Roanna Harstad has a range of qualifications on her CV, including those of fitness instructor, physiotherapist and yoga instructor. 
As a teacher trainer, she has more than 3,000 students, past and present, on her books. 
But perhaps her most remarkable qualification is that she is a Master Firewalking Instructor. 
Roanna, from Bicknacre,  describes firewalking as “a method to overcome limiting phobias and fears”.  
She teaches it, among a range of other disciplines, at the retreat she runs in deepest Wales, but she has recently moved her main instruction centre to Essex. 
Roanna’s company Free Soul Yoga has relocated its studio to Wickford, where the catchment area is a lot more densely populated.  
She says: “You really need to be where the people are.” 
Yoga instructors need to pass exams to establish that they are competent and safe. 
Two national bodies, the British Wheel of Yoga, and the Register of Exercise Professionals, have worked together to set practice standards. 
As a registered training facilitator, Free Soul Yoga runs courses in the basic 200- hour module, though as Roanna says: “The real learning path begins after you are qualified.” 
The course is hard-headed in that it teaches the need for sound business practice, as well as the physical and spiritual practice of yoga. 
Roanna says.: “I’m a good businesswoman and I’m teaching others to be successful business people as well.
“Many of them are giving up well-paid jobs with regular wages to follow a course they believe in, to do something they really want to do. 
“They have strong ideals, but they have to be armed with good business sense as well if they are going to develop.” 
Roanna set up her business as an instructor trainer in 2001. 
Her courses cater for the many people who feel there should be more to a working life than simply earning the money to pay the bills. 
Students on her courses “believe they have something to give to the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of other people”.
To anyone wondering whether they should make the jump, she offers simple advice. 
“Just start,” she says. “Nobody is ever completely ready to make such a move. There is never a perfect time to start. 
“So just do the 200 hours training. And after that, the real journey begins.”