On International Yoga Day 2025, my work in sports-specific yoga was featured on the Olympic Channel. It reflects decades of bridging yoga and sport, including founding the Institute of Yoga Sports Science® after I moved to New York.

On International Yoga Day 2025, my work in sports-specific yoga was featured on the Olympic Channel. It reflects decades of bridging yoga and sport, including founding the Institute of Yoga Sports Science® after I moved to New York.

Our Founder
Hayley Winter

Our Founder
Hayley Winter

A Life Shaped By Movement

I was born with a clubfoot, something that could easily have led to a life of limited or compromised movement. Instead, it shaped my deep respect for the body and an early understanding that movement is not something to take for granted.

From a young age, I understood that every movement counts. That awareness led me into dance, where I learned to appreciate precision, expression, and control. In my early twenties, an injury ended my professional dance career, but it also opened a new path.

Yoga became both a personal practice and a lifelong inquiry into how the body adapts, heals, and performs under different demands.

A Life Shaped By Movement

I was born with a clubfoot, something that could easily have led to a life of limited or compromised movement. Instead, it shaped my deep respect for the body and an early understanding that movement is not something to take for granted.

From a young age, I understood that every movement counts. That awareness led me into dance, where I learned to appreciate precision, expression, and control. In my early twenties, an injury ended my professional dance career, but it also opened a new path.

Yoga became both a personal practice and a lifelong inquiry into how the body adapts, heals, and performs under different demands.

Where Art Meets Science

With a background in both art (Animation) and science (a Master’s in Sports and Exercise Biomechanics), I bring a unique perspective to yoga education. Years of drawing and analysing movement frame by frame shaped how I teach, blending creativity with precision to develop effective, science-based methods.

Today, my approach to sequencing draws on biomechanics, neuroscience, and sports science to help teachers and practitioners understand why movement works. My aim is to empower people to move with confidence, curiosity, and a lasting joy in movement.

Where Art Meets Science

With a background in both art (Animation) and science (a Master’s in Sports and Exercise Biomechanics), I bring a unique perspective to yoga education. Years of drawing and analysing movement frame by frame shaped how I teach, blending creativity with precision to develop effective, science-based methods.

Today, my approach to sequencing draws on biomechanics, neuroscience, and sports science to help teachers and practitioners understand why movement works. My aim is to empower people to move with confidence, curiosity, and a lasting joy in movement.

From Elite Sport To Everyday Life

Over the past three decades, I’ve worked as a yoga sports scientist, elite movement consultant, international lecturer, and early pioneer of online yoga education.

Through the Institute of Yoga Sports Science® (YSS), we’ve built one of the largest research databases exploring the impact of yoga on athletic performance. Yoga Sports Coaches™ trained through YSS now work in 17 countries, delivering sports-specific yoga to athletes within their own communities.

While my work with elite performers has been influential, I’m equally passionate about applying this knowledge to everyday performance, especially as we age.

From Elite Sport To
Everyday Life

Over the past three decades, I’ve worked as a yoga sports scientist, elite movement consultant, international lecturer, and early pioneer of online yoga education.

Through the Institute of Yoga Sports Science® (YSS), we’ve built one of the largest research databases exploring the impact of yoga on athletic performance. Yoga Sports Coaches™ trained through YSS now work in 17 countries, delivering sports-specific yoga to athletes within their own communities.

While my work with elite performers has been influential, I’m equally passionate about applying this knowledge to everyday performance, especially as we age.

The Future of Yoga for An Ageing Population

In recent years, my work has focused on helping people move well for life. Many arrive with similar challenges: persistent pain, reduced balance or confidence, poor sleep, difficulty concentrating, or the strain of modern living.

What they want is simple: to feel stronger, more agile, and more at home in their bodies.

What I see time and again is this: when people understand how and why yoga works for their body, change follows. Participants often report reduced pain, improved balance and focus, and a renewed confidence in movement. These outcomes are frequently meaningful and sometimes life-changing.

The Future of Yoga for
An Ageing Population

In recent years, my work has focused on helping people move well for life. Many arrive with similar challenges: persistent pain, reduced balance or confidence, poor sleep, difficulty concentrating, or the strain of modern living.

What they want is simple: to feel stronger, more agile, and more at home in their bodies.

What I see time and again is this: when people understand how and why yoga works for their body, change follows. Participants often report reduced pain, improved balance and focus, and a renewed confidence in movement. These outcomes are frequently meaningful and sometimes life-changing.

Monthly Livestream Classes for Everybody

Join me for a live, interactive yoga practice designed to help you stay agile, youthful, and confident in your body. You’ll experience low-risk movements that support breathing, mobility, balance, coordination, and strength, so you move better in everyday life.

Each practice blends movement science with decades of teaching experience. I create sessions that feel good, build resilience, and support long-term vitality for real-world bodies, not perfect poses.

Whether you’re a yoga teacher, an athlete, or simply curious about moving with greater ease, you’ll leave feeling stronger and more agile.

Monthly Livestream Classes for Everybody

Join me for a live, interactive yoga practice designed to help you stay agile, youthful, and confident in your body. You’ll experience low-risk movements that support breathing, mobility, balance, coordination, and strength, so you move better in everyday life.

Each practice blends movement science with decades of teaching experience. I create sessions that feel good, build resilience, and support long-term vitality for real-world bodies, not perfect poses.

Whether you’re a yoga teacher, an athlete, or simply curious about moving with greater ease, you’ll leave feeling stronger and more agile.

A Seminal Book for Yoga Teachers

This approach is now being shaped into a forthcoming book on yoga sequencing, co-authored with my colleague, physiotherapist and educator Annelize Ferreira.

Drawing on decades of teaching experience, clinical practice, research, and movement science, the book offers a clear, evidence-based framework for intentional, human-centred sequencing. Rather than prescribing styles or fixed sequences, it equips yoga teachers with a way of thinking about movement so they can consistently design classes that are safe, creative, inclusive, and effective.

It reflects the core philosophy of the School of Yoga Sequencing: understanding why movement works, not just what to teach, ensuring yoga remains relevant, adaptable, and sustainable for generations to come.

A Seminal Book for
Yoga Teachers

This approach is now being shaped into a forthcoming book on yoga sequencing, co-authored with my colleague, physiotherapist and educator Annelize Ferreira.

Drawing on decades of teaching experience, clinical practice, research, and movement science, the book offers a clear, evidence-based framework for intentional, human-centred sequencing. Rather than prescribing styles or fixed sequences, it equips yoga teachers with a way of thinking about movement so they can consistently design classes that are safe, creative, inclusive, and effective.

It reflects the core philosophy of the School of Yoga Sequencing: understanding why movement works, not just what to teach, ensuring yoga remains relevant, adaptable, and sustainable for generations to come.

Supporting the Evolution of Yoga Education

The British Wheel of Yoga (BWY)

As a British Wheel of Yoga–trained teacher, I’ve supported the BWY in the UK in developing their online yoga education. For this work, I was awarded a lifetime honorary membership with the British Wheel of Yoga in recognition of my pioneering role in bringing yoga education online.

The Yoga Alliance

In 2018, I was invited to join an expert advisory group as part of the Yoga Alliance Standards Review Project. Our focus was how online learning can define and preserve the quality and safety of yoga education and practice worldwide at a time when learning online is a part of everyday life.

Supporting the Evolution of Yoga Education

The British Wheel of Yoga (BWY)

As a British Wheel of Yoga–trained teacher, I’ve supported the BWY in the UK in developing their online yoga education. For this work, I was awarded a lifetime honorary membership with the British Wheel of Yoga in recognition of my pioneering role in bringing yoga education online.

The Yoga Alliance

In 2018, I was invited to join an expert advisory group as part of the Yoga Alliance Standards Review Project. Our focus was how online learning can define and preserve the quality and safety of yoga education and practice worldwide at a time when learning online is a part of everyday life.

An Invitation

Over the past few years, I’ve mentored yoga teachers through rapid change: first during the pandemic, and now through a landscape where expectations are higher, support is thinner, and many teachers are navigating their work alone.

Once you graduate as a yoga teacher, the structure often disappears, and with it, the mentoring, shared practice, and creative support that make teaching feel grounded and sustainable.

If you’re quietly missing the guidance you once had during your training, this monthly community mentorship was created for you.

Whether you’re a yoga teacher seeking clarity and inspiration, a practitioner wanting to move with greater ease and confidence, or simply someone who senses there’s more available to you through movement, you’re welcome here.

An Invitation

Over the past few years, I’ve mentored yoga teachers through rapid change - first during the pandemic, and now through a landscape where expectations are higher, support is thinner, and many teachers are navigating their work alone.

Once you graduate as a yoga teacher, the structure often disappears - and with it, the mentoring, shared practice, and creative support that make teaching feel grounded and sustainable. If you’re quietly missing the guidance you once had during your training, this monthly community mentorship was created for you.

Whether you’re a yoga teacher seeking clarity and inspiration, a practitioner wanting to move with greater ease and confidence, or simply curious about how yoga can truly support modern life - you’re warmly welcome here.