Maya

From martial arts (Karate and Kalaripayattu), I have learned that the aim is to be strong enough to be confident and able to choose peace over fighting. Also, that working with your body is ultimately working with your character.

Maya often tries to pinpoint the way her yoga story began – perhaps in her early childhood with her first Dhanurasana (bow pose), or with the first meditation during karate class. Or perhaps it was from the first ‘compassion class’ when she was told that animals had feelings too.

But Maya thinks that many elements of yoga were in her life long before she started practising and she believes that in her case, all the roads led to yoga. The main roads were: philosophy, meditation and bodywork.

In philosophy, Maya’s main interest was an ethical question of a ‘good life’, particularly what it meant to have a good life. This question directed her to mindfulness and the practice of Zazen and Vipassana meditation.

10 years from her first yoga class, Maya enrolled in Yoga Teacher Training with Shiva Yoga Peeth in Rishikesh, India. Being curious by nature, Maya explored different styles of hatha and Kriya yoga and mindfulness and is learning how to employ them in her own practice and teaching as well.

Maya’s qualifications include over 340 hours RYS Yoga Teacher Training in many various forms of yoga including but not limited to: Hatha Yoga, Chair Yoga, and Kids’ Yoga. Maya also has an M.A. in Philosophy, M.A. in Sociology of Ecology, and a Diploma of Art-Therapy. The styles Maya teaches includes Alignment, Flow, Yin, Kids, Chair Yoga, and Adapted Yoga for people with disabilities.

When I was twenty I discovered that there is something that ‘has it all’ and its name is yoga.