Jo Manuel

Jo Manuel is founder and director of The Special Yoga Centre, a registered charity dedicated to making yoga available to everyone irrespective of age, disability, ethnic background, religion, or economic status. Jo first came to yoga as a teenager, began studying daily in her early 20s and has been practising ever since. Her teaching of children came from her older daughter, Cleo, who watched and copied Jo as she practised. Before long Cleo’s friends wanted to practise yoga too and Jo’s children’s classes began. In 2001 she took her first basic training for Yoga for the Special Child with Sonia Sumar, and has since taken all her advanced courses and completed training with her as an Integral Yoga teacher. Sonia invited her to act as the UK representative for the Yoga for the Special Child programme offering basic training programmes. To find out details of the next Yoga For Special Child Training please contact jess@specialyoga.org.uk

Jo’s understanding of how to teach yoga to children with all kinds of developmental challenges comes from her experience of offering yoga as a therapy to hundreds of children. Jo established The Special Yoga Centre in 2005 and, as well as hosting a range of adult and family yoga classes and courses, The Special Yoga Centre is the UK home of The Yoga for the Special Child programme, a programme that supports children with a wide range of conditions, including cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, autism and epilepsy, ADD and ADHD and other physical and developmental difficulties.

www.specialyoga.org.uk