Maura Roche is an authorised Level 2 Ashtanga Yoga teacher and co-owner of Adelaide Ashtanga Yoga Shala, where she teaches alongside her husband, Youngblood Roche, bringing over 25 years of movement teaching experience into the Ashtanga tradition.

Maura’s relationship with movement began at a very young age through ballet, where she developed precision, discipline, and a deep sensitivity to the body. Over time, her path expanded into fitness instruction, strength training, and competitive athletics, including years of lifting at a high level. These experiences shaped her understanding of strength, effort, and resilience.

Her journey eventually led her to Mysore, India, where she immersed herself in the study of Ashtanga Yoga. There, she met Youngblood and began weaving together the many strands of her movement background into a cohesive, embodied teaching approach that honours tradition while remaining deeply functional and alive.

Maura has taught yoga and movement internationally, worked with dancers from the Australian Dance Theatre, and taught across a wide range of gym and studio environments. Her teaching is known for its clarity, intensity, and transformative impact. Many students affectionately refer to her as “the destroyer”—a reflection of her uncanny ability to identify where people have been avoiding necessary work, and to guide them patiently and decisively toward strength, confidence, and self-trust.

Her classes are often described as the most challenging students have ever experienced—yet also among the most empowering. Maura emphasises intelligent effort, honest self-assessment, and the balance between strength and flexibility, courage and ease. She continues to develop her own practice daily, integrating yoga, lifting, and movement exploration as an ongoing inquiry.

For Maura, teaching is not about pushing for its own sake, but about helping students discover capacities they didn’t know they possessed. Her work invites people to step beyond expectation, meet difficulty with steadiness, and cultivate a resilient, capable relationship with their own bodies—and themselves.

Youngblood Roche is an authorised Level 2 Ashtanga Yoga teacher and co-owner of Adelaide Ashtanga Yoga Shala, where he teaches alongside his wife, Maura Roche, continuing a family lineage deeply rooted in the traditional Ashtanga method.

Youngblood began practising Ashtanga Yoga over 25 years ago and has spent many years studying in Mysore, India, under the guidance of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and R. Sharath Jois at the KPJAYI (Sharath Yoga Centre). His teaching is grounded in respect for the traditional method while remaining accessible, thoughtful, and responsive to modern life.

Alongside his work as a yoga teacher, Youngblood is a Senior Clinical Psychologist, with postgraduate training in clinical psychology and extensive experience working across issues in the space of mental health, wellbeing, and behaviour change. He is AHPRA-registered, working in private practice supporting people with anxiety, depression, trauma, stress, burnout, relationship difficulties, substance use, and identity transitions.

Youngblood’s unique perspective comes from living at the intersection of embodied practice and psychological insight. His classes emphasise steadiness, breath, and self-study (Svādhyāya)—inviting students to meet themselves honestly on the mat, without force or performance. He is especially interested in how yoga supports nervous system regulation, emotional resilience, and sustainable practice over the lifespan.

Whether teaching beginners or long-term practitioners, Youngblood is known for his calm presence, clear guidance, and deep respect for each student’s individual path. For him, yoga is not something to master—but something to return to, again and again, as a practice of awareness, responsibility, and care.