What is Scaravelli Yoga?
Scaravelli Yoga is an approach that helps you rediscover how to move with more freedom, strength, and awareness. Based on the teachings of Vanda Scaravelli, who came to yoga in her late 40s, the emphasis is on working in tune with your body, guided by the spine and the support of gravity.
This way of practising goes beyond simply achieving a particular shape or form. It’s about retraining your nervous system and building a deep, resilient kind of strength, often in ways that are quietly powerful and unexpected.
Whether you’re new to yoga or have plenty of experience, this approach can bring fresh depth to how you move and feel every day.
3 Ways Scaravelli Yoga is Different
1. Tune Into the Breath and Gravity
We usually begin by gently tuning into the breath and noticing how gravity influences our bodies. The focus isn’t on following a fixed routine, but on exploring how movements develop from our own breath and sensations. There’s space to pause, listen inwardly, and make small adjustments—letting your practice feel truly personal and supportive, every time.
2. Focus on the Spine
Everything starts from the spine. Through mindful, often simple movements, you learn how to create length, space, and support along your spine, which naturally spreads out into the rest of your body. This approach goes deep—helping you to find strength and stability that lasts, without forcing or pushing.
3. Every Class is Different
No two Scaravelli yoga classes are exactly alike. Teachers encourage experimentation and exploration, giving you space to respond to what your body needs that day. You may use props or explore different forms and movements, but the goal is always to help you discover fresh ways to improve your steadiness, balance, and focus.
If you’re looking for yoga that’s practical, strong, and rooted in real body awareness, the Scaravelli yoga approach offers a powerful way to move, breathe, and retrain your system—helping you feel at home in your body, inside and out.
Scaravelli Yoga Classes
Suitable for everyone with any level of experience, from beginners to those who’ve been practicing yoga for many years.
Yoga may be particularly helpful for those working with long term joint issues, cranky backs, or regular aches and pains and good for stress and sleep issues. I teach yoga which offers a fresh and truly accessible approach to yoga. Each class will follow a theme which evolves from my personal research and explorations, so each class builds and develops from the material we covered in the previous week.
Although I’d love to see you each week and there are definite benefits from regular practice, I always take time to carefully explain the focus and what we’re doing in each pose, so you won’t miss out if you can’t make it.
Scaravelli Yoga Workshops
Scaravelli yoga workshops are an opportunity to focus on specific aspects of our yoga practice and provide plenty of time to ask questions and explore. They are the perfect environment to help us share knowledge and develop our practice.
Click on the button below for all forthcoming Scaravelli yoga workshops online, in London, and various locations around the UK.
Scaravelli Yoga Video Recordings
Catherine teaches online yoga classes, workshops, immersions and courses online throughout the year. Some of these yoga sessions will be recorded.
If you can't attend on the day, you can buy video copies of these recorded yoga sessions which are available as MP4 downloadable files to view at a time which works better for you.
New recordings of classes, workshops and yoga nidra are added as they become available.
About Catherine Annis
With a Masters in Ballet Studies, Catherine Annis has over 40 years yoga experience and has been practicing movement nearly all her life. Originally a professional dancer, she discovered yoga in the mid 1970s and has studied various styles of yoga and movement including Iyengar, Astanga and Hatha, as well as Pilates.
Catherine began teaching yoga in 2004 and has taught thousands of hours of classes whilst continuing to study and research yoga and movement. Catherine taught in all the leading yoga studios in London for many years and was invited to join the teacher advisory board and lead the Triyoga teacher training. Noticing that trainees consistently asked for more detail about anatomy and biomechanics, she created the Intelligent Yoga Teacher Training Course in 2017, a 12 month, anatomically focused yoga teacher training qualification recognised by Yoga Alliance Professionals.
Catherine Annis Yoga offers a wide range of live and on-demand and CPD workshops (British Wheel of Yoga and Yoga Alliance Professionals). She has been invited to create themed courses for leading businesses and charities, for example: Network Rail, The ME Society and The Pilates Foundation. In 2024 she was approached by the Army to create a course introducing yoga to their personal trainers and launched the course Mindful Movement for Fitness Professionals in the Armed Forces (recognised by YMCA Awards). This course provides existing gym instructors the skills to incorporate meditation, yoga and breathing techniques into their current training programmes.
Catherine teaches regular retreats in the UK and internationally and is recognised as a Senior Teacher at Yoga Alliance Professionals and an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT® 500) and a Continuing Education Provider (YACEP ) at Yoga Alliance US. She is currently enrolled on the SIRPA chronic pain practitioner course and has joined DGR Interactive, the world class training in rehabilitation and biomechanics.
Awakening the Spine: Yoga for Health, Vitality and Energy (Paperback)
B. K. S. Iyengar (forward), Vanda Scaravelli (Author)
A long awaited reprint of this classical work revised by Vanda’s daughter and based on extensive notes left by the author allowing the book to be published for the first time as Vanda intended. Even if you have the first edition, it’s still worth investing in this one to see how Vanda’s ideas subtly changed. Superbly illustrated with iconic pictures of Vanda as well as inspiring photographs and images to set the tone. A book to treasure.
“Yoga must not be practised to control the body: it is the opposite, it must bring freedom to the body, all the freedom it needs.”
– Vanda Scaravelli
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