Vlada Maria
"My mother was the first person who introduced me to yoga. I remember the joy of expressing animal shapes, being upside down and playing with my parent. But it wasn't until later in life – when I had almost forgotten about yoga – that I made a life-changing discovery: being accidentally booked into a yoga class at the gym whilst suffering from hay fever, yet walking out with a clear nose and a bit of a buzz in my head and heart. This feeling of clarity and freedom. How did this happen?
It was then when I realised that my body has tools to heal itself and I can train these tools and switch them on myself.
My initial discovery of a cleared nose from yoga has led me to return to classes since that very Spring in 2008. It was an occasional return until a couple of years later I found the studio Yoga On The Lane, short YOTL, where I established a more regular practice. It was an important place to be able to come to, in a time when I really struggled with my mental health and after loosing two individual friends to suicide. Studying a competitive degree at Goldsmiths University and barely keeping up with the curriculum didn't help my grieving process: I developed a tinnitus, as well as a panic disorder, meaning regular anxiety attacks throughout the years ahead.
Yoga really helped me during that hard time, making me move when I felt stuck, celebrating rest when I was exhausted. And therefore, slowly gaining a little self-trust while I was improving awareness for my body without judging it.
Inspired by the mindful and breath-led sequences, I enrolled in a Buddhist Meditation Intensive at the London Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green, where I learned about the Dharma and the principles of Metha Bhavana and Mindfulness meditation.
And after a long period of travelling – exploring more meditation and yoga – I returned back home to East London, becoming a lucky student of YOTL's first ever teacher training. I had the honour of being led by Naomi Annand, mentored by Adam Hocke and learning about Anatomy by Andrew McGonigle, also known as Dr. Yogi.
After my graduation in 2016, I increased my teaching at London studios, as well as gradually taking on more private and corporate classes.
I regularly added extra training ever since. Not just to do with yoga and its anatomy, but also trauma-informed methods, such as the unforgettable course I completed with bestselling author Bessel van del Koelk and bodyworker Licia Sky, combining trauma theory with bodywork back in 2020 at Esalen in Big Sur California.
Today, I teach full time with my devotion to compassion as the ultimate score that glues everything together, encouraging my students to find it within themselves. I believe that the magnificence of yoga is to be found in a state of self-enquiry: a conversation between body and mind. Free from judgment. Full of curiosity. Full of compassion.
And that's what I teach every day.