Hannah Edensor first fell in love with yoga when she joined a class with a friend more than half a decade ago.
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Since then she has studied, trained and taught yoga to a small but dedicated group. Now, Hannah is about to embark on her next big journey when she opens her own yoga studio, Good Culture Club, in Lovejoy Village.
Hannah moved to Mudgee from Sydney in 2017 at a time when she knew she had to slow down in life. Looking for a community connection in a new town she soon found it in a yoga studio then located in Byron Place, first tagging along with a friend who was taking a class and a spark was ignited in Hannah almost immediately.
"I think when I started practising it felt like the thing that was missing from my life that I didn't know I needed," Hannah said.
"I'd never thought about it working in the city full time, never exercising and not taking care of myself properly. I didn't realise something was missing but then when I moved [to Mudgee] and started yoga as a hobby is just it fit in so perfectly into my life, it made sense. It made me feel grounded, and reconnected myself and my body and my mind together which I hadn't done in a really long time."
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"I needed a hobby and wanted to build a community. It's hard to do that in a small town and hard as an adult to make new friends - I just started doing teacher training for self-development and to study something I was interested in.
As fate would have it, the studio's manager at the time was set to leave on vacation and Hannah was right there to step up and take over.
"My teacher was conveniently booked to leave for a month, so Laura [Humphries] was like 'hey do you want to teach for a while?' and so I just started teaching," Hannah said.
"She [Laura] said I was fairly natural at it but that's just on the surface, I'm a bunch of nerves underneath. I still get a little bit nervous teaching but it always felt really good at the end of a class - everyone seems really relaxed and happy that they made time to come to the class and build relationships.
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"It's never gone away as something that I wanted to do."
For the last two years Hannah has taught in her home and was waiting for the right time - and location - to come along and be the sign she needed to take the plunge.
"It's been overwhelming, I am so excited. All my friends... have been encouraging me to do it for years but I didn't think about the wider community outside of my friends... I have had so many comments and messages from people I hadn't taught in years or maybe never taught that are really excited about this space opening.
"It's been really positive, I'm really excited.
Anyone interested is encouraged to come along to an open day being held on Saturday, 11 February.
