Ava Riby-Williams
Ava is a creative and intuitive teacher, facilitator and artist who sparks curiosity and play. Her eclectic teaching focuses on finding presence in the moment, empowering students to become their own inner teachers and recognising ourselves as diverse divinity, in unity.
Ava's teaching style is soulful, and challenging, yet trauma sensitive. So far in her life, she has explored performance arts, Non-Dual Saiva Tantra, the Hermetic principles, Ayurveda, Afrikan spiritual teachings, community youth work and music. She finds all of these things to be keys or access points which have helped her to live in connection to the divine. With over 10 years of yoga, creative collaboration and performance experience, her offerings are sometimes woven with song, storytelling, poetry and space for reflection as a way to deepen our capacity to love and experience life.
Ava is passionate about creating safe and inclusive spaces for self exploration, expression and acceptance. She's driven by the importance of making healing practices accessible to isolated and marginalised communities, as a tool to unwind trauma. Ava honours the unwinding of oppressive structures and cycles as a part of awakening. Creating channeled music and joining voices in song is also part of her spiritual practise.
Ava is dedicated to building heart-centered community and collective wisdom, and pours this dedication into The Creative Soul Collective.
http://www.thecreativesoulcollective.com
https://www.instagram.com/thecreativesoulcollective/
https://www.instagram.com/avazarah/
Ava's classes
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29:11Blissful Awareness
An open level meditation practise to balance the soothing and intense energies within you. Using this mediation, we invite you to rest in the peaceful ground of being, getting under all the layers of your personality and lived experience to discover your blissful stillness. This space is the ground of your consciousness and your true identity. You may wish to sit on a cushion or in a chair with a blanket for support during this practice.
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01:03:33Full Body Tone
An open level movement class to tone the full body, circulate the breath and energy body while connecting you to a meditative awareness. This class is playful and energetic offering poses such as crow and wheel, with variations for all abilities. You may need a block.
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01:06:11Vinyasa Flow to Feel Fabulous
A beautifully sequenced vinyasa yoga class. Starting gently with joint mobilisation, this is a full body stretch and strengthen, including all the key poses and culminating in wild thing (camatkarasana- the pose of ecstatic rapture), whilst addressing the bliss of abiding in our fullest nature of awareness. Finish with breath work and a lovely, long savasana. This is a really energising class to get you ready to start your day.
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29:25Joint Health and Mobility
An accessible and gentle movement class to create more freedom and mobility in the joint spaces. Enjoy plenty of gentle, circular movements to create freedom in the joints, and with just one downward dog, this class is mostly suitable for those with wrist issues, or if you're not on a yoga mat or have limited space. There’s a long savasana at the end for deepening your relaxation.
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35:15Yoga for Beginners: Prepare for Meditation
This yoga class is the last in the beginners yoga course and prepares us for coming into stillness. Class starts with a vinyasa flow, moving through sun salutation B and playing with new standing and seated poses. It then ends with a ten minute seated meditation, mantra and mudra. This is the ideal time to consider your yoga journey over the past few weeks and how you wish to move forward with your practice. You have learnt many news skills, but perhaps what you will have learnt is to follow your heart, which is your own best teacher. You may need a yoga brick and a blanket.
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36:57Yoga for Beginners: Explore Playfulness
This beginners yoga class focuses on balances and experimenting with our yoga practice with a sense of playfulness. In this balancing sequence, it's OK to wobble and fall! The point of yoga is not to be perfect, but to embark upon a journey of exploration and curiosity. After moving through classic sun salutations with balance play, expect to experiment with eagle pose and half moon pose. You may wobble and fall, but have fun with it any enjoy the process. You will need a wall and two yoga bricks (or books!).
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41:25Yoga for Beginners: Embodied Breath
In this beginners yoga class, we explore the notion of embodiment. This exploration will specifically focus on the breath and lungs as we move through yoga poses. Class starts with a breath practice to connect to the body, then moves through half sun salutations and poses learnt in the classes at the start of the yoga for beginners course, presented with new variations. You will need a strap, blanket, brick and cushion.
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40:27Yoga for Beginners: Exploring Connection to Earth
This yoga class focuses on the body’s connection to the earth and the exploration of bandhas, or seals. In this class we discover how connecting to the earth brings tone and support to our yoga practice. Discover more about the earth seals (hasta bandha and panda bandha) while bringing more stability and energy to the body. Using balancing poses, such as tree, and seated poses, we explore the feelings of support, being present and being grounded. This class also introduces the hip opener, pigeon pose, and mudras (hand gestures). You will need a thin block or pillow, and a belt.
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34:34Somatic Movement: Feel the Heat
An invigorating, energising and heating somatics and yoga class which experiments with different movements and tempos. Enjoy feeling your own feelings and your own body. Move in a way which warms the body: the perfect way to wake up!
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15:21Breath Work: Break Down and Breakthrough
A breath break down/breakthrough. This yoga class is a breath work tutorial to feel the breath and discover more about how we breathe. It is semi meditation and semi instructional, with practical tips which could change your life by helping control anxiety or simply staying calm and present. It could be done sitting on a chair or on the floor, at work, at home, or wherever you find yourself today. A great class for breathing and feeling, to ground and to be in the present moment.
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56:22Breathe: Energise, Inspire & Change
This energising yoga and somatics class focuses on the breath and the element of air. It can be practiced to bring about new vision and clear away fatigue or boredom. The playful sequences encourages us to notice how we feel inside our body, rather than how the shapes look from the outside, and makes us think about how we respond to life's inevitable changes. Expect some faster paced movement, vinyasa and breath work.
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01:00:20Open Up To Feel Good With Yoga & Somatics
A yoga and somatics class to help you learn more about the way you like to move. Many of us have a tricky relationship with feeling good; do we really take time to find out what feels good within ourselves? Pleasure is an embodied experience and a basic human need, but many of us don’t treat ourselves as we would treat a loved one. This class is an invitation to explore and to learn about yourself. Part improvisational, part guided movements, it is slow paced and sensitive, with plenty of psoas release poses and stretches, to move underlying tension in the body. Move from standing poses and somatic exploration to seated, then laying with legs up the wall and into final relaxation. You will need a block (or books), a strap and access to a wall space.
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48:54Yoga Flow: How To be Here Now
This yoga class is beautifully sequenced and mindfully paced, with a focus on how to tune into being here now and bringing extra presence to our yoga practice. If we feel anxious in our lives, it's because we're not connected to the present moment. This is the perfect class to slow down an overthinking mind and tune into how your body feels when you move. Learn quick tools you can use to be in the moment, and have some fun. This yoga class is a well rounded, accessible yoga sequence for the whole body, perfect to start each day. One to save!
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02:33Introduction to Somatics
Somatic means “of the body”. Enjoy Ava's introduction into this way of being and moving that might help you to tune into the series more fully. Practise the classes in any order you like, depending on what you need at the time. What does my body need? How do I tune into a connected practice?
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29:44Creative Spirit Meditation
You are an inherently creative being. Connect to this truth and your own creative essence with this guided visualisation meditation. Simply find a comfortable position and let Ava take you on this journey of discovery. After the meditation, Ava will offer a mantra for you to add your voice to (or simply to listen and enjoy) in order to seal in the practice.
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46:43Empowered Yoga Flow
During this intermediate vinyasa yoga class, you choose how dynamic or restful you wish the sequence to be for you. The main focus of the class making decisions based on how you genuinely feel; you can decide how you want to move your body and what is right for you in this moment. Class starts with a talk on what yoga is as a practice of empowerment and revolution, and how this relates to events in the world. How is our yoga related to the freedom we are seeking for ourselves and for others? Ava shares her thoughts on how yoga can be lived on and off the mat before moving into a sequence which includes inversions, such as headstand. Without fear, take this class, adopt the pose which is right for you and take your practice off the mat into real life. This class is trauma-informed.
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44:25Backbend Toolkit
In this vinyasa yoga class, while we flow we solidify the fundamental principles behind back bends. We learn tips and tricks that support a back-bending practise which will help you take care and avoid injury when moving into backbends. Expect a heating, energising flow yoga class with practical tips that you can incorporate into all of your future yoga practise.
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25:01Feel Your Pleasure
A perfect gentle yoga class and somatic practise for winding down, or if you’re experiencing some self-doubt, heartache, exhaustion, or just want to shower yourself in some loving self care. This creative, slow, sensitive yoga class has us moving into our own love, presence and sense of feeling. It starts with a heart-warming practice of pleasure-finding in the objects around us, and moves through sensual, fluid movements to find our own place of pleasure. Expect a creative, unusual class which is more about the feeling than any shapes or traditional poses. Move with an open mind and find your pleasure!
Courses with Ava
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Yoga for Anxiety
45 Steps
There are times when life can leave us overwhelmed and anxious. Yoga, meditation and visualisation, breathwork and journaling can help. This is a four-week course to help you address your relationship to anxiety.
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Small Steps to Change: Autumn/Winter
28 Steps
Classes of 30 minutes and under to develop a sustainable yoga practice for life. It's the smallest steps that can lead to the greatest transformations.
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Yoga for Beginners
16 Steps
A four week progressive yoga course for beginners or those wanting to review basics.
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ReWild Yourself
35 Steps
Step by step this course helps to uncover who we are and rediscover our true, wild, nature, through movement and meditation classes.
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New Year Yoga Challenge
30 Steps
(Re)commit to doing yoga every day! Take small steps to our 2025 intention of yoga every day with under 30-minutes of yoga each day. Try different styles, different classes, all world-class teachers.
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30-day Ultimate Relaxation Course
30 Steps
30-Day Ultimate Relaxation Yoga Course for Sink Into the Floor Relaxation + Welcome to Movement for Modern Life: bringing world class teachers into your home with online yoga, meditation and movement classes I’ve been so grateful to be able to choose from so many neck & shoulder stretching videos, lots of gentle practices and wonderful, soothin [...]
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Get Back Into Yoga
14 Steps
Get Back to Your Mat + If your yoga practice has lapsed, or you’ve never been able to build yoga into your daily routine, when is the best time to get back to the mat? Now. Maybe you have fallen out of your usual routines your body and mind will benefit from getting back to a movement practice but it can be hard to make yoga a habit. We understand; we [...]