Isaac Mullins is a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, breathing specialist and teacher trainer with nearly thirty years of personal practice and more than twenty years of teaching experience.
His work brings together traditional Hatha Yoga, pranayama, breathing physiology, movement, body awareness and contemplative practice.
The approach has been shaped by sustained study, professional experience and years of teaching people with widely differing needs. It is physically intelligent, philosophically grounded and responsive to the individual rather than confined to a single method.
The principle behind the work
At the centre of Isaac’s teaching is a simple understanding: the body is where life happens.
The body is not merely something to improve, control or display. It is where effort, tension, emotion, pleasure, discomfort and change are experienced.
The value of a practice lies not only in what we do, but in how we do it. Through movement, breathing, stillness and sustained attention, practice becomes a way of recognising habitual patterns, responding more intelligently to sensation and remaining closer to ourselves under pressure.
The purpose is not to escape experience, but to meet it with greater skill, steadiness and grace, and to become more fully available to the enjoyment of being alive.
The work today
Isaac teaches through live classes, an online practice library, structured courses, retreats, teacher trainings, corporate programmes and one-to-one sessions.
Across each format, the work brings together Breath, Body and Being to support greater health, strength, stability and freedom.
A life in movement
Before teaching yoga, Isaac trained and worked as a professional ballet dancer with the Royal Ballet, the English National Ballet and the Spanish National Ballet. He later performed as a contemporary dancer with Michael Clark, and starred as the older Billy in Billy Elliot the Musical in London in 2008.
This gave him an exacting education in movement, coordination, discipline and the physical demands of performance.
It also revealed the difference between making the body perform and learning how to inhabit it more fully. Yoga offered a broader relationship with the body — one that included strength and precision, but also breath, sensation, stillness and awareness. That distinction continues to shape his teaching.
Study, practice & teaching in India
Isaac began practising yoga in 1997, initially through Ashtanga Yoga, and has been teaching since 2004.
He has since spent more than half of his adult life in India, where he studied, practised and taught yoga and breathing. Pranayama has been central to his practice for more than twenty-five years, developed through sustained work with senior teachers, therapists and philosophy teachers from a range of traditions.
Rather than remaining within one school, he studied yoga through posture, breath, therapy, contemplation and direct experience — learning to compare methods, understand their purposes and adapt them intelligently.
Breathing & physiology
Isaac is a trained Buteyko coach and specialist in functional breathing, pranayama and breath awareness.
He combines traditional knowledge of the breath with an understanding of breathing physiology — nasal breathing, breath volume, carbon dioxide tolerance and the relationship between breathing, attention and stress. He has taught breathing to practitioners, private clients, performers, athletes, teachers and corporate groups.
His approach is based on discernment. A breathing practice is not beneficial simply because it is intense, traditional or popular; its value depends on the person, the purpose and the way it is practised.
Academic study & yoga philosophy
Isaac holds a first-class honours degree in the Study of Religion from SOAS, graduating in 2016 with the highest marks in his year.
His academic work included Sanskrit, Indian philosophy, the history and development of yoga, and detailed study of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras — giving him both an academic and experiential relationship with yoga philosophy.
He teaches philosophy not as decoration or abstract theory, but as a practical investigation into attention, habit, suffering, freedom and the way we meet experience.
Yoga therapy & individual work
As a yoga therapist, Isaac adapts the work to the needs of the individual. Sessions may draw on posture, movement, strength, mobility, breathing, body awareness, guided rest and changes to everyday habits.
He has worked with people experiencing pain, restricted movement, breathing difficulties, prolonged stress and serious illness, as well as those seeking improved health, physical capacity or performance.
His wider studies in Thai yoga massage, therapeutic bodywork and nutrition have further informed his understanding of the body and the conditions that support health.
Teaching teachers
Isaac teaches on yoga teacher trainings and supports practitioners as they develop the knowledge and sensitivity required to teach others.
His teaching emphasises observation, reasoning and direct experience. Students are encouraged to understand what they are doing, what effect a practice is having and why it may need to change according to the person in front of them.
Rather than teaching people to reproduce a fixed sequence, Isaac encourages them to observe carefully, think independently and respond with precision.