I love Teaching !

I have an early memory of myself in kindergarten. My teachers name was Miss Thatey. She was a wonderful teacher and I remember telling my family that I wanted to be a teacher like Miss Thatey. Around age 5 or 6 I started competitive gymnastics, and than later, around age 12/13 I decided gymnastics was taking up all of my time and that I would just take dance. Well, that soon turned into 14 -16 dance classes a week and I studied at the school of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens after high school. As I focused on dance as a career, my memory from kindergarten was long forgotten. 

I began teaching Yoga in 1999 and instantly loved it. It was fulfilling to help people move and accomplish poses or balances they never thought they could achieve. I loved weaving the postures together like a dance, I loved finding the perfect music to set the perfect mood, and I love the feeling of the group energy moving and healing together. Sometimes at the end of a class, students would share that they had moved though emotional blocks, or had shed some old grief or stress. What an honour to facilitate this possibility for people. 

Eventually I started to feel like I wanted to be able to help people more deeply with their physical challenges. I wanted more tools. After having my two children I moved from studying yoga and into Dynamic Anatomy, then Pilates and ELDOA™. These all seemed to flow, one into the next. Studying Dynamic Anatomy with Eric Franklin brought me to the Vancouver Pilates Centre, where I then studied Pilates with Diane Miller. I studied and then taught there for about 7 years. It was here that I learned about ELDOA™ and the work of Guy VOYER. I was hungry to learn ELDOA™ when I saw a colleague teaching this to clients. My jaw literally dropped and I said "I want to learn THAT! Where can I learn that??"

I had to wait a few years while the ELDOA™ training underwent a complete reform. Finally Rucsandra Mitrea came to Vancouver to teach level 1 & 2 (all spinal ELDOA's) and I just loved this work. I then went to Dallas for Level 3 (all peripheral joints). Finally in 2019 I went to Dallas one more time to take my Exam and study ELDOA™ Level 4 with Guy VOYER. 

Buteyko Breathing came onto my radar around 2016 as I had been searching to heal and restore my own central nervous system. The level 1 course was a wonderful introduction, but left me hungry for more. This style answered the question for me 'how do I restore my unconscious 24/7 breathing? I had to prod Chris Bauman out of semi retirement to teach me the full course! I'm so glad I did, thank you Chris!

Everything I teach promotes independence, and I strive to collaborate with each student and encourage their own wisdom and awareness to grow. I am a huge fan of daily 'micro practices'. We change our bodies in a state of ease, or relative relaxation. We change our brain and our body in movement, and repetition. I teach my clients to practice frequency over duration!

See you in class,

Marla