Toronto · Teaching since 2002
I came to yoga searching for healing. After teaching yoga for more than two decades, I know the practice is not about performing or becoming someone new. It is a way of listening—to the body, the heart and the life moving through us. A way of remembering what the noise of the world can make us forget.
Yoga teacher · Somatic guide · Reiki healer · Educator
A place to feel, not perform.
The practices I share are the practices that have carried me through my own life: how to breathe when life feels overwhelming; how to stay when the instinct is to run; how to soften without collapsing; how to feel safe enough to feel. Breathwork, somatic meditation, nervous-system regulation, meditative self-inquiry, intuitive movement and deep listening are woven together as a continuum—not to fix the body, but to create the conditions for it to remember its own wisdom. Underneath every method is the same invitation: come home to yourself.
My signature heart-led flow moves through the whole front body—hips, spine, heart, breath and spirit. It is creative and fluid, but never movement for movement’s sake. Every transition becomes meditation; every shape is an invitation to listen rather than perform.
Strength, rhythm, breath and intentional heat come together in a dynamic practice that builds physical and emotional resilience. We meet the edge without abandoning ourselves, move with awareness rather than force, and remember the inner fire already there.
Half flowing movement, half restoration. Breath-led vinyasa, mindful mobility and deep stretching give way to restorative shapes and somatic release, allowing strength and softness to live inside the same practice. We leave grounded, restored and more at home in the body.
This is not passive stretching. Longer holds meet intuitive movement, pandiculation, restorative stillness and somatic inquiry. We follow sensation, soften the patterns the body has been carrying and allow the nervous system to complete what words alone cannot.
Pranayama, kriya, vagus-nerve toning, sound and contemplative practice draw from the traditional teachings I encountered in India and the nervous-system work that later gave me language for what breath can change. Breath becomes medicine—and a bridge back to ourselves.
Weekly classes across all three Sweat & Tonic locations in Toronto.
Practise with RachaelWe heal in relationship.
I created the Reiki Collective from a belief that healing does not happen only inside us. It happens between us. Every class brings sixty students and fifteen or more healers into an energy field rooted in unconditional love. At the heart of this offering is the experience of receiving that love—not as an abstract idea, but as something felt somatically, lived through the body and held in the unseen spaces between us.
We begin with breath, mindfulness and metta—loving-kindness meditation—then weave restorative stillness, somatic practice and Reiki through the room. As we nourish our nervous systems together, co-regulation becomes possible. We soften in the presence of one another. Relational healing begins. We remember that none of us has to heal alone.
With consent, each healer offers two minutes of hands-on Reiki at the heart, shoulders, face and head. The healers move through two to three rounds so every student is held by many hands, many energies and one collective intention. The touch becomes loving-kindness in action—an invitation to receive love without having to earn it, explain anything or perform our healing. We are simply invited to breathe, receive and be held.
This is the unique offering I felt called to create: a practice where the individual is held by the collective, and where we heal as a collective. Founded in Toronto in 2019, the Reiki Collective has grown into a beloved, often waitlisted ritual and a community of more than seventy healers across the Greater Toronto Area.
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Teaching as a practice of presence.
A life shaped by study, travel and healing.
My journey into self-inquiry deepened while I was training in psychodynamic psychotherapy and learning to understand the relationship between body, mind and spirit. That inquiry eventually brought me to India for my first yoga teacher training and into years of immersive study, practice and teaching.
For nearly a decade I lived and taught in India and across Asia, including Thailand, Nepal, China and Malaysia. I studied within traditional yoga and meditation settings, lived in alternative communities, and learned through daily practice, relationship, culture and experience—not only through formal programs.
The loss of my mother to addiction changed the direction of my life and my work. On the banks of the Ganga in Rishikesh, I sat with Swamis and Sanyasi ascetics contemplating grief, death and impermanence. I went searching for a way to understand suffering without turning away from it, and that inquiry remains at the heart of how I teach.
Michael Stone was my teacher and dear mentor. His way of bringing yoga, Buddhist practice, psychotherapy and social engagement into one living conversation profoundly influenced me. He showed me that practice does not ask us to turn away from suffering or from the world, but to meet both with intimacy, responsibility and care. His teachings continue to live inside the way I understand the body, relationship, community and the role of a teacher.
For more than twenty years I have also worked closely with a psychotherapist and mentor. My training in psychodynamic and Gestalt psychotherapy—and my own long relationship with therapy—gave me a language for the places where the body, the unconscious, relationship and spiritual practice meet.
I did not gather these practices to create a brand. I was simply someone searching for healing. When I returned to Canada, I came home again to Toronto—the city where I began teaching in 2002 and where, across the years, I have taught at almost every yoga studio. I had travelled far, but I was not returning to a beginning. I came home carrying a living body of work—not a single method, but a way of weaving movement, breath, inquiry, ritual and relationship into spaces where people feel safe enough to feel.
In 2019, I became one of the founding teachers at Sweat & Tonic, now one of Canada’s largest and leading yoga and wellness studios. Today I teach across all three Toronto locations. It has become my teaching home—the place where the many strands of my work can live together: Open Heart Flow, Inner Power, Flow & Restore — Somatic Release, Yin & Somatic Release, Breath Medicine, Reiki, meditation, nervous-system care and relational healing. The journey did not end when I came home. It found a place to keep becoming.
Explore education & mentorshipA life of study.
For the past three decades, I have studied yoga, somatic awareness, meditation and psychotherapy around the world. I completed my first yoga teacher training in India and deepened my connection to the Krishnamacharya traditions. In the Himalayas of Nepal I studied Buddhism and meditation with Tantric Tibetan monks. On the banks of the Ganga in Rishikesh, I sat with Swamis and Sanyasi ascetics, contemplating death and impermanence after losing my mother to addiction.
For nearly a decade I lived in alternative communities and taught throughout Asia. I have led women’s circles, yoga teacher trainings, continuing education, workshops, masterclasses, festivals and retreats in India, Nepal, Thailand, China, Mongolia, Malaysia and Canada—collaborating with Buddhist monks, Swamis, spiritual teachers and masters of the yogic and Buddhist traditions. These were not separate certifications collected for display. They became one living inquiry into suffering, embodiment, freedom and how we care for one another.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy · Gestalt Therapy · Shadow Work · Trauma-Informed Yoga · Dyad Work · Enlightenment Intensives · Transference and Counter-Transference · Triggers · Spiritual Bypass and the Shadow of Dogma
Somatic Awareness · Interoception · Authentic Movement · Contact Dance · Axis Syllabus · Intuitive Movement · Breathwork · Reiki · Release Work · Plant Medicine
Krishnamacharya Traditions · Hatha Yoga · Ashtanga and Mysore · Iyengar Yoga · Jivamukti Yoga · Tantra Yoga Vinyasa · Yin/Yang Yoga · Power Yoga · Kundalini · Vikasa Yoga · Bihar School of Yoga · Kriya Yoga · Yoga Nidra · Yoga Psychology · The Hidden Message Behind Asana
Vipassana Meditation · Tantric Tibetan Buddhism · Vedanta · Yoga Philosophy · Aurobindo and the Mother · Pranayama · Kriyas · Dynamic Meditation · Ritual and Sacred Ceremony
Teaching teachers since 2007.
I began co-facilitating 200-hour and continuing-education yoga teacher trainings in Toronto in 2007, then carried this work into China, India and Thailand. I have since led 200-hour trainings as a lead teacher and created 10-, 30-, 50- and 100-hour programs. My training in yoga and psychodynamic psychotherapy allows me to work with the whole person and to mentor teachers through both the craft and the inner process of becoming a teacher.
I do not believe teaching is the performance of a perfect sequence. It is a relationship—with the room, with power, with language, with our own unexamined patterns and with the people who have trusted us with their practice.
Inquire about mentorshipThese are the words of students who have practised, trained, breathed, played, grieved and grown with me. Their experiences speak to the heart of the work more truthfully than any description I could write.
“What I have come to learn from three years of attending Rachael’s classes and workshops is that any great teacher will only want to guide you towards yourself.
Through deeply therapeutic release work, emphasis on the breath over perfection of asana, self-guided and improvised body movement, I have learned from her to listen to my body, to quiet my mind, and most importantly to recognize where my own trauma intersects and connects to those two things.
Rachael, in both her drop-in classes and workshops, has guided me towards deep healing, has been an essential teacher along a long and meaningful path, a path that for a long time I didn’t believe could exist for myself. It is beyond a workout, it is beyond a stress release, it is beyond the temporary escape that casual yoga practice promises. Her workshops and classes will lead you, if you let them, towards a deeper understanding of yourself, and to real, authentic healing.”
“Rachael has a saying: ‘A great teacher becomes a mirror for students to look deep into themselves,’ and it is this belief of hers that makes her one of the best teachers I have ever had.
Above all Rachael is a great teacher because she creates a space for her students to discover themselves. And as you embark on this journey of profound self-inquiry, she is there for you—with an insight or anecdote that completely changes your thinking, or with one of her amazing hugs that make you feel like you are literally wrapped up in love.
If you have the opportunity to learn from Rachael, take it. It will change your life.”
“Her classes are not like any other classes in Toronto. Inspiring, full of love, and flowing energy. Each class is a journey that words cannot describe.
Dark room, great music, and a series of asanas that leads to a healing process but feels like a free dance. She puts her soul into her teaching and her goal in teaching yoga is above and beyond asanas. I am truly grateful for being there every time.”
“To put into words the impact Rachael has had on me is no small feat. I started training full of self-doubt both on my mat and in my heart. I was in a dark place—feeling stuck and buried. Rachael not only saw that but saw through that. Her eyes are a mirror into your soul and the gentlest, soothing hug you could ever receive. She pushed me and saw a strength inside of me I never knew was possible.
There were many times that I wanted to give up. I didn’t want to practise. I wanted to fight her every step of the way. But she held such a special sacred space that I found it impossible to say no. I thought it was that I couldn’t walk away from her, when in reality she was a mirror to my soul and it was me that I couldn’t walk away from.
Her classes are fun yet strict. Structured yet time to play and explore. Challenging yet freeing. Her guidance through the breath, the heart centre, the asanas and into your soul is truly life-altering in the best possible way.”
“Every now and then an instructor comes along your path that plays a pivotal role in your own personal transformation. Rachael is one such instructor.
With Rachael, yoga became an inward journey that served as cathartic release. On a weekly basis, Rachael’s knowledge provided an hour of processing pent-up emotions and leaving class feeling like a warrior. Most importantly, her classes allowed me to reconnect with myself in a way that I had not allowed myself to in a long time. Rachael is a true teacher and a yoga healer.”
“It is with no hesitation that I say Rachael Fallon changed my life. Her beautiful warmth and full heart were wrapped around our class at all times. Rachael’s ability to share her story and herself so openly created the safest place for us to breathe and explore.
She softly pushed me when she knew I had the space to, and kindly asked me to rest when she knew I was being hard on myself. My asana practice finally feels real: linking breath to movement, strength to stillness, mind to body. Rachael guided me towards a light within myself. Namaste, beautiful teacher. You are a gift.”
“Rachael weaves different wisdom traditions and modalities in such an artful way that speaks directly to the subtle body, resulting in me feeling lighter and simultaneously more grounded at the end of class. I love the freedom of movement and self-inquiry she encourages, allowing the intelligence of our bodies to guide us, while holding a supportive and nurturing container.
I have also had the pleasure of attending Rachael’s women’s circle, where she incorporated sharing, movement and breathwork in a safe space, creating powerful shifts and releases and meaningful connections with other women in a short time. Her guided breathwork allowed me to drop in deep, and being able to integrate it afterwards in a sharing circle was deeply healing.
Rachael’s warm and open presence is matched by her skillful approach to the healing arts, creating a safe container for deep work and transformation to occur.”
“A vulnerable, yet nourishing experience that involved intuitive yoga, breathwork and partner work among other activities. Eye gazing with my partner was a deeply moving experience that brought me to tears. Seeing and being seen is so profoundly validating. Rachael embodies a soul sensitivity that allows her to connect meaningfully with the women in attendance.
Her approach to teaching yoga is rooted in playfulness and ancient-medicine wisdom. Avant-garde yet equally nourishing, each class offers the opportunity to challenge and heal the mind and body through breathwork, sensuality and unique asanas. Rachael lives and breathes her role as a teacher and embodies a soul sensitivity that allows her to connect meaningfully with each of her students.”
“I spent many years going to yoga on and off again without truly feeling like I could connect to any single style of teaching. Then I took one of Rachael’s classes. Rachael gives you the freedom to move how you feel is right for your body, while also encouraging growth and exploration.
The music gave me the confidence to breathe loudly, to let loose, and to fall into a natural rhythm of movement. What I love most is that she teaches outside of the box: I am never bored and I am always challenged in new ways. Expect to sweat, expect to move with a freedom akin to dance, and above all expect to leave the class feeling utterly rejuvenated and joyous.”
“Rachael has a warm and compassionate approach which fuses her training and expertise in yoga with her comprehensive knowledge and skills in mental health support. She inspires and creates independent, creative yoga practitioners who are as comfortable creating on their mat at home as they are with her careful instruction in the classroom.
Learning from Rachael has changed my yoga practice and allowed me to switch my mindset from student to burgeoning yoga practitioner. I have also been fortunate to attend Rachael’s women’s yoga circles, where she has fostered a beautiful community of supportive women through movement, writing, meditation and shared experience.”
“Rachael Fallon is one of the most inspiring and authentic yoga teachers that I’ve ever had the pleasure of learning from. She teaches directly from the heart space, providing a healing gift with each class that she teaches. Like a mother, Rachael nurtures each student, providing them with an equal opportunity to explore their strengths, weaknesses and possibilities.
She provided me with just enough space to grow as a student, and her teachings will stay with me each and every day for the rest of my life. She is not afraid to show her own vulnerability even as a teacher, and I believe this is essential to aspiring yoga students and future instructors. You cannot put a price on the quality of her teachings, for they derive directly from her heart, soul and personal experiences. I am honoured to tell the world that I was guided by Rachael.”
“Having Rachael at our teacher training was a blessing. Rachael has this presence when she enters a room; you are suddenly attracted to her energy. Her calm nature makes her approachable and welcoming. Her knowledge of yoga and psychotherapy made her an invaluable source of support.
Her fluid, smooth and inspiring movement is incredible. Her teaching accommodated beginners to advanced students—Rachael is very in tune with the needs of the students she is teaching or assisting. Most of all she provided a safe place to practise asana. She told us to have fun with yoga while providing encouragement, guidance and a connection with each participant.”
“Rachael brings a wealth and world of experience to her teaching. Not only do her years of teaching and studying around the globe shine through in her thoughtful sequencing, but her genuine passion for sharing her experience with her students is at the centre of her classes.
Rachael carefully integrates breath, release work, movement, mindfulness and meditation into her teaching, leaving you with an experience unlike any I’ve had in my ten years of practice. She invites you to invigorate and strengthen the body while becoming more intimately attuned to your physical, mental and emotional self. Her yoga classes have become therapeutic for me and have allowed me to truly deepen my practice.”
“It takes a certain kind of person to offer true and deep healing, and Rachael embodies everything you need to feel at home, at peace and allow for surrender. I’ve taken Rachael’s yoga classes and attended her women’s circles and every time left feeling like a whole new person.
Not only do you heal on your mat and clear unwanted energy, but you are able to take what you learn with Rachael and apply it in everyday life. The way Rachael speaks, moves and guides you is liberating and soothing. She offers a space where you can create new rituals for yourself and find the power inside to do so.”
“Rachael’s teaching is guided by a fluidity of movement, inspired by dance, intuitive motion and the teachings of the natural world. She guides her students to explore shapes and possibilities, while encouraging them to honour the innate wisdom in their own bodies. A class with Rachael is an experience where the gifts of music, movement and breath converge to carry you through a unique and dynamic flow.”
“Rachael and I have spent many hours in Reiki restorative yoga together. Her ability to hold the space and create a container for students to compassionately explore their body continues to deepen as she shares the wisdom of her own experiences. There is always an invitation to reflect on the power of movement in her classes. A bonus to her creative flow sequences is the playlist always being on point. I always leave her classes refreshed, curious and with a few new songs in my pocket.”
“Rachael’s classes are the ultimate blissful experience between practice and philosophy. Her approach to teaching promotes health and healing through breathwork and playfulness, working to strengthen both the spiritual and physical aspects of a practice. Let down your guard, shed your ego, and liberate your inner, playful child in a safe, supportive space.”
“You empower us as students to be brave and challenge ourselves—not for the show or to be ‘good at yoga,’ but to provide ourselves with real therapeutic benefits to the mind and body. I always feel like it is my own practice and have a very deep sense of internalization in your classes.
The music you play is so epic. It takes the entire thing to the next level and gets me in the zone. You always have an element of moving meditation, you always give time for self-practice, and you sit and chat with us after class. It makes us feel really connected to you, and I appreciate that you clearly care about how we are feeling directly after the practice.”
“Rachael is one of the most open, honest and attentive teachers I have ever had. She draws on deep knowledge built from years of experience. She shares her expertise, she is always willing to chat and she is not afraid to admit when she doesn’t know something. Her teaching style is accessible, her sequencing is balanced, and I left every class feeling stronger, calmer and more grounded. She is a heartfelt, skilled teacher and a beautiful human.”
Retreats & pilgrimages
I have never experienced travel as escape. India, Thailand and Nepal were teachers: places where I lived, studied, taught, grieved, prayed and learned to begin again. Future pilgrimages will be intimate, practice-led journeys shaped by the places, rituals and people that changed my own life—not yoga holidays removed from the cultures that hold them.
Join the interest listNotes from the path.
I have always written from the places where practice meets a human life: devotion and doubt, grief and impermanence, aging, love, movement, belonging, and the teachers we meet in temples, on dance floors and in ordinary life. Yoga has never asked me to become less human. It has asked me to become more honest.
On losing my mother, living beside the river, and learning to stay present with what cannot be changed.
The body as a compass, a witness and a place to come home.
Protecting, embodying and passing on what a life of practice has taught me.
Begin where you are.
For classes, Reiki Collective gatherings, teacher mentorship, retreats and collaborations, connect with me here.