Yoga teacher

Who is Maria?
Maria has been a certified yoga teacher since 2012. She surrounds her students to help them discover the joy of a serene mind through meditation, relaxation and mindful movement. Prior to this turning point, Maria worked as a university researcher, a stimulating and interesting position, but one that, along with a busy daily routine, left her suffering from anxiety and feeling overwhelmed by mental noise. To lighten her environment, Maria began to devote time each day to silence, a method that worked very well for her and inspired her to continue with the practice of yoga until she obtained her certification.
In 2013, Maria wanted to continue her training and decided to leave her job as an assistant teacher so she could learn meditation with Swami Veda Bharati. Maria therefore spent two academic years at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama (Rishikesh, India). This experience changed her life and brought a new dimension to her yoga practice.
Today, her job is to inspire others to discover the health, peace and joy that come from training the mind, body and breath.
Maria is fluent in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.


The fundamental principles of yoga according to Maria
Keeping a peaceful, positive mind, staying centered, having an anchor point. These are the goals Maria aims to achieve for her students, so that they can live more serenely and cope with their difficulties.
Life can be challenging. Our daily lives or the events in our lives (health diagnosis, death of a loved one, separation, stages of life...) can provoke strong emotions that we wish we could manage.
Keeping a peaceful mind and perspective in all situations is not a superpower that some of us are born with. It's a skill we learn and nurture throughout our lives.
For Maria, the aim of yoga is to help her students find their center and become more serene. This can manifest itself in her body and breathing through greater fluidity. Through weekly practice, students deepen their understanding of themselves (body, energy and mind).
Maria shares practices such as conscious movement, breath awareness, meditation and relaxation to bring participants to a state of physical relaxation and mental calm.
The different techniques used by Maria
We work mainly with 4 techniques:
- conscious body movements
- breath awareness and expansion
- relaxation
- practices to boost concentration
In order to bring emotional and mental tranquility, Maria works with her students on their bodies. She helps them to relax and trust themselves. Maria uses gentle movement and/or deep relaxation techniques (e.g. yoga nidra) to reconnect people to their bodies and enable them to be actors of their own change. Students leave the sessions feeling "lighter", more empowered and mentally more serene.


How a private session works
In yoga therapy, work is individual and personalized.
Together with the person, Maria performs an assessment to identify the areas of physical and mental health that need to be addressed.
Where appropriate, it takes into account the analyses made by the doctor or psychologist.
Maria complements their approaches by first examining the habits and lifestyles that may be at the root of their disorders, and then using the therapeutic tools of yoga (e.g. movements, postures, breathing practices, relaxations, concentrations, visualizations and guided meditations).
Therapy is personalized, as it depends on the person's state of health and objective.
How a group follow-up works
The aim of group work is to help participants maintain a healthy body and a calm mind by improving:
- joint mobility,
- muscle tone,
- body awareness,
- awareness of breathing, and
- concentration while relaxing body and mind.
Classes are balanced so that participants can mobilize as many joints and muscles as possible and feel the expression of their body.
The aim is to experience the sensation of a calm mental state at the end of the session. Maria adapts her teaching to the group and its needs, using different branches of yoga: hatha yoga, yin, joint and gland exercises, restorative yoga, deep relaxation practices.

Maria's strengths
Its areas of expertise are :
- reducing generalized anxiety,
- stress management,
- panic attack,
- PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)
- sleep disorders,
- chronic low back pain,
- chronic fatigue.