Ailon Free was born Neil Ailon Freedman and grew up in Edgware, North London where he was educated at the famous Haberdashers academic factory.
Though his father urged him to go to Oxbridge and to become an accountant, he went to India at age 23 to explore yoga, meditation and tantric sex. He eventually gravitated to the Osho Commune in Pune where he spent 18 months studying art, drumming, comedy, massage and various kinds of esoteric healing.
Following a five year stint as an artist in New York and Mexico in the 1990’s, Ailon returned to London as the prodigal son and dutifully went to work in his father’s export business in Sarf London.
Stressed, depressed and repressed by the experience (though having learnt a thing or two about excel spreadsheets), he left the business after four years to focus on his yoga teaching.
As one of London’s hardest working yoga teachers, Ailon brought yoga to the corporate world via his business The Lotus Exchange and ran a remedial yoga practice in Harley Street. He also taught yoga to a number of England footballers and cricketers (although it didn’t seem to help them win anything) and was a yoga expert for The Times for a number of years.
During this time, The Lotus Exchange developed into a fully fledged corporate wellbeing and teambuilding business, with a burgeoning reputation as one of the UK’s pioneering Corporate Drumming companies. Ailon and his fellow funky drummers were much in demand for parties, events and performances and to this end Joodoo Drums was born.
With a Jewish upbringing, comedy was never far from the surface. As a life-long student of voices, dialects and accents, Ailon created a cast of spoof spiritual healers known as The Comedy Gurus who perform at festivals, parties and comedy clubs. In 2006, Ailon self-produced the spoof yoga DVD “Yoga 4 Fellas” starring his character Trev the Yogic Builder which was released throughout the UK in 2007. Trev went on to make numerous media appearances including The Metro, Men's Health, Nuts TV, BBC London and Radio 4.
Since 2008, Ailon has been working hard as both a Rhythm Therapist for Joodoo Drums and as a corporate trainer for The Lotus Exchange. He has recently developed and begun to deliver a holistic Public Speaking training course called "The Alchemy of Public Speaking."
Despite being a "Master of Fun" Ailon has also been negotiating a bit of a mid-life crisis since turning 40. However, this has now lead him into psychotherapy where he has encountered his "inner Woody Allen." He hopes to be able to crack a few jokes about the experience before too long.
Though he has many strings to his bow, Ailon sees a common thread between all of them:- to help make the world a happier and more beautiful place than when he first got here.
To help him achieve this goal, please send all donations to PO Box 2937, Waterloo Station, Ulan Bator.
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