Sarah Gero teaches yoga in some unexpected places. There’s the weekly class in prison where men learn breathing techniques to stay calm in their cells. The sheltered housing sessions where elderly neighbours who’ve lived two doors apart for years are finally becoming friends. The council estates, hostels, SEN centres and safe houses across South West London where students aged two to ninety-two roll out mats – or don’t, if they’re in wheelchairs or prefer chairs.
All 30 weekly classes are free. That’s the point.
Gero co-manages Live Karma Yoga with colleagues Zara Karimi and Eva Thomson, all South West London residents who believe wellbeing practices shouldn’t be locked behind studio memberships or location. If financial barriers, mobility issues, trauma or geography stop people accessing yoga, they bring yoga to them instead.
“We believe everyone should be able to access wellbeing practices,” says Gero. “Rather than having a physical location, we bring yoga to people.”
Every class adapts to who’s in the room. In Wandsworth Prison, where the organisation has taught for over 10 years, the focus is grounding. Prison officers report that men who attend become more regulated, better able to cope with incarceration’s challenges.
“For some people, it’s a particular breathing practice that works,” Gero explains. “For some, it’s lying on the ground feeling their body in contact with it.”
The practice can be surprisingly simple. “The reality is, you don’t need much to do yoga. It doesn’t mean you have to be doing sun salutations. You can actually just roll your shoulders a little bit and maybe take a few stretches and then tune into your breath.”
Prisoners use these techniques in their cells. The elongated exhale that triggers the parasympathetic nervous system and eases anxiety doesn’t require equipment or space – just awareness of your own breath.
In sheltered housing, Gero teaches chair yoga – one of her passions. Older residents build core strength and work on balance to reduce fear of falling. They shift weight between feet, notice how their bodies feel stable.
But she’s learned to address vulnerability gently. When students confide they feel “shaky” reaching into low kitchen cabinets, she doesn’t make it clinical. Instead, she tells the group: “I was talking with someone about how sometimes it’s hard to get things out of your cabinet, whether it’s really far down or really high up, so we’re gonna work on how you might find balance to access those things.”
The social connection often matters as much as the physical practice. “They’ve told me, ‘I don’t have friends before I started coming to this class,'” says Gero. “It’s literally someone two doors down. They come to class, build that friendship, then have lunch together.”
The classes grow through word of mouth. “We find it’s more powerful when someone has experienced those benefits, telling someone else about it and then bringing them along,” says Gero. “That’s sort of how it grows.”
Funding challenge
Live Karma Yoga operates as a Social Community Interest Company, which means constantly seeking funding from charities, councils and private investors. Unlike many community programs, they pay teachers studio-equivalent rates rather than relying on volunteers. The Southwest London NHS Integrated Care Board historically funded their work, but that money has dried up. Councils face similar constraints.
Some funding supports bursaries for teacher training, creating an unusual pipeline: students become teachers. Several current instructors started as participants in community classes, felt such benefit they trained as yoga teachers, and now teach for Live Karma Yoga – sometimes in the same communities where they first practiced. Many of the organisation’s teachers come from the communities they serve.
The financial pressures threaten even long-standing programs. Wandsworth Prison has told the group that funding ends in the new year, despite ten years of successful classes. That means losing not just weekly sessions but an eight-week pre-release wellbeing course that equipped men leaving prison with regulation tools for life on the outside.
“Even when institutions really believe in the work we do – the NHS has social prescribers sending people to our classes – there’s no funding,” says Gero. “It’s not fair when programs can’t keep going because these are lifelong practices and a real outlet for people.”
Still, classes continue across South West London. What makes them different, Gero says, is the atmosphere. Walk into a Live Karma class and it’s nothing like a gym or studio. “People just start talking to you and want to know about you. You immediately feel like you belong.”
That sense of belonging – yoga as community practice rather than individual exercise – is what they’re trying to sustain. Their long-term vision includes running their own teacher training, creating more instructors equipped to make yoga accessible from the start.
For now, they’re focused on keeping the 30 weekly classes running. Anyone can attend for free. Anyone who wants to help sustain the work – whether by joining a class, spreading the word, or supporting financially – can find out more at the Live Karma Yoga website.
Live Karma Yoga runs free weekly classes in Putney and across South West London. You can found out more at livekarmayoga.com.
