About
Carole Traole
As a child growing up in Cognac, France, in the 70s, I participated in a lot of physical activities including ballet classes, gymnastics, running and table tennis. I started reading books about nutrition and healthy lifestyles before my teens, trying to find ways of improving my performance. Because I had naturally hypermobile joints, I dislocated my left kneecap during a table tennis practice session in my early teens. This is when my interest in wellness really took off as I became fascinated by the rehabilitation I was doing for my knee, but also wanted to know more injury prevention, as I didn’t want to go through the physical and psychological trauma that ensued from my knee injury ever again if I could help it.
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In 1989, I decided to leave France and emigrated to London. In the 90s, I formally developed my interest in wellness, particularly in movement, studying beauty therapy (HND Beauty Therapy from London College of Fashion in 1992), sports sciences and nutrition (First Class BSc Honours Degree in Sports Sciences and Biological Sciences from the University of North London in 1996) and physiotherapy (First Class BSc Honours Degree in Physiotherapy from the University of East London in 1999). This allowed me to work as a Chartered Physiotherapist in the NHS for 6 years, with 2 years of specialisation in the management of spinal conditions, including Osteoporosis. I even set up a research study on the long term effects of exercise on osteoporosis in post-menopausal women in 2004-5.
A lifelong interest in wellness
While working in the NHS, I realised that I wanted to have a more holistic approach to my work and extend the scope of my practice towards injury prevention and optimisation of function, not just rehabilitation of acute injuries and management of chronic conditions. That’s when I decided to study Pilates and became a Pilates Matwork Teacher in 2003, and a Pilates Equipment Teacher in 2005 (Pilates Foundation Accredited). I opened my private physiotherapy and Pilates practice in 2005. I further develop my interest in movement by studying Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis and became a GYROTONIC® Teacher in 2008 and a GYROKINESIS® Teacher in 2009.
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Over the years working with clients presenting with chronic pain and chronic conditions such as osteoporosis, I realised how powerfully someone’s emotions and mental states could impact his or her physical well-being and quality of life. I became curious about psychology, and in the late 2000s, I began studying psychotherapy and became a Humanistic Psychotherapist in 2013 (Spectrum trained). This allowed me to extend my scope of practice further so as to include the emotional and mental dimensions of wellness.
In 2013, I started exploring the Feldenkrais method. What attracted me to it the most was the simple premise that applying our attention to movements helps us develop awareness of ourselves so we can learn more about who we really are as human beings and choose the life we want to live. I love how something so simple as movement can affect us in every aspect of our life and all the dimensions of wellness. It is truly holistic. I became a Feldenkrais practitioner teaching Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons in 2018, and teaching Functional Integration (FI) lessons in 2020.
Since 2015, I have been studying biophysics, the field that applies the theories and methods of physics to understand how biological systems work. My specific interest in this area is understanding how light and electromagnetic fields affect the human body at a cellular and subatomic level, particularly how they affect the functioning of mitochondria, the energy producing parts of our cells. When we live in tune with our natural circadian rhythms, our mitochondria work well, we are healthy. Understanding our light environment and its effect on our mitochondria is foundational to wellness and I love sharing this knowledge with my clients.
