Regina Ehlers

I have been a yoga practitioner since 1992. Whilst pursuing my classical piano studies in Germany I started learning Iyengar Yoga and was immediately hooked, and a year later ended up in the Ramamani Iyengar Yoga Institute of Poona on my first trip to India.
Those months were the first time since the age of seven that I was separate from my piano for more than a week. After 4 years of intense Yoga study where I joined the Iyengar Yoga Teachers Training course workshops in Amsterdam with Clé Souren, I went to the Practice Place in Crete for a so called “Yogaholiday” for my first Ashtanga Yoga experience with Derek Ireland and Radha. After a challenging first three days of practice, it started to grow on me and after some time I gained an appreciation of the flowing sequencing of postures as inducing a similar quality of meditative stillness I had experienced in Vipassana meditation.
Still living in Germany and working as a pianist, I would then spend at least a month every year on Ashtanga Yoga courses and intensives. Derek Ireland, John Scott, dLino Miele with Gwendolin Hunt were my main teachers until my first trip to the Astanga Yoga Research Institute in Lakshmipuram, Mysore, India in the year 2000. Returning many times to study with Sri K Pattabhi Jois and Sharath Rangaswami I got blessed and authorized to teach Ashtanga Yoga.
Having lived and taught in Brazil and India for the last 15 years, I am now excited to be in South Goa and continue to share this wonderful path that is the Ashtanga Yoga.
For me the meaning of this practice lies in that mindful quality that nourishes and empowers. And I think my former Iyengar Yoga experience deepened my understanding of the connection between alignment and bandha as a foundation for breathing within posture. On those days when it comes together, there is a still point of meditative centredness within this very dynamic practice that kept me hooked and devoted for so many years, and I am grateful for everyone who helped me along the way.