OUR MISSION
“At Madara Yoga, we offer welcoming, joyful yoga and wellness classes in our beautiful, local studio. We are a home for anyone who craves spiritual and physical practices that help you open your heart, free your soul and fall in love with yourself over and over again.”
~ Charlotte Gallagher.
THE STUDIO
Our beautiful yoga studio is located in Amersham on the Hill, Buckinghamshire, England. The nearest tube and rail station is Amersham on the Metropolitan and Chiltern lines. If you drive you can park in the nearby Sycamore Road Car Park and if you’re local you can walk to us - we’re just by the high street in Montague House on Woodside Road sitting above St Francis Hospice.
The space is designed by Veronika McKenzie of Minimal Design with the devoted intention of nurture. We hope you feel wrapped in love when you enter the studio. Everything has been chosen with care and with you in mind.
Our honey oak flooring and woodland wallpaper honour the trees, the lungs of the earth, and ties into our name, Madara. We have installed eco-friendly, anti-inflammatory, infra-red heating panels to warm your body as you move, strategically left wall space for inversion practice, provided props for support and comfort and are proud to display a swirling, Tantric artwork for your scrying and delectation.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Madara is the name of the house where I (Charlotte) grew up and yoga has always made me feel at home. Phonetically, in a roundabout way, Madara means, Great Oak, in Irish. Oaks were sacred to the Druids and, Dara, the Irish word for Oak, also means doorway (Oaks were considered a portal to the otherworld). In India, ashrams are holy forest schools where deep spiritual seekers go to immerse themselves in the teachings of yoga. This tradition of teaching yoga in the woods is thousands of years old. In one of my favourite yogic texts, the Vijyñāna Bhairava Tantra, the authors share their meditation techniques. These are known as “doorways to the infinite’. I hope that the name, Madara Yoga, acknowledges and blesses our Celtic lands, honours the sacred Indian ashram traditions, becomes a living doorway to the infinite and also feels like home.
And. There is always more…
Madara means impure in Japanese! Madara Uchiha is the name of a dastardly but beloved villain in many computer games. In Sanskrit, Madara means… hog! Or rogue, or lover, or perfume or, and this is quite the image, an elephant in rut! I felt pretty silly when I realised I had named my yoga studio, “The Lusty Elephant”, I can tell you! With the help of my friend and fellow yoga teacher, Amisha Ghadiali, we decided to embrace, in the way of the great Tantrikas, the whole. And so, we are: Madara Yoga: Hogs; lovers; elephants in flagrante and all.
Welcome.
THANK YOU
It is quite simply the truth that Madara Yoga would not exist without the tremendous generosity, patience, kindness and wisdom of many, many people. In the best woodlandy, mycelial fashion you will see below how widely and rhizomatically my thank yous have spread. This is because I was happily supported in the same way that mushrooms mysteriously appear overnight, delightfully and immediately. Thank you.
Firstly, I wish to express my thanks to Matthew Gallagher, for your confidence in this project, your practical, abundant and underpinning generosity, your steady lode-star, business acumen and your ability to dream in Pizza Express. I wish to thank, also: Brian Gallagher, for your legal expertise, endless patience, faith, experience and fun; Sarah Gallagher for your wisdom, compassionate focus on the customer experience and for lending me Dad so much; Timothy Gallagher, for your sense of business possibility, for getting the ball rolling and for including alternative forms of consciousness i.e. asking Chat GPT for an ethical yoga business model! Thank you to Paul Allen for your nonchalant belief in me and the studio, “Push yourself, girl!”. Thank you to Veronika Mckenzie for midwifing Madara Yoga – you are a gifted designer, an excellent project manager and true friend. Thank you to Jason Long, James Stanley and Wayne Morris for transforming a 60s office into a reverent yoga shala. Thank you to James Mathuma for organising our fluid booking system and also for giving new studio owner advice. Thank you to Anna Godfrey and to Rachel Robinett for putting me in touch with your yoga teaching friends. Thank you to all my fellow Amersham yoga teachers including Ellie Denman, for being so excited about a new yoga studio in Amersham. Thank you to Charlie Merton for being such a steadfast, pragmatic friend and yoga scheduling counsellor. Thank you to Amisha Ghadiali for your timely reminder of Tantric vision. Thank you to Inka and Anica and all at Yatta Pilates for creating stretchy corner. Thank you to Deborah Henderson for supporting the vision, drumming the vision, dreaming the vision, and for the teas, wines, trip drinks and more of advice and fun. Thank you to Gemma Neary, John Neary, Richard Gallagher and Yuval Katz for all your positivity and readiness to help and good grace when I took you up on that readiness! Thank you to Claire Gallagher for putting me in touch with the marketing magic of Cheri Percy. And thank you, Cheri.
Thank you hugely to all my friends, with special mentions to Emma Cowlam, Sarah Armstrong, Kirsty O’Loughlin, Lauren Copper, Matthew Chapman, Victoria Lant, Sophia Richardson, Yasmin Habash, Ava Lee, Harriett Wood and Lucy Byrne when on fun night outs and meet ups I’ve asked your opinions on paint colours, style schemes, branding, fonts and smells. Your faces often told me exactly what you thought – good or bad! Leonie Schüller, thank you for giving me ambitious yet prudent business advice via excel spreadsheets all with a baby in your arms. Thank you.
Thank you, always, through all the realms to Sianna Sherman, my maha teacher, true priestess and keeper of the flame of yoga. I cannot thank you enough. Without you there would be no yoga studio here. You opened up the practices of yoga to me with such joy, truth, courage and laughter. Jai Lakshmi! Thank you for sharing sacred sadhanas to the divine that allow such goodness to be poured into this studio from heaven to earth. Thank you for the pilgrimages that have anchored my vision for this studio. May Madara Yoga be in service to all beings. Thank you. Thank you, 1000 Pranams, thank you.
Thank you to my teachers: Leila Sadeghee; Hannah Muse; Uma Dinsmore Tuli; Nirlipta Tuli; Kristin Campell; Rozzy Stoddart.
Thank you to my priestess sisters: Monica, Andrea and Line for calling Madara Yoga in, in Kildare, Ireland. Thank you to Kimiko for letting me use the tag line, Rooted in Love. Thank you to Annett, Claire, Kilkenny, Vanina, Trista, Gillian, Susan, Hrönn, Cinda and many more for holding my vision with me across the world. Thank you.
Thank you to all my students who made me feel like Amersham could be the perfect place for a yoga studio including: Winston, Laura, Jan, Patricia, Jenny, Emma, Helen, Sally, Meryl, Chris, Brian, Mo, Marius, Gaya, Alina, Lauren, Rajinder, Mahalingam, Adam, The Swifts – Jackie and Graham, Andrea, Jo, Avnee, Amy, Mel, Neru, Camilla, Caroline, and many more. My apologies if I have missed your name. You have delighted me and are in my heart. Thank you for being in class with me.
Thank you to the lands of Amersham, thank you to all your fauna and flora and especially your oak trees. Thank you to my partner and lupine dreamboat, Adam Randall and to our gorgeous newfoundland, Amari.