About Joanna Webber
Joanna is a fully qualified Ayurvedic Practitioner with a BSc in Ayurveda (Manipal, India, First Class Honours) as well as a Hatha Yoga teacher. She loves to weave these sister sciences together to support a more integrated approach to health and well-being in her Ayurveda practice (face to face and online). She has completed 500 hours of clinical Ayurvedic internship training in India (Alvas Ayurvedic hospital, Karnataka; Dr Marda, Pune, and Jiva Ayurveda, New Delhi) and is a full member of the Ayurvedic Professionals Association. She has also trained with at the Ayuseva clinic, Brighton, and with Dr Vasant Lad.
She has completed both the Basic and the Advanced Yoga teacher training qualification with Sivananda Yoga. She has also qualified in Yoga therapy for Lower Back Pain with the Yoga Biomedical Trust and pregnancy yoga teaching, with Uma Dinsmore Tuley. She was formerly Head of Herbal Education at Pukka Herbs where she oversaw the delivery of industry- leading education enabling people to discover the power of herbs and learn to be well. As well as training in Ayurvedic herbs, Joanna has also completed the foundation course in Western Herbalism from Heartwood College.
Previous to practicing Ayurveda and Yoga, Joanna completed a Masters in Human Sciences at Oxford University and worked in corporate social responsibility and ethical investment. She has teaching experience with a Post graduate Certificate in Education, and feels strongly about making diet, lifestyle and herbal advice more readily available, so people of all ages can make informed and empowered choices for themselves. She lives in Somerset with her family and spends all her spare time making, foraging and growing food and herbs.
My journey to becoming an Ayurvedic practitioner
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My yoga journey began when I was 19 years old. It kept be sane whilst at Oxford University, a very stressful environment! I spent the next 10 years exploring various Schools of Yoga. After 5 years working in finance, as an ethical investment analyst, I was exhausted and quit to explore alternative ways to work. I had set up yoga classes for stressed city workers which I really enjoyed so I trained as a Sivananda Hatha yoga teacher in the Austrian Alps, which have a similar feel to the Himalayas. I’ve never looked back and love teaching in different environments such as drug rehabilitation projects, festivals, companies, health clubs, children’s groups as well as my own home where I often serve up an Ayurvedic thali afterwards for “Yoga Supper Club” or at the very least, a chai and an energy ball.
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My interest in Ayurveda was awakened as a tourist in Kerala in 1999, where I visited a very old doctor in a sleepy backstreet. He asked no questions but held my wrist and read my pulse. To say I was amazed by what he could tell from my pulse is an understatement and I made a commitment to study Ayurveda in the future. It was a very moving experience as he also ready my friend’s pulse and correctly said she had cancer, and correctly indicated the area of the body, but that there were no longer any cancer cells in her body. This has turned out to be true as she has been in remission ever since.
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It took a few years more but I eventually studied Ayurveda with Manipal University. I have also undertaken further training in clinics in India (Alvas Ayurveda Hospita and Dr Marda in Pune) and the UK (Ayuseva Clinic, Brighton). I am a full member of the UK’s Ayurvedic Professional’s Association (APA). I am truly indebted to all my teachers along the way, and indeed future teachers as Ayurveda is a lifelong journey. I have especially enjoyed studying with Dr Vasant Lad and Sascha and Rebecca Kriese of Ayuseva, who have been instrumental in me setting up my practice. Though I’m most especially grateful to the old vaidya (doctor) in the Keralan backwater, whose name I do not know.
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Ethics and sustainability
I aim to be socially and environmentally responsible, embracing inclusivity and diversity in all I do.
I give 5% of turnover to the Punarnava Ayurveda Trust to support grassroots Ayurveda in India.
