Hayley Brown
Restorative Exercise Specialist | Healthy Foot Practitioner | Pelvic Floor Coach
“When you feel good in your body, the world is an easier place to be.”
Hayley Brown
Over the past 19 years, I have attended professional training in hands-on bodywork, trauma physiology, myofascial release, pilates matwork, reformer and studio, restorative exercise and alignment, foot health, pelvic health, yoga and meditation.
In learning these varied and different approaches there are fundamental elements that are consistent across all disciplines
Human Anatomy helps when learning to fine tune how you move and when trying to understand aches, pains and sensation.
Alignment helps with understanding how our parts work together when you move.
Awareness of your breath can bring attention to effort and strain and your ability to focus.
These more subtle elements to practice are what continue to spark my interest. All practices aim to create more space and reduce constriction.
Bodyspace.
There’s more going on than just strengthening your muscles.
My body has featured heavily in my working life. Even before I had a job, I did jazz ballet and acrobatics classes and spent a lot of time on the monkey bars in the school playground.
At university, the body was the prominent theme in my live scuplture. I once buried myself in 25kgs of brown sugar in a gallery corner. Visitors could smell caramel before they saw the mound moving slightly in the corner as I breathed. I was interested in creating a somatic experience for the visitors. This is still my intention now, when I teach.
After university I worked as a florist which, contrary to popular belief is an extremely physical job. This is where I discovered how helpful chiropractors can be, when I had RSI in my wrists and recurring shoulder pain due to so much heavy lifting and cutting.
Curious about anatomy, I signed up to become a Remedial Massage Therapist. I have always done things with my hands, and massage seemed like a good place to start.
Exploration and finding what works for you is the key.
Following massage, I completed several professional trainings in Myofascial Release, Pilates Matwork, Reformer and Comprehensive Studio, Somatic Experiencing®, Nutritious Movement® Certified Restorative Exercise Specialist, Healthy Foot Practitioner, Yoga Teacher Training and Adore Your Pelvic Floor Coaching. Each time I have experienced and tested the material on my own body.
Somatic Experiencing® informs my approach when working with people in pain and what safety means at the level of the body. When the nervous system senses any kind of threat however small, there is constriction in the tissues and the breath. By creating conditions of support which can be registered in the body and brain, the constriction will release, breath will become more free and a sense of ease will return to the body.
Nutritious Movement®, taught me that alignment matters and directly impacts the loads we experience at cellular level, and that movement matters for all of us.
Practice really helps
Restoring ease, feeling grounded and comfortable in your own skin is a practice.
What you feel one day will be different the next.
Regular practice helps you develop your own internal navigation system, and the skills to self regulate and sense where you need to adjust or put your attention.
When we turn up to the mat, on our own or in a group, tune in to our body, move with awareness and breath, we are nourishing our felt sense of being alive, here, now.
Returning to this, whatever the approach or technique, is the practice.
To learn more about my approach, my Do’s and Don’ts and Scope of Practice read this.
Qualifications & CPD Training
Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts, COFA, UNSW, Australia
Diploma Remedial Massage, ACNT, Sydney, Australia
Myofascial Release Deep Tissue Training Level 2 CPD
Pilates Matwork & Reformer, STOTT PILATES, Oxford, UK
Pilates Comprehensive Studio, Polestar Pilates UK
Movement Strategies for the Hypermobile Client CPD
Pre and Post Natal Pilates CPD
Movement Strategies in the Pilates Environment to facilitate proximal control of gait, CPD, with Elizabeth Larkham
Movement Strategies in the Pilates Environment to support Heroes in Motion™, CPD, with Elizabeth Larkham
New Perspectives on Flexibility CPD, Balanced Body Education
Archetypal Postures and the Erectorcises, Phillip Beach, CPD, Balanced Body Education
Come to your Senses: How the Vestibular System, the Visual System and Proprioception Integrate Pilates Mat practice and teaching, CPD, with Elizabeth Larkham
Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Training, SOSI International, UK
Nutritious Movement® Certified Restorative Exercise Specialist CPT, online, Belgium, UK
Move Your DNA
Injurious Yoga Poses and Why Alignment Matters CPD
Healthy Foot Practitioner CPD
Walking Well Mentorship CPD, Katy Boman, Jill Miller US
Whole Body Biomechanics CPD
Introduction to Ageing: why and how, Move More UK, CPD
Breath and Bliss Immersion, CPD, with Jill Miller, Yoga TuneUp, US
Yoga Teacher 200RYT, Yoga London, UK
Menopause Awareness for Pilates Teachers, Dinah Siman, @menopausepilates
Adore Your Pelvic Floor Awareness Certification, Louise Field UK
Adore Your Pelvic Floor Coach Certification, Louise Field UK
Your Pelvic Matters Certification, Claire Mockridge, Pelvicpreneur
Professional Member of the Healthy Foot Alliance
Professional Member of the Federation of Holistic Therapists
Currently studying with Janette Yee, Perinatal Therapy
MotherCircle Facilitator in-training with Kimberley Ann Johnson