Orla Fitzgerald

BA (Mod) Genetics, Lic Ac, Dip Chinese Herbal Medicine, RYT

Orla is a Yoga teacher, acupuncturist and a Chinese medical herbalist. She began her personal yoga journey over 20 years ago and began teaching in 2010. Her practice, study and teaching are fuelled by a deep spiritual passion to understand the truth of who we are; to unite body, mind and breath in a way that facilitates this understanding; and to use this understanding to bring peace, health and harmony to day-to-day living.

Orla began her yoga journey practising Ashtanga yoga and enjoyed learning the sequences and the physical aspect of the practice. At the time, she was studying Chinese medicine and yoga helped her remain physically healthy and happy. Things began to change, however, when she began to practise under the guidance of a wonderful inspirational teacher, Marianne Jacuzzi. A truly gifted teacher, Marianne facilitated Orla’s journey into yoga philosophy and the deeper dimensions of the yoga practice. With Marianne’s help, she delved into the work of the eminent yoga scholar, Georg Feuerstein, studied the Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita and engaged with the teachings of Ramesh S. Balsekar, a scholar of Advaita Vedanta. Once encountered, there was no turning back. The light of awareness and the deep teachings of yoga, once illuminated, remain. It is these teaching that inspired Orla to study to become a yoga teacher.

Orla continues to read extensively, has attended many workshops and teacher training, and has learned from other wonderful teachers, including David Swenson, Richard Freeman, Nico Luce, Paul Grilley, Abbie Galvin and Srivatsa Ramaswami. She teaches yoga and practises Chinese medicine in My Yoga Body in Dun Laoghaire, and teaches the Yoga Philosophy module of the Elbow Room/Yoga Dublin combined 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training. Her classes, workshops, and teacher training bring together what she has learned to date from yoga and Chinese medicine.

Orla remains a yoga student on and off her mat and is eternally grateful to the teachers and students she has had the privilege to teach and learn from. She hopes to continue practising, studying, learning and teaching until her last breath. She is immensely grateful to Marianne Jacuzzi, who ignited the spiritual flame and continues to inspire Orla today.