About ISFYT Founder & Director,

Grace Tempany

The Original Yoga MISFYT?

A Welcome from Grace

Welcome to ISFYT, 

I am happy you are here on this ISFYT site, and even happier you are reading this particular section. You see, this school is really about you as much as it is about me.

For as long as I can remember, my curiosity has been my guide; my work has always revolved around people first and foremost, with education and growth not too far behind. A seeker and eternal student, I am maybe most importantly, a fellow navigator of life's ups and downs, deaths and rebirths.

As a psychotherapist and trainee analyst, my lens is inherently person-centred: I am dedicated to providing the most accessible space for everybody to practise being in their own individual bodies, and gain a deeper connection with themselves, their truth, their voice and personal journey.

As a Senior Yoga Teacher, Trainer Pro, and Mentor, with over 11 years’ experience as a French & Music teacher, I combine my classroom pedagogical expertise with my lived and felt experience. My past and current chapters have for a long time been calling me to the thresholds of the yoga, education, and therapy worlds. As I’ve a feeling I’m a bit too big and too much for them each individually, it's a brand new dawn of integration I invite you to join for the future at ISFYT.

10 years ago, my first introduction to functional yoga and Paul Grilley’s model gave me a glimpse of what would develop into the greater ISFYT vision. A glimpse of what yoga as therapy can be when extended beyond knowing the physical purpose of the pose, and having the language to cue students to feel it. The feeling-based approach inherent within the functional approach is absolutely where the ISFYT vision begins, but it’s not where it ends.

Yoga is a threshold practice; it lies in the space between worlds, breaths, words. Experiencing the practice in our physical body as it merges with the energetic and the psycho-emotional; dwelling on the edges of the worlds of movement & stillness, functional anatomy & self-inquiry, embodiment & psychotherapy: the practices that help you reconnect with your unique body, and the language of the unconscious. Interwoven through it all, is the privilege of holding the seat of the teacher. It’s functional yoga meets yoga philosophy meets yoga psychology meets yoga therapy meets person-centred teaching meets the art of creating and holding sacred space.

I often wonder about the experience of feeling on the fringes of things - in many ways, I was a most unlikely candidate to become a yoga teacher. However, I’ve always felt that it’s the experience of being the outsider, the black sheep as it were, that has most powerfully contributed to my evolution, on personal, professional, and soul levels.

Consider this a moment?: What if it were those who never quite fit in who were destined to build a more inclusive alternative? What if being too much, too complex, too confronting, actually came with the gift of seeing - seeing alternative systems to begin with perhaps, but more importantly from a creative vision perspective, seeing the meeting points between worlds that for too long have remained separate.

I created my own school because I believe yoga students training to be teachers deserve a much better education for body, mind and soul. I believe that deep thinkers and integration-seekers are yearning for deeper nourishment on yoga retreats. And I believe that there are many people out there who are looking for their tribe within the yoga world at large, and who just might not have have their fyt until now.

Welcome Yoga Misfyts,

Please make yourself right at home,

Grace x

7 Things about Grace

1.

Totally and utterly compelled to speak about the elephant in the room. #sorrynotsorry

6.

Understanding my anxiety as an indication of my soul task was a game-changer. Thanks Carl Jung, you do bring your own flavour to things.

Although now that the school has come into being, maybe we can cool it for a while?!

7.

Personality Tests are my love language.

Having done I think EVERY single one on the planet, I can confirm that they all apply on any given day.

All theories are useful, all theories are incomplete - do not be attached to them.

That said, for those interested:

INFJ. Even though INFJs are the rarest type, I am surrounded by many of them - the introverted intuition piece draws many to yin, at least that’s my take on it for now

Enneagram 4/8 - The Individualist & The Challenger. Who will you get, I wonder?

1/3 Generator in Human Design - have to experience it all, but also get the most thorough foundation in it all too, like come on, seriously like…

Gemini Sun, Moon in Pisces, Capricorn Rising - Pluto everywhere. Now go back and read point 1 again :-)

Update February 2024: After recently realising I am autistic, this all makes a lot more sense :-)

3.

Bit of a wordsmith - the potential for language (and silence!) to assist teaching and space-holding will be explored a plenty.

2.

In many ways, probably most at home at the piano, letting music speak when I can’t find the words.

4.

Proud black sheep.

Still a most reluctant visionary ;-)

5.

Absolutely unapologetic David Whyte #fangirl

Talk about the capacity to speak to the things we have all felt but can’t name?

I’m in awe, regularly.

Those I teach, mentor and guide, are on a path to uncovering their own inner teacher.

My work is to help yoga practitioners and instructors develop a more embodied connection to their bodies and minds and to reinstate compassion, self-inquiry, and critical thinking, as the heart and core integrity of each teacher’s personal and professional development.

— Grace Tempany

The Birth of a Yoga School

ISFYT is the most natural evolution for my current work in the world, and the path my life has taken me on. Its three pillars - education, yoga, therapy, are in many ways my past, present and future direction. My life has been, and continues to be my teacher. What I have learned and experienced along the way, through trial and error, (and often an incredibly high percentage of the latter!), is that I am always being gently nudged in the direction of my dreams.

I have come to accept, albeit reluctantly at first, that I often find myself in the role of the reformer - be it the education world, the yoga world, or the therapy world. The journey from resisting the critic to embracing it, and ultimately seeing the change-maker underneath it, hasn’t been easy, but I am convinced that the best creations in this life, and my most original creations, generally emerge when worlds collide, or when we collide with them.

Many criticise the intellectuals for lack of embodiment. Others might suggest the yoga world is desperately lacking critical thinking and discernment. It has always been my philosophy that really great teaching can, and should assist people in developing both. At ISFYT No question goes unpondered. No feeling goes unfelt.

Between worlds she overspills, she is the bridge.

Chapter 1 for me was the education world.

Chapter 2 was bridging the worlds of yoga and education.

Chapter 3 is bringing in the final missing piece: psychotherapy.

There is little enough I would claim to be sure of. And as much as I am a big fan of words, I tend not to speak at all until I am absolutely sure of what I have to say. I definitely don’t speak as any sort of authority until I have researched every single angle, excavated every possible alternative interpretation, and made sure that what I found in the literature also resonated within my own deepest experience.

Tedious? Oh Dear God, yes! But it is the making of my teaching. And it might just be by best asset when I help others with theirs.

Of these three things though, I am sure

  • Yoga can be a practice of the deepest presence or the most intentional avoidance, and much of that depends on how it's taught.

  • Those who feel they don't fit into the worlds they find themselves in, are often destined to bring about change within them.

  • If the path ahead of you in this life is crystal clear, you’re likely on someone else's.

    Union, mind-body-soul, connection, spirituality, the vastness of eternity, and the depth of of our experience, can be accessed when we merge worlds: ISFYT was born at the intersection point of its three cornerstones of Yoga, Education and Therapy. I hope it will be a most welcoming home for all of you who who see things a little differently. And maybe in time, it will be clear that the misfyts in the old paradigm were always in fact, the visionaries.

You are so welcome to be part of the change you wish to see more of.

People can only meet you as deeply as they've met themselves

-Matt Kahn

Grace’s Primary Teachers

Entirely functional in my approach, I have learned much from my teacher Mysan Sidbo, my primary yin teacher since 2015. Herself a long-time assistant to Paul Grilley, the approach she has passed on to me honours the individuality of each student’s experience. Grounded in a thorough understanding of skeletal variation and functional anatomy, this is where a yoga practice begins for me. I have completed 400hrs of training and assisting with Mysan in 2015, 2017 and 2019.

Also in 2015, I discovered the teaching of Sarah Powers with whom I trained in Australia, and I particularly resonated with her interest in Transpersonal Psychology and how she interweaves this into the yin practice. It was through Sarah that I first became interested in Vipassana Meditation which has had a considerable impact on my personal meditation practice and my teaching philosophy. I completed Secondary training with Sarah in 2023 in Thailand. and am currently part of Insight Yoga Institute’s 500hr graduate programme.

I completed further yin training in Ireland with Josh Summers in 2016, and Bernie Clark and Diana Batts in Canada in 2018. It was on this training that I discovered sandbags and they have been incorporated into my teaching - as and when they can be useful - since. Bernie’s assembly of Paul Grilley’s anatomical research, developed in the Your Body, Your Yoga series and the infamous green yin book, is of tremendous support to all functional yoga teachers.

Jennifer O’ Sullivan has been my mentor with Insight Yoga Institute since 2020. As well as completing two advanced yin trainings with her, Jennifer was the person who first introduced me properly to Internal Family Systems. Coupled with vipassana meditation, I have found IFS to be of considerable efficacy when working with students experiencing dissociation as a result of trauma. 

If you are interested, below you will find a more comprehensive list of further teachers I’ve worked with, trainings I’ve completed, and inner work and further education I’m engaged in currently.

  • Secondary Teachers & Yoga Trainings

    ▫️Bikram Yoga YTT (500hrs)

    ▫️J. Brown 'Gentle is the New Advanced' YTT & Teacher Revival (500hrs)

    ▫️Vinyasa & Restorative YTT with The Elbowroom (200hrs)

    ▫️Yoga Psyche Soul YTT with Yoga Psychology (300hrs)

    ▫️ Yoga Nidra with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli (70hrs)

    ▫️Hatha Flow with Fiona McNamara (60hrs)

    ▫️Myofascial Release with Tiffany Cruickshank (55hrs)

    ▫️Yin Yang Flow, Yoga Nidra & Shoulder Anatomy with Jo Phee (50hrs)

    ▫️Yin Yoga & Biomechanics with Jennifer O’ Sullivan (50hrs)

    ▫️The Heart of Yin with Kitty Maguire (50hrs)

    ▫️Trauma-Informed Yin Yoga with Annie Au (50hrs)

    ▫️Yin Yoga & Taoism with Jennifer O’ Sullivan (35hrs)

    ▫️Yoga for Trauma with Lisa Danylchuk (30hrs)

    ▫️Myofascial Release with Nicky Hadjithoma (30hrs)

    ▫️Yin Mindfulness with Josh Summers (30hrs)

    ▫️I-Rest Yoga Nidra with Richard Miller (30hrs)

    ▫️Yoga Biomechanics with Jules Mitchell (18hrs)

    ▫️Yin Meridian Theory with Norman Blair (12hrs)

    ▫️Myofascial Release with Rachel Land (12 hrs).

  • Additional Online Trainings:

    ▫️Certificate in Jungian Studies at the C.G. Jung Centre

    ▫️IFS Online Circle (Internal Family Systems) with the IFS Institute

    ▫️Meridian Theory & The Art of Acupressure & The Five Qi with Angela Chambers

    ▫️A Somatic Approach to Trauma Therapy with Albert Wong

    ▫️The Functional Approach, Bare Bones of Yoga, Shoulder Stand Deconstruction, Chakra Meditation, Tantric Theory & Patanjali by Paul Grilley

    ▫️Genesis of Yoga Core 26+ with Tony Sanchez

    ▫️Deconstruct to Reconstruct with Alexandria Crow

    ▫️Your Spine, Your Yoga by Bernie Clark

    ▫️The Sublime Quartet with Josh Summers

    ▫️Trauma-Informed Yoga, Working with Grief, Pain Science for Yoga Teachers, Neurobiology of Yoga & Yoga for Addiction Recovery with Yoga Medicine

    ▫️The Anatomy of Emotion with Janet Stone

    ▫️The Wisdom of Trauma and Compassionate Inquiry with Gabor Maté

    ▫️Trauma & Awakening with Gabor Maté and Hameed Ali of the Diamond Approach

    ▫️Compassionate Inquiry Meets Internal Family Systems with Gabor Maté and Richard Schwartz

    ▫️The Diamond Approach Online

  • Ongoing Trainings, Self-Inquiry & Inner Work

    ▫️Mentorship with Jennifer O’ Sullivan and Sarah Powers as part of the Insight Yoga Institute’s 500hr Endorsed Teacher Programme

    ▫️Conversational Leadership Training (Invitas) with David Whyte

    ▫️Vipassana Meditation

    ▫️Jungian Analysis, Psychotherapy (previously) & Psychoanalysis (currently)

    ▫️The Creative Doer with Anna Lovind

    ▫️The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

    3rd Level Education:

    ▫️First Class Honours Degree in French & Music.

    Trinity College Dublin

    ▫️First Class Honours Masters in Literature and Politics

    Sorbonne University, Paris

    ▫️First Class Honours Postgraduate Diploma in Education

    Trinity College Dublin

    ▫️Higher Diploma in Counselling & Psychotherapy

    Dublin Business School

    Currently completing:

    ▫️Professional Masters Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: 2024-2028.

    Dublin Business School