​

"I´ll like to just be a conduit to other´s people exploration and experiences rather than someone who is kind of talk down and inform people on things they just don´t know and i know everything, that´s not the case at all, i find everytime im trying to teach, i end up learning just as much as everybody else because all of the great dialogue and back and forth that happens".
- Cecily Milne 
@yogadetour

It is my great great pleasure and i feel so honored to be sharing with you an interview with Cecily Milne, the creator of @yogadetour and my movement teacher, whom i feel so much gratitude that i found her and joined the Detour Method.

"You are the boss of your body, nobody else is in charge. When you are learning from a teacher, is a conversation, is not a talk down experience, you are not receiving information unquestioned, everything is an inquiry". 
​- Trina Altman

Who is Trina Altman? 
She is  movement educator who helps teachers tap into their own brilliance and understand how to break the rules. She received her training through STOTT Pilates® and she is an E-RYT 500. Creator of Yoga Deconstructed® and Pilates Deconstructed® to show teachers how to take an interdisciplinary approach to foster an embodied understanding of yoga and Pilates in relation to modern movement science.

Get to hear the interview below and if you want to know more about Trina, check her website and instagram account. 

"Modeling an attitude of empathy, so people feel safe in my class having questions, doubts and even disagreeing with me, and that it would be safe for them to voice a dissenting opinion". 
- Laurel Beversdorf

Who is Laurel Beversdorf? 
She is a senior 200hr and 300hr teacher, teacher trainer and mentor at YogaWorks in NYC as well as an integrated Yoga Tune Up® teacher and trainer, fusing movement inspired by her interdisciplinary studies in Feldenkrais, Yoga with Resistance Bands, weight-lifting and self-massage into her classes, workshops and online courses. 
A movement innovator. 

I am so inspired and motivated  with the conversation i had with Laurel and i am sure you will too. 
Get to hear the interview below and if you want to know more about Laurel check here website and instagram account. 

"I think as yoga teachers we need to be asking ourselves a lot of questions, to ourselves and each other, about what we do and why we do it and who is helping and who is hurting, and I would be wary of people that seem like they have lots of answers and they are sure they are right".
-Francesca Cervero

Who is Francesca Cervero? 
Francesca Cervero has been a full time private yoga teacher in New York City since 2005. 
The foundation of her teaching practice comes from OM Yoga Center’s style of alignment based vinyasa. Her teaching is also inspired by the years she spent as a dancer, the subsequent years she spent in physical therapy, a deep study of anatomy, and the Buddhist writings of Pema Chodron. She has a thriving business teaching 25 private clients a week and a full practice teaching and mentoring yoga teachers in The Science of the Private Lesson.
Get to know her more in the interview below. 

How did you begin in the movement/yoga culture?
I was a dancer. I went to a dance conservatory program. I was on the path to be a professional dancer; I move to New York and I started to perform. During my time in college, I started practicing yoga and initially I didn’t see myself as a yoga person, thought it was too flippy and I was this hard core, athletic dancer, so I honestly thought it was for lazy people, but I was curious that it seems that there were some forms of yoga that were good exercises and I started practicing and despite my best efforts to stay armour and aggressive, the practice works, it worked on me. I began to love it because it was softening me from the inside in a way that I really needed and helping me having a much more tender relationship with myself. Then I really fell in love with the practice and when I move from Philli to New York to kick off my professional dance career, I needed a bridge job and I didn´t want to wait tables and I thought that teaching yoga would be a good way to support myself while trying to be a dancer. Meanwhile, supporting yourself as a yoga teacher is as hard as supporting yourself as a dancer.


What impact has yoga/movement had on your life? 
It really shifted the relationship with me and help me be in a more dependent relationship with myself, and I think this came from being in a container, in a classroom setting that the teacher held in a really loving but strong way, and inside that container, to be continuously redirected to notice what I was experiencing with gentleness.
I had the idea that being able to be focus was a good thing, and then being able to be quiet and be still be a good thing, but I had never had the space held for me in a way that allowed me to be quiet with myself in a way that actually felt gentle. Changed everything for me. 

Who have you studied with?
My very first 6 months of yoga practice were Bikram and from the first moment I did not like it, it was too hot in there, but I kept going because I was kind of like into the aggressiveness of it. Then I started practicing with lots of teachers around the city, who come from Vinyasa tradition mostly and then a choreographer that I worked with let us through Ashtanga primary series as a warm up before rehearsal.
When I moved to New York I did Om Yoga Center Teacher Training, that was founded by Cindy Lee and my teacher was Jennifer Brilliant.  I learned a lot there and that definitely shifted my experience of yoga practice even more; to be even more discerning, more curious, more gentle and less aggressive, it´s just been sort of like a slow unwinding of my inherited very aggressive and competitive nature. 

Why did you decide to start teaching private classes? 
Initially, when I first starting teaching, I was running around hassling, I taught a lot of classes and  I got one private client pass down to me from a friend of mine, and had an amazing experience working with her;  she was hard to teach and she was really fun to teach, for that reason  I felt working with her brought out all my creativity, because I had to figure out how to take the poses, and the practices and the tools that yoga offers us and make them useful for her, I had a really good experience and she as well, so she recommended me to work with her friend, who again recommended me to work with her husband, then I ended up working with all the guys at his firm and so slowly at first and very quickly my private practice grew.

I was teaching like 25 private sessions a week and I really loved it and I have a lot of teachers ask me “How do you have so many private clients” “What´s your marketing secret” and I was not doing any marketing, I wasn’t on social media, I didn’t have a website, all happened by word of mouth. At the same time I  had a friend of mine who was a really fantastic teacher, who was very popular and had a lot of private clients as well, and he confessed to me that he really did not love teaching his private clients, because he could never quite decided what to do with them, I was so surprised by that, because I looked up to him so much as a teacher, so it was through those kind of conversations with other teachers, that I realize that I was doing something differently in my private lessons that most other teachers where and while it seems like a skill that I had intuitively  fallen into and been good at, I thought it was teachable and it is proven to be very teachable.  

Tell me about your school/training/ courses. 
In New York I have the same group of clients for ten years, my clients stay with me for a long time and we get to go really deep into their exploration of their practice, because I get them really committed and really engaged, and these are skills that are not taught.
When you take a Yoga TT, you are taught how to teach a group class, which is very interesting and very challenging and hard to be good at and takes practice, so these are all worthwhile skills but they are different. They are different than the skills that it takes to be a good private teacher, so I teach it!

My signature program is a teacher training that is called “The Science of the private lesson”, this is taught in two ways: in person and online. It is very intensive, in person is like 5 or 6 full days, it is a lot of content. The online variation of that is 12 weeks and it is the same basic content. I have smaller things as well like “The getting starter, primer” which is 15 lessons of the tip of the iceberg of “what you need to know about teaching private clients”.

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out on their yoga/movement journey?
My first recommendation would be to try lots of different teachers, try lots of different studios, and make the goal to be supported and finding a teacher and finding a studio to be supported in being more curious, and inside that curiosity looking for ways of being in your body in forms that feel interesting and supporting and challenging.
A lot of people think there is a goal in yoga, to be able to look a certain way in yoga poses or to do certain poses and that is a fine goal, but If you want my advice, is to really expand out of that limiting thinking and make the goal to be engaging in your body and engaging in your thought process and mind and heart space in a gentle way, and to find a teacher that really supports that curiosity really opens up what the practice can do, and become less about “Am I nailing this pose?” and more about “What do I notice when I am in this pose? And I think that is much more exploration for the long term. 

What is the philosophy you try to transmit in your teaching?
To be aware what´s coming up, noticing what sensations are arising in the physical body, noticing what thoughts are on obsessive loop, noticing what emotions are in the heart space, noticing what´s here and welcoming all in. I think one of the most foundational principles of the practice as I teach it is making friends with ourselves, and getting to know ourselves and being in relationship with ourselves, in a tender and loving way.

What was one of your most profound moments in teaching?
In my private classes there are so many moments that are so tiny, and so could be skipped over to feel insignificant, but when you are really present for them, you feel their power.
I have a student who has a lot of hip pain, we come up with a lot of strategies that help a lot, but this is still a challenge for her and really want to be more regular in her own practice without me, which I always strongly encourage, but she is always worried that she is doing it wrong and she is going to hurt herself.
We were having this conversation the other day and she was saying something like “I don’t want to do this one without you because I´m worried that I would do it wrong” and she said that a few times and then I thought to say  “You know, I actually think that you could trust yourself more than you do, I think that you know what kind of discomfort is going to irritate you and put you on a fire up and what kind of discomfort you find to be more beneficial, I think you know that better than you think you do”, and she really heard that and I was glad I said it, because we kept having this back and forward of “I don’t want do this one because I´m worry, I would hurt myself”, and because she does have a lot of very serious chronic pain, I want to be gentle and I want to be nurturing and I don’t want push her, but I realize that she actually does have more body awareness and more of sense of herself than she is giving herself credit for and being able to name that felt super powerful in that moment. 
These moments are tiny, but when you get to engage with someone in such a deep level, even the smallest things carry a lot of will and power and that’s what I love of the work I get to do. 

What is the single most defining issue facing the global yoga community today?
There are so many things, we have so much work to do as a community. Accessibility is one thing and it has a lot of different tracks; financial accessibility, creating spaces where people with different skin color, body types and abilities feel comfortable with, we have a lot of work to do on that front and making yoga more available to people who have less income, that feels like a huge one. I think in the west and speaking for the United States in particular, the large percentage of yoga teachers are white people like myself, and I have a lot of work to do on this as well, to really understand cultural appropriation, and how we are engaging with the history and the culture that yoga comes from in a way that is appreciating it and honoring it and not appropriating it; I do not have the answers, I mostly have a lot of questions about that, but I think that’s something that we in the West, in the USA in particular have a lot of work to do. 

I think there is a huge cultural shift happening away from the physical forms of yoga that initially came to the west, a lot of those lineages, the guru at the top of those lineages are being exposed as not having been great leaders, to say the least like Pattabhi Jois and Iyengar and others, and people are reevaluating the way some of those methods and lineages are taught and the effect they have on the body which I think is a good thing. I think as yoga teachers we need to be asking ourselves a lot of questions, to ourselves and each other, about what we do and why we do it and who is helping and who is hurting, and I would be wary of people that seem like they have lots of answers and they are sure they are right. We need a lot more critical thinking and a lot less like assuming what somebody else is telling me is right, we just need more critical thinking of ourselves individually and as a community as well. 

What do you see influencing or affecting yoga teachers and students in the next five years?
Here in the States, there are so many yoga studios. A lot of people seem to think that opening a yoga studio was a good business, don’t know why, because is not really, is a very hard business to run, some people do it beautifully, but is a ton of work, but there are tons of yoga studios and it seems that the main way that they are able to financially stay at float is by running teacher trainings. There are people that have been teaching yoga for one, or two or three years who really are brand new on their path and are teaching, teacher training, so we have a lot of yoga teachers graduating from yoga teacher trainings who were taught by people who are really not that deep in their yoga teaching practice, so we have more and more yoga teachers that are less well taught. So I think that’s going to continue to have a big impact on the yoga community, to have so many yoga teachers that are not that deep in their own teaching and practice. 


What's the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you as a student?
This was so long ago, it was around 2001-2002. I was in NY studying on a scholarship at a dance school and had a yoga teacher that I really liked to go practice with, that morning I had been to an audition and got really far on it, but then got cut, after that I went to this yoga class to try to calm myself down and just kind of down regulate;  they were working on handstands, which is a pose that I like and was not so hard for me, but I could not get up into the handstand, probably my body was very exhausted, but I couldn’t quite feel that at that point of my practice, and I just could not get up and I got so frustrated that I started crying, and it felt such an immature thing to do, but it was all the emotion of the audition, working really hard, getting really far and then getting cut and all came out at that moment when I could not get up into a handstand. 

Check out Francesca´s Instagram and her website if you want to know more about her online courses and upcoming events!​

Who is Jenn Pilotti? 
Jenn, is a graduated of B.S. exercise science, physiology emphasis from U.C. Davis. She is she Owner of Be Well Personal Training in Carmel, CA. She has completed numerous post graduate courses in stress, pain science, journalism, and neuromuscular techniques and holds several certifications, including FRC MS, MovNat level I, GMB Trainer, DNS EXT, and NASM CES.  Check the interview below with Jenn and get to know a little more about her, her practice and her teaching. 

How did you begin in the movement/yoga culture?
- I began practicing yoga in 2004, frustrated with what I felt was a lack of quality movement in the fitness industry (I was and still am a full time personal trainer). It was obvious to me something was missing from traditional fitness programs; I hoped yoga would fill in the gaps. I quickly discovered something was missing from yoga, too, and it wasn’t until 2009 and a bit of internet searching that I began to realize there were other modalities that created ease, mobility, and strength in a three dimensional way that weren’t traditional fitness or traditional uphs. It would take another couple of years before I truly began studying these other modalities, but my eyes were, at least, beginning to open.

What impact has yoga/movement had on your life? Who were you before you started practicing and how have you changed, evolved and transformed?
- It’s made me more calm. Movement has taught me how to trust my body, notice my habitual tendencies, and tune in with myself. It’s made me feel more okay with life and not trying to control things (because many movement modalities are about trust; trust places control outside of the self. You trust the floor to catch you, you trust the person to lift you, and you trust the bar to hold you). It’s helped me learn focused attention and open monitoring. Movement has shaped the person I am today.

Who have you studied with?
​- Back in my yoga days, I studied with several well known Ashtanga teachers. Tim Miller. Maty Ezraty. Chuck Miller, Kino MacGregor. I also studied with Jason Crandall, Tiffany Cruikshank, Kathryn Budig, and Coral Brown. Towards the end of my time on the mat, I studied with Tias Little through online courses and Jules Mitchell.

I have studied movement from a variety of people. Kellen Milad. Shira Yaziv. Jon Yuen. Shawn Mozen and Sara Clara. Sebastian Grubb. Ryan Hurst. Tom Weksler. Almog Loven. Marlo Fisken. Matan Levkowich. There are others who I’m sure I’m forgetting. I also have extensively studied Feldenkrais and Parkour through online resources. I am fortunate that I have been exposed to a variety of techniques and gifted teachers. 

Why did you decide to start teaching?
- Lol, I don’t know if decide is the right word. I was asked to teach at our little cooperative yoga shala many years ago, in 2008. I felt like a fraud because of my lack of flexibility. I never felt like I was impressive enough to be a yoga teacher.

As I studied and learned more techniques, my comfort level teaching grew. I also realized a traditional yoga setting wasn’t for me, since I couldn’t stick to a traditional yoga class format. I wanted to teach asana as a skill and focus on the movements between the asanas, which wasn’t why people were coming to class. I still teach a yoga based class six times a year to US Navy Captains, but I am given freedom to present the material in whatever way I deem fit; I began teaching that class, too, because I was asked. I don’t actively seek teaching opportunities, they just seem to appear for me to explore.

Tell me about your school/training/ courses. 
- I offer online courses for professionals who want to take their teaching to another level about subjects such as cueing, hypermobility, or coordination of a specific area of the body. I also offer online courses that are geared more towards anyone that wants to learn. These courses focus on specific skills, such as pulling, or awareness of a specific body part, like the pelvis. I also teach webinars and in person workshops, where students are given time to experience and integrate the concepts in an environment that asks students to be open minded and work outside of their comfort zone, just a little bit, in a playful way. 

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out on their yoga/movement journey?
- I would tell someone just starting out that while it is tempting to jump from training to training,  learning as much as possible, stick with one concept for a while. Learn it well. Then, move on to the next thing. I find students are often paralyzed with so much information, they don’t know how to apply the concepts, or what movements are “right” or “wrong” in specific settings. It’s much easier to understand where different philosophies and training fit if you know the fundamentals well.

I would also encourage people just starting out to spend time each week working on movements and concepts alone, with just their memory and their understanding as their guide. To truly embody movement concepts requires practice and learning. Part of learning is being a little bit uncomfortable as you struggle with remembering and applying what you the ideas you have been exposed to with your own body. If the goal is to teach, this personal practice and struggle will prove invaluable.

What is the philosophy you try to transmit in your teaching?
​- The philosophy I try to transmit is the mind and the body aren’t separate. As a result, there is a time for strength and power; there is also a time for softness and ease. Being able to feel and experience these two extremes enables a practitioner or student to find balance. 

What was one of your most profound moments in teaching?
- I don’t really have one specific instance stood out as profound, though the evolution of teaching was interesting—I remember the moment I finally realized, “I know some things. It’s okay that I’m standing up here, creating an opportunity for people to explore movement.” Self confidence has never been a strength (that could be an Instagram challenge on its own).

What is the single most defining issue facing the global yoga community today?
- I think the realization that yoga doesn’t satisfy all of the requirements for fitness has been challenging for the community as a whole. The true movement community is still fringe; while it’s becoming more mainstream, it’s not as widespread as yoga (my clients think nothing of 2x4s, hanging apparatuses, clubbells, lots of floor space, and different tools I use for game play. Whenever they work out on their own at a “regular” gym, they come back and tell me all of the things the gym didn’t have that they use with me, including floor space for crawling patterns and movement). What yoga looks like and how yoga classes are taught is being challenged, which causes a bit of an identity crisis. It will be interesting to see how things progress with time.

What do you see influencing or affecting yoga teachers and students in the next five years?
- Yoga will continue to be influenced by other disciplines until it finds a new “normal.” As we get further away from the people who introduced modern yoga (specifically, Iyengar and Jois), the asanas and how they are put together will evolve. As our understanding of the science of movement evolves, so, too, will the cueing of asana and how the physical aspects of yoga are used in a class setting.

What's the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you as a student and as a teacher?
I went to a yoga retreat with my husband 8 years ago. We were spending a week with 40 other students with a senior Ashtanga teacher we had met once. We arrived and noticed other people were setting up their mats in the practice room, even though practice wasn’t scheduled to begin for a few more hours. Not wanting to be left out (or to have a bad spot), we got our mats out and looked around for a spot. “Let’s go here,” my husband said.

“Are you sure?” I asked, surveying the room. If I were teaching, the place he wanted the mats is the place I would consider the front.

“Yes,” he said. “This is definitely the back.”

When it was time for practice, we weren’t just in the front, we were front and center, awkwardly so, like two overly excited school children. Needless to say, we moved our mats for the next practice, and I’ve learned to wait to set my mat out until I know what the teacher considers the front.

Check out Jenn´s Instagram and her website if you want to know more about her online courses and upcoming events!

​
How did you begin in the movement/yoga culture?
- I started with yoga in Madrid in 2008. After only doing that for four years I then started with weight lifting after my first child was born in 2012 and Functional Range Conditioning in 2017.

What impact has yoga/movement had on your life? Who were you before you started practicing and how have you changed, evolved and transformed?
- Yoga has changed my life completely. Not just on the physical and mental aspect but it became my life. Through yoga I met my husband, we built a studio and made a family.

It's hard to picture who I would be now if I hadn't found yoga. I was someone who dealt with anxiety and depression often but who learned to deal with those through showing up on my mat.

Through my movement practice, I went from someone who had a hard time believing in what I was capable of, to know exactly what I can do and how to work for it. 

Why did you decide to start teaching?
- I wanted to share how it made me feel. Of course, I had no idea how to do that as I began to teach. It's been a fantastic ride and love every single minute of it. 

Tell me about your school/training/ courses. 
- I'm a Bikram Yoga and a Yoga Medicine teacher. 

I started with and practiced only Bikram Yoga for about 5 years until my body needed more. I then found Vinyasa and weight lifting, and from there I began a journey for more.

I wanted to find answers to the questions my body needed and to integrate science and research into my teaching. I have come across wonderful teachers and trainers, and have taken many courses along the way. Some of those how have influenced me are Tiffany Cruikshank and her Yoga Medicine team and Cecily Milne.

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out on their yoga/movement journey?
- To keep searching and trying new styles. To broaden their practice as much as possible because there is value everywhere. 

What is the philosophy you try to transmit in your teaching?
- Critical thinking, there's no right or wrong movement as long as your body is prepared for it and keep moving.

What was one of your most profound moments in teaching?
- Picking one is difficult. My life is about teaching and helping others, but especially helping women to feel stronger and in control of their bodies. Whenever I have a student coming to me saying that they feel like they haven't felt in a long time, then I know I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.

What is the single most defining issue facing the global yoga community today?
- I think there's a problem with the amount of TT's out there and the quality of their teachings. It's easy to find a yoga teacher or a yoga class right now. But it becomes quite hard to find a teacher who has done the work, who practices and keeps learning instead of just guiding a group of people through a flow class. 

What do you see influencing or affecting yoga teachers and students in the next five years?
- There's a wave of critical thinkers rising up now. The more we ask, the more we will come to learn and understand what we teach. There are no Gurus anymore, people want to learn without just following someone who says how things are done. I see teachers raising the bar. 

What's the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you as a student and as a teacher?
- Well, I don't want to sound boring here, but I don't have an embarrassing moment to share. Not yet!

Check out Lizette´s Instagram and her website. ​

I had the amazing opportunity to be participating in the #sneakystrenghtyoga challenge. I have been getting myself more and more into movement science and how to bring a new paradigm of movement into yoga practice.  In my search for people to be inspired, validated and supported by I have found empowered women that have opened my perspective of movement so wide that I can´t help but to have a huge smile and butterflies in my tummy right now.
​After taking my Teacher Intensive with Kathryn Bruni-Young nothing was the same and I mean it, my teaching, my practice, how I started to think about yoga and movement and it made me feel so GREAT and more confident, and of course I wanted more of this, and then Yoga Detour Training with Cecily Milne arrived, I can´t be more grateful for all the material and Cecily's amazing knowledge and how she transmits it, is a powerful motivation to keep evolving, researching, inquiring and being open to change. 
The #sneakystrenghtyoga is not a challenge, is a movement of like mind teachers in the movement and yoga community like @jenni_rawlings, @kathrynbruniyoung, @yogadetour, @lizette_pompa, @trinaaltman, @jenn_pilot, @laurelbeversdorf @samanthaliftsyouup @francescacervero, and @arianayoga, that are raising awareness and positive change in the yoga world. It is not the usual, -pose-image-competitive- challenges that you find on IG, this one really created a powerful community, motivated creativity, innovation, and critical thinking, and that is why I joined it. I have joined two IG in my virtual life, a MovNat Challenge and the #sneakystrenghtyoga, and by far this last one is my Fav. 
Some highlights of the #sneakystrenghyoga project (i like how project sounds and I think fits it better, no means of changing the name of course ) are: 
1.-Every host was so creative and motivating to watch, I love how they put something out there and the amazing community of movers and yoga practitioners responded with such an innovation that was empowering to see. 
2.-The presence of the hosts, I could feel they were there, seeing me, really responding and being engaged with the community. 
3.- The new inspiring people I am following now and having conversations with.
I did not win Haha, but that really was not my purpose of joining, it was more for the engagement in a like mind community and to meet new people I can relate with. And the winners did an amazing job, one of them even came with a performance with a group of friends, super fun!!. 
So, the effects of this #sneakystrengthchallenge in me, have taken me to write this blog, but also I will be posting each week an interview with some of the amazing hosts of this project, where you will get to know a bit about them and their thoughts about a need of a change in the yoga world.
Don´t miss this empowering and motivating interviews and Subscribe to my Newsletter now. 

After I graduated from my first Yoga Teacher Training, I needed to have resting and meditation time to process everything that I have learned and really embody it, practice it before teaching it. I took that time and then when I felt confident I started to teach and it took me a time to get confidence.
In today yoga teaching world, I see people taking, and giving yoga teacher training one after the other, not taking this incubation time, where questions like “Why I am teaching this way”, “Why this or that” could arise.
We complain about education and the way it is transmitted but in many yoga teacher training - the majority- this form of patriarchal teaching is replicated in ranks and hierarchies, in repetition, formulas and sequence recipes as if everyone were the same.
I don’t want to be a perpetrator of the same patriarchal system we have and are living in, i started to change the way I share my yoga and teaching because of this, and from the place where I am standing now, I can do my part to spread a message and a different way of relating and sharing the knowledge in the yoga and movement communities, where we as yoga or movement teachers know that we are here to guide and give tools to empower people to make their own decisions related to their bodies and not to imposed certain “rules of alignment” or “don’t do this because you are going to get hurt” or “you need to protect your body from”, just a few examples of how we as yoga or movement teachers can disempower the student ability to sense from within and make choices and explore, and maybe all this unawareness in the teaching comes from our own ignorance of not having the science, knowledge, and experience to offer more movement possibilities for different bodies. 

I love what I have found and the like mind people and teachers I am having conversations with and learning from, some of them from the movement world, others from the yoga world that are bridging the gap between movement science and yoga, like Cecily Milne of Yoga Detour and Kathryn Bruni-Young which happen to be my teachers and are doing an amazing movement around the integration of strength and mobility into yoga. 
My teaching offering is inclusive, it doesn´t discriminate any yoga style. I think if we want to be a bridge we need to welcome everybody no matter the school they are coming from. We may have our differences, but from those differences, we can learn so much and keep growing and redefine yoga and movement practices.
People wants to move better, to have a better life quality, and at the end we all are getting old, and this just reminds me a conversation that I had with my dad the other day – “To be healthy, have quality of life and have the tools to cope with stress is my main purpose in life now, the rest will come by itself”. – he told me; then I realized that the main purpose of my teachings is to support people to reach this goal, to better know their body and recognize its positive and bad habits, to move smarter to remain injury-free and feel good.
So no matter if you are an Ashtanga yoga, Hatha yoga, Vinyasa yoga, Dharma yoga, any movement modality practitioner or teacher or you have never been involved in the movement community, you can benefit from the teachings I am offering, because they go beyond telling you what to do, how to teach, or recruit you into another yoga style. 

My group classes, private classes, workshops, and training are a continuing education to rethink yoga and movement, to evolve in your practice and teaching from a movement logic and science-based approach so you can better move and take your body to those places, or poses, where you want to take it but in a more conscious, sustainable and functional way and if you are just starting or are thinking to start exploring your body in movement you will get a solid foundation and education to improve and stay injury-free.
If you are a yoga or movement teacher you will benefit from having a deep understanding of the purpose behind every movement or posture to bring more awareness and confidence to your teaching and have the tools to guide your students into a place of body-mind movement education and empower them to find freedom in movement.
As a teacher I am always looking to challenge myself, to take myself out of my comfort zone, because is when we reach that place where the true transformation occurs and this is what I offer you, to take you to a place where you can become a critical thinker, a creator, an innovator in your practice and teachings.
So, now you have a glimpse of why I do what I do and if you have a similar vision or want to evolve in your teaching and practice, let´s talk and have a smart movement conversation that has the potential to uplift and make significant changes in your life and your student´s life.
​Right now i am based in Veracruz, Mexico, but i am also traveling giving workshops in different states in the country and also worldwide when the opportunity comes. If you wish to know more about coming events and new blog post subscribe to my newsletter and be the first to know. 

With Love
Maria Kiekari