move on the mat and through poses has opened and extended me. Every day there’s a new discovery, a new appreciation of parts of myself that I didn’t know existed. Getting out of my head and into my body through yoga has helped me so much at home, at work and in my relationships with others and the world.
“I struggled for many years to do poses correctly, get things right, place this foot here, that hand there, all of which helps to some degree but no amount of obsessing about the correctness or otherwise of poses has opened realisations the way that focusing on my breath has.
“I love teaching at Sue’s studio. It’s such a calm place. I hope that in my classes students are their own teachers and that I am simply a guide or enabler.”
Eloise Mitchell
Teacher
Eloise has completed Yoga Teacher training with Nicky Knoff (Knoff Yoga) and is a Yoga Teacher with Mud Hut Yoga.
Eloise combines Knoff Yoga teaching with her knowledge of experiential therapies, which are ways of working with stored muscle memory in the body to support people as they move into authentic ways of being through each yoga practice. By focusing on building non-verbal cues and trust during yoga sessions, Eloise helps individuals as they use the space to feel into their experience of each asana (yoga pose).
A background in yoga and an early education that included meditation have provided Eloise with lived experience of the benefits of yoga to health and wellbeing, while travel to India and South East Asia over the past 20 years enabled her to explore and develop an understanding of the cultural origins of yoga and meditation.
Eloise’s love of yoga sits complements her passionate interest in community health and wellbeing locally, and dedication to finding new ways to facilitate health options for people in the community.