Vasudeva was born in 1983, in London, where he trained as a martial artist from the age of 3. His study of physical movement began in the highly competitive world of Judo, at the Budokwai, the first club to be established in Europe, by the late Sensei Gunji Koizumi. By 1998 his interest in Judo moved into other martial arts based on less competitive philosophy, Wing Chun Kung Fu, Kendo, Aikido are just a few, however none answered the teenage martial artist’s demand for physical movement based on non-violence.
In 2000 his prayers seemed to by answered in the form of fire dancing, a dynamic performance art, without established clubs or rules. The dance naturally led him to a keen interest in the Djembe, a common type of African drum often used to fire dance to. The trance states induced by the drumming and the dance awakened a deep interest in meditation, which led to his discovery of yoga.
It so happened that both his mother and father were practitioners with 44 years of combined experience, his father being a teacher. In 2002 he went to his father to ask for training in Hatha and Ashtanga Yoga and after two years of private tutelage, Vasudeva moved to Edinburgh where he immersed himself in a strongly disciplined routine of self practice.
In 2006 he began teaching informal one to one lessons to close friends. By that summer he had enrolled on the Sivananda Teacher Training course with sights firmly set on avoiding bar management and becoming a Yoga teacher. It was in October ’06, in the small Sivananda ashram in Netala, on the banks of the holy Ganga, high up in the majestic Himalayas that he was given initiation and the spiritual name Vasudev was bestowed upon him by Swami Govindananda. Student of the late Sri Swami Visnu Devananda, disciple of late Hindu Saint Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati. It was there that he received the title of Yoga Siromani, and became a certified Sivananda Yoga teacher. His travels in India took him to Mysore where he studied Ashtanga yoga with Pattabhi Jois and V. Sheshadri.
Upon Vasudeva’s return to the UK he joined the Independent Professional Therapists International and started teaching in the Edinburgh Buddhist Centre in early ’07, and then in the Edinburgh Quaker Meeting House. He now teaches in his own space in Edinburgh.
Vasudeva is also a qualified Thai Massage therpaist.