About Erika Paez – Yoga Teacher
I am Erika Paez – an experienced yoga teacher, based in the barrio of Ruzafa in Valencia, in Spain. I have been practicing Yoga and Aromatherapy Massage for over 20 years and working as a Yoga teacher in UK, Latin America and Spain since 2008. I have a 500+ hour Vajrasati Yoga Certificate (Jim Tarran) and I completed the Advanced Yoga Teacher Training with Donna Farhi in New Zealand and with Lisa Petersen in Ireland. In recent years, I have assisted both Donna and Lisa in their workshops.
Subsequent to my work of more than 25 years in ‘Human Rights’ and ‘Sexual and Reproductive Rights’ – I have over time created an alternative practice that has allowed me to connect more directly with people. In both fields, my approach has been the same: to work collectively to achieve transformation and mutual empowerment.
After completing my Teacher Training, I obtained the Yoga Certificate in Pregnancy from Sally Parker; yoga for women, “Womb Yoga”, with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli (Moscow) and iRest, Yoga Nidra with James Reeves (London). On Yoga Flow (spirals), Julie Martin has influenced my practice and I attended one of her courses in the summer of 2018. for teachers.
Aki Amori and Kate Ellis have also contributed to my development in terms of teaching yoga. Other influences on my teaching practice have been 1-2-1 as well as J. Brown (Abhyasa Yoga Center) whom I follow in his excellent podcast. I visited J. Brown in New York at the end of 2016 to mark my start as a yoga teacher and full-time movement, there participate in your training “soft is the new breakthrough”.
I have incorporated other ways of working with the body-mind such as: Somatic movement (Thomas Hanna) with Lisa Petersen with whom I am finishing the certification of Coach in Somatic Movement. This work is complemented with the formation of Embody Anatomy and Kinesiology with Amy Matthews that like Bonni Bainbridge-Cohen Body-Mind Centering (BMC) has given a turn and opening to my practice.
Right in 2017 start training at BMC, an innovative and integrative approach to movement, body and consciousness. I hope to finish in 2021. About massage, my first training was 25 years ago and I recently updated some techniques at the Jing Advanced Massage School in Brighton, United Kingdom in Advanced Clinical Massage Techniques and in Fascia and massage.
Through practice of asanas / postures, the most physical part of yoga, and other forms of body-mind work is that I get to incorporate meditation into my daily practice. And this in turn influences my practice of asana, movement and my classes, is a permanent exploration. Mainly they have been Tibetan Buddhist practices like Feeding the Demons (Chod) or ancient wisdom to solve the internal conflict, (Level I and II) and coordinated by Dharma Ocean, a non-monastic lineage, where I have studied / practiced the Hinayana programs and Mahayana, Meditation with the body, and pure consciousness, where the practice of Somatic Meditation is prioritized.
In addition to my experience in organizational development, I have a Certificate in Organization Management from Birckbeck College and more recently I became a Life Coach. Certificate of the Coaching Center, London -Coordination of Behavioral Behavior.
In the coaching process I have integrated in part what has been my experience in human rights work and the one described above, as tools that facilitate the awareness and internal dialogues between mind, body and energy as well as with the external in the life of each of the people who do coaching with me.
COLLABORATIONS
Sarah Perez
Sara is a traditional Hatha Yoga teacher, formed with the renowned teacher Surinder Singh from Rishikesh (northern India) in 2018. She started with meditation and yoga 4 years ago with Tibetan Buddhism and continues with her own practice and the exploration of other paths, such as oriental dance or Hindu philosophy. At the same time, he trained as a neurolinguistic programming practitioner and took the master’s degree in NLP coaching at the Kern Institute in Valencia. Now he is studying the degree of Psychology by UNED. Sara was born with theater in her veins and developed it in the Taules Teatre group. Another of his passions is to travel the world and has had the opportunity to learn from many cultures, highlighting Kenya, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Cuba or Iceland.