When Tammy Peters signed up to an endurance motorbike race it became the start of another journey too…

Tammy, 33, might stand at just five foot nothing and weigh in at 50 kilos, but she had a very big goal in mind when she signed up for the Finke Desert race – a 460 km ride across the desert.

To help her prepare for the gruelling two-day race she decided to try yoga. “I knew the race would be a lot of strain on my wrists and forearms, so I went to yoga to help build up strength,” Tammy says.

What Tammy didn’t realise at the time, was just how valuable yoga would also be in helping build resilience, focus and mental strength.

Tammy loved the yoga classes with her teacher, Barbie Clutterbuck at the Port Lincoln School of Yoga and she found the practices and poses certainly helped when she took part in the race alongside her husband and brother.

In fact it was such great preparation that Tammy decided to deepen her yoga knowledge, but living in Port Lincoln – a seven hour drive from Adelaide, Tammy’s options were limited.

Luckily Barbie told her about the IYTA’s Foundation of Yoga Studies & the Diploma course which Tammy could do by correspondence.

Tammy enrolled and is really enjoying the course.

She says: “The videos are great and you do feel part of it even though you are not physically there, plus with live streaming there is the option to text through questions.”

Now every lecture on the IYTA’s International Diploma of Yoga Teacher course is filmed and live streamed, so students can watch it in real time. Plus they are sent the edited films after each study weekend, so they can watch in their own time as well.

Tammy has also found the yoga has helped with her job as Chief Operating Officer of a Building and Maintenance Company. Tammy has a staff of around 25 people and believes what she has learnt so far has made her a better manager.

Find out more about the Foundation Studies Course and the International Diploma of Yoga Teaching.