Meet Pip Elysium, overcoming obstacles through movement
Wanderlust’s feature on Pip, her story, and how movement helped her overcome obstacles.
Read the featureHi, I’m Pip Elysium. I truly believe that every path leads to the same place: the beauty that already lives within you.
For most of my life, movement was my language.
I trained as a dancer, worked alongside choreographer Siobhan Davies, and went on to found AcroYogaDance, one of London’s most celebrated movement studios.
And yet, somewhere along the way, I realised I was stuck. Searching outside myself for something that had always been within me.
That realisation changed everything.
I began going deeper into somatics, dance, yoga, breath, energy work, emotional healing and personal development. Slowly, I learned to listen inward, to trust my body, and to come back to myself.
These days, I travel the world and my work has grown far beyond movement. Movement became a tool for connection, healing and transformation.
I’m passionate about helping women feel beautiful, alive and free to be who they truly are.
This is where I share all of it. The journey behind me, the work I’m creating now, and what’s still unfolding. My courses, my circle, my trainings, and all the moments in between.
I’m so glad you’re here.
“It will challenge your perception of what you can do.”The Telegraph
My work weaves together everything that has helped me come back to myself.
Dance, somatics and sensual movement to help you feel at home in your body again.
Gentle ways to feel, release and let go of what you’ve been quietly carrying.
Reconnecting with your softness, your sensuality, your confidence and your worth.
Breath, ritual and nervous system care. Little everyday practices for a calmer, more aligned life.
Whether you’re craving a gentle reset, a weekly space to come back to, or you’re ready to guide others, there’s a soft place to land here.
The 7 Day Emotional Detox and The Inner Journey. Guided, at your own pace, whenever you’re ready.
Explore my coursesFor the things you can’t quite put into words. A women’s weekly space to express what’s inside and feel held in community.
Join the Inner CircleFor dance and yoga teachers, therapists and coaches ready to bring somatic depth into their work, through Somatic Dance Academy.
Explore the trainingI’ve grown so quickly over a short period of time. I didn’t expect somatic dance to reach me the way it did. It bypassed everything my mind had put up as a barrier.
CamillaSomething I’d been carrying for years just lifted. I left feeling lighter than I have in a long time.
RachelIt was much more than a dance class… it was a journey of awareness and self-expression.
LudoA complimentary 7-minute somatic experience to bring you back into your body, right now. No movement background needed. No preparation. Just you, arriving exactly as you are.
Receive it instantly by email. No spam.
A 7-minute somatic experience. Drop into your body in the time it takes to make a cup of tea.
Book a call and we’ll chat through where you are, what you’re craving, and what would feel most supportive right now. Or simply send me an email and say hello. I read every one.
A lifelong exploration of movement, expression and what it means to discover the beauty within.
Pip Elysium’s work sits at the intersection of dance, yoga, somatics and personal development, shaped by a lifelong relationship with the body and a curiosity about what happens when movement becomes a form of expression rather than simply something we do.
A trained ballet dancer and performer and internationally recognised movement teacher, Pip has taught internationally and has been featured by Wanderlust TV, as well as in publications including The Telegraph, The London Evening Standard and Yoga Magazines.
Her work has been shaped by years of following movement through dance, performance, yoga, energy work and, ultimately, some of the most transformative experiences of her life.
Growing up dyslexic, Pip sometimes found it difficult to put what she was thinking and feeling into words. Art became another language and a way of connecting the dots and expressing what couldn’t always be explained. From a young age, she knew she wanted to bring dance and art together, and that instinct has remained at the heart of her work.
There have been many chapters where movement became much more than physical practice, but one period changed everything. Within the space of two weeks, Pip lost her business, her home, her partner and someone she loved. She found herself in Bali, where she began a 300-hour yoga teacher training with Dylan Werner. Through the intensity of the practice, she became deeply aware of her body and began a six-year journey of self-discovery.
That journey wasn’t always easy. A back injury took movement away from her for an entire year, and later she experienced the profound shock of witnessing her father suffer a stroke. Through grief, loss and change, dance became something different. Not an escape from what she was feeling, but a way of honouring it.
Alongside movement, Pip became fascinated by energy work and the way the body can communicate before the mind has found the words. It led her to question how much of the way we live, particularly as women, is shaped by conditioning and society.
“Not an escape from what she was feeling, but a way of honouring it.”
For much of her life, she believed power meant pushing harder, working faster and achieving more. Over time, she discovered another kind of power: one that could be slower, more sensual, intuitive and connected to feeling.
That discovery is at the heart of what she teaches and facilitates.
Pip believes the body is communicating with us all the time, yet modern life gives us very little space to listen. We’re surrounded by information, self-improvement and the promise of the next thing that will make us feel better, while often becoming increasingly disconnected from what we already know within ourselves.
Her work is an invitation to quieten that noise and reconnect through movement, feeling and embodied awareness.
She created her programmes because this is the work of her own life, and because she wishes someone had shown her this way of relating to herself sooner.
It’s about becoming more deeply connected to who you already are, and allowing that connection to influence how you move through your life. From the decisions you make and the relationships you choose, to the places you live and what brings you joy.
Start with a course at your own pace, or join the Inner Circle for a gentle weekly rhythm with other women.
A three-level facilitator pathway for movement professionals, therapists and coaches, through Somatic Dance Academy.
From London stages to wherever in the world life takes me, my work has been shared in some of the UK’s best loved publications. Here’s a little of what’s been said.
Performed at the audition finals in Leeds, sharing our story both live on stage and through the TV production.
Guest performer, filmed on London’s South Bank for the opening of the show.
Introduced Charlotte Dawson and her partner Matt to acroyoga for the first time, as part of their couples counselling.
One of Wanderlust’s top teachers on Wanderlust TV, their online platform for yoga and mindful living.
“Mesmerising, hypnotic even.”
“It will challenge your perception of what you can do.”
“Helping others do mad things with their bodies.”
Tap through to read the full features.
Wanderlust’s feature on Pip, her story, and how movement helped her overcome obstacles.
Read the featureMetro explores the world of AcroYoga, featuring Pip and AcroYogaDance.
Read the articleRed Bull shares twelve ways to take your yoga practice further, featuring Pip.
Read the articleThe Evening Standard on the basic principles of AcroYoga, featuring Pip and AcroYogaDance.
Read the articleLed acroyoga workshops every year, and performed for Channel 4 News’ coverage of the festival opening.
Performed on the main stage for the festival opening, and led acroyoga and YogaDance workshops.
Performed alongside 18 members of our academy and taught acroyoga workshops.
Performed with a group of dancers as the Social Butterflies.
Taught headliner workshops.
Taught workshops.
Taught workshops.
Taught workshops.
Taught acroyoga and YogaDance workshops to Adidas Women ambassadors, and was sponsored by Adidas Women to headline at Wanderlust 108.
Led acroyoga workshops in Japan, London and Devon, and supported staff through their Goals and Dreams workshops.
Led acroyoga and YogaDance workshops, held a regular yoga class, and taught at Sweaty Betty’s HQ training.
Sponsored by Dharmabums Yoga & Activewear.
Sponsored by Vivobarefoot.
Created content in Manduka’s collection for their paid Instagram campaigns.
Led a group of dancers performing live in JD Sports’ shop windows.
Led a group of dancers performing live in BANK’s shop windows.
Press play to watch.
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Pip Elysium is the founder of Somatic Dance Academy. With 25 years in dance and embodiment, including work alongside choreographer Siobhan Davies, she founded London’s AcroYogaDance before turning her focus to somatic healing. Now travelling the world, she guides women everywhere to reveal their beauty within.
High resolution photos and a full press pack are available by email. Just get in touch and I’ll send them over.
hello@pipelysium.com
For interviews, features, podcasts, collaborations and speaking, I’d love to hear from you.
Each of my courses is a gentle invitation to slow down, feel and let go. Choose the one that speaks to you right now. There’s no wrong place to start, only the one that feels like a yes.
No dance experience needed, ever. Just a willingness to feel and a little space to move.
Release stuckness, emotional blocks and feel fully alive again through movement, breath and sound. Seven days, seven shifts, at your own pace.
Discover Emotional DetoxAwaken your beauty within by releasing what’s stuck and feel more alive through the intelligence of your body. Self-paced from £197, or live with Pip.
Explore the Inner Journey“Some pain doesn’t respond to words. It lives quietly in the body, waiting to be released.”
Courses are a beautiful way to go deep. The Inner Circle is how you keep that feeling alive, week after week. A women’s space every Sunday on Zoom to move, breathe, share and be held in community.
Release stuckness, emotional blocks and feel fully alive again through movement, breath and sound.
“Safely move what words cannot.”
Through somatic movement, breath, meditation and sound, we gently release what has been held for too long. No experience needed. Only curiosity, a quiet space, and a willingness to feel.
You’ve been strong for everyone else. You’ve pushed through, managed, coped. And somewhere along the way, your body started carrying what your mind couldn’t process.
This is your invitation to begin: gently, safely, at your own pace.
With roots in dance and years working alongside artists like Siobhan Davies, I’ve spent my life exploring movement as a language of the body and soul.
After running my own studio and immersing deeply in yoga and energy work, I now guide others to reconnect through somatic dance, where movement becomes a pathway to presence, expression and inner freedom.
I’ve been exactly where you are. Stuck. I wanted to move freely, feel deeply, and express truthfully. Until I realised everything I was searching for was already within me.
Release the emotional weight living in your muscles. Feel lighter, softer, more at home in your skin.
Move from survival mode into grounded presence. A new baseline of ease that lives in the body.
Reconnect with the part of you that knows how to feel fully: love, joy, and the quiet power of showing up as yourself.
Not something found outside yourself. Something remembered, a return to what was always yours.
Your body stops being something to manage. It becomes somewhere to live, fully and freely, without hesitation.
Reclaim the quiet confidence of being at home in yourself. Soft, grounded, present. Not performing, just being.
Not the loud kind. The quiet kind. The kind that makes you feel real again: in your body, in your life, in the room.
I’ve grown so quickly over a short period of time. I didn’t expect somatic dance to reach me the way it did. It bypassed everything my mind had put up as a barrier.
Camilla · StudentI am hugely pleased with my progress. The seven days gave me a ritual I actually look forward to, something that belongs entirely to me.
Samantha · StudentPrice increases as the programme grows
Awaken your beauty within by releasing what’s stuck and feel more alive through the intelligence of your body.
Via Zoom · No experience needed
“Some pain doesn’t respond to words. It lives quietly in the body, waiting to be released.”
You don’t need more information. You need a different kind of access, one that goes through the body.
Most of us were never taught how to feel; only how to manage, suppress or explain our emotions. The Inner Journey offers something different: a way back into your body and sensation, where real change begins not by thinking harder, but by reconnecting with what you can actually feel.
The Inner Journey is a guided immersion into your body, your emotions and the parts of yourself you may have disconnected from. Through nervous system regulation, embodiment exercises, somatics, feminine and sensual movement, and emotion release practices, you’ll begin to release what’s been held within and reconnect with your beauty, aliveness and inner wisdom.
Across five live Saturdays (or at your own pace), you’ll explore the emotional, energetic, physical and spiritual layers of yourself, moving gently through the body to soften tension that words alone can’t reach, while awakening a deeper, more grounded and embodied connection to who you are.
Via Zoom · No experience needed
At your own pace
one-time · lifetime access
Start anytime · All devices
Live with Pip
one-time · limited spaces · or 2 payments of £222
Via Zoom. Spaces are limited.
Body-led awareness and movement to access what’s stored beneath the surface
Breath sequences to open, regulate and resource your emotional body
Gentle techniques to move suppressed emotion through and out of the body
Grounding practices to create safety, calm and presence from within
Tools to support your inner growth and the woman you are becoming
A body that feels like home: lighter, more open, more you
No longer in survival mode. Grounded, present, genuinely at ease
Room for joy, self-love, and honest expression, without needing to suppress it
A sense of wholeness that lives in your bones. Clarity, expansion, coming back to yourself
I’ve grown so quickly over a short period of time. I didn’t realise how much I was holding in my body until this gave me permission to let it go.
Camilla · Immersion studentI am hugely pleased with my progress. I came in sceptical, I’m not a ‘dancer’, but that completely dissolved. This is about being human.
Samantha · Immersion studentSomething shifted in me that therapy never quite touched. I feel lighter, more myself, and I actually look forward to mornings now.
Emma · Immersion student“I felt like I was doing yoga and a workout at the same time.”
Valerie“It was something I really needed.”
KirstyFor most of my life, movement was my language.
I trained as a dancer, worked alongside choreographer Siobhan Davies, and went on to found AcroYogaDance, one of London’s most celebrated movement studios, described as “mesmerising, hypnotic even” by The Guardian and featured in The Daily Telegraph, the Evening Standard and Metro.
And yet, somewhere along the way, I realised I was stuck. Searching outside myself for something that had always been within me.
That realisation changed everything.
I began going deeper into somatics, dance, yoga, breath, energy work, emotional healing and personal development. Slowly, I learned to listen inward, to trust my body, and to come back to myself.
Everything I learned along the way is woven into The Inner Journey. Women come to it feeling disconnected and stuck in their heads. They leave feeling alive, open and seen.
I can’t wait to share it with you.
The Inner Journey is Level 1 of the Somatic Dance Facilitator Training. If you feel called to guide others through this work one day, this is your foundation.
Full somatic dance and movement recordings to return to whenever your body calls for it.
A guided breath sequence plan to regulate your nervous system and open the emotional body between sessions.
A shared space to move, integrate and be witnessed alongside other women on the same path.
If something in you has been saying yes while reading this, that’s worth trusting. This is where the real work begins. And it’s gentler than you think.
For the things you can’t quite put into words. A women’s weekly space to express what’s inside and feel held in community.
Weekly · Sundays · 10am GMT · 1hr 15min · via Zoom · No experience needed
“There is something deeply nourishing about having a consistent weekly space to feel, to move and to be witnessed by other women.”Pip Elysium, Founder
A women’s weekly space to express what’s inside and feel held in community. A place to return to yourself, your body and your circle, week after week.
Each month weaves two kinds of sessions together. One week you move through different modalities to help you come back to yourself, such as somatic dance, meditation, journal prompts and nervous system work. The next week you gather in a women’s sharing circle, being witnessed and being held.
Both are practices of coming back to yourself. Together, they create the kind of slow, deep change that can’t happen in a single workshop.
Sessions run Sundays · 10am GMT · 1hr 15min · All levels welcome · Zoom recordings available
Alternate weeks, guided by Pip
Alternate weeks, held in circle together
The Inner Circle is for women who know that real change happens slowly, consistently and in community.
1hr 15min every Sunday at 10am GMT on Zoom. Embodiment practices one week, women’s sharing circle the next.
Every session is recorded. Watch back when you need it, revisit what moved you, use it as your own library.
Thoughtful prompts sent after each somatic session to help you integrate and deepen your practice between sessions.
You are not doing this alone. A growing circle of women committed to their inner work, online but genuinely close.
Somatic tools woven into every practice session to help your body feel safe enough to open, move and release.
Every session is held live. Not pre-recorded, not automated. Just real presence, every week.
A 3-month commitment gives your body and your nervous system time to actually change. That’s where the real results happen.
Sessions run Sundays · 10am GMT
No experience of somatic dance or movement needed
Places are limited. This is an intimate group.
A weekly space where your body matters, your voice is welcome, and you are never doing this alone.