Julie Birrell has been practising and teaching yoga for twenty years. Trained in the interdisciplinary style of Don and Amba Stapleton at the Nosara Yoga Institute, she comes back to their authentic, grounded style of teaching in all of her classes. She does most of her teaching currently in her job as a secondary school teacher for at-risk youth at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Recently she has developed a yoga and wellness course for her students based on the principles of positive psychology . Her yoga style is inclusive and compassionate, incorporating elements of humour, story, and creativity into a flexible physical practice. She is also a writer who was recently long-listed for the CBC creative non-fiction prize. She spent most of 2018 in New Zealand, where she finished a novel manuscript and found respite in the stunning landscape and sincerity, grit and humour of its people. Most of all, she is interested in creating spaces where people can calm their minds, feel good in their bodies, and find their complicated, lovely, creative selves.