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Postal address
World Yoga DayLeipzigerstrasse 49
D-10117 Berlin
WYD Region coordinators
Region coordinators will support you in your reason and language with questions or ideas you want to bring to the table.
Martin Combrinck - coordinator for Africa
Martin Combrinck is one of the founder members of Ananda Sanga Educational Institute and holds a BSoc.Sc degree. After spending 12 years in the information and research industry, he decided to remodel his focus to mind/body strategies. He is a qualified Yoga, Relaxation and Meditation Instructor, and has been teaching meditation for the past 14 years. He presently teaches and conducts various workshops at their centre in Somerset West, South Africa. He specialises in education and training in Ayurveda, Meditation and Yoga to national and international students. He is registered as a Yoga Therapist and a Ayurvedic Consultant with the Allied Health Professionals Council of South Africa.
Contact Martin by email: webmaster@asanga.org.za
Leena Karmakallio - coordinator for Finland
I am a chairwoman of the Yoga Association In Helsinki (Helsingin Joogayhdistys ry). We have a beautiful venue where we teach mainly gentle hatha yoga. The teachers have their own individual tone in their teaching; some have BMC background, some ashtanga, some are devoted Donna Farhi fans etc.
I am happy to act as a co-person for the Finnish yogies.
Contact Leena by email: jooga@hjy.fi
Ku'ulei Miura Fahling - coordinator for Hawaii
Ku'ulei Miura Fahling, also known as Lei, was born and raised in Hawaii, USA. She attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa before transferring and finishing her degree at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. She received a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Dance after studying ballet, modern dance, kinesiology, anatomy and much more. After gradution, Lei moved with her husband to Berlin, Germany where she began practicing more yoga, as she found that it helped her feel grounded in her new culture and life. She returned to America to attend a yoga teacher training in Los Angeles, California at the Center for Yoga. There she was exposed to Ashtanga, Iyengar, Viniyoga and Anusara. The Center for Yoga was just the beginning for Lei's new passion and provided itself as an excellent spring board into living yoga. Her yearning to practice and learn more about yoga keeps her constantly engaged in taking new courses. After learning the Atma Vikasa First Series (atmavikasa.com) and studying intensive back bending with Acharya Venkatesha in Mysore, India, in 2004, Lei returned in 2006 and completed the three month Yoga Therapy teacher training. She hopes to study consistently with Acharya Venkatesha and his wife Acharye Hema.
Contact Ku'ulei by email: leidbird@yahoo.com
Christophe Mouze - coordinator for Ireland and France
Christophe started practicing and studying yoga in Ireland fourteen years ago and has since studied with a number of senior yoga teachers all over the world. He is a trained Iyengar teacher, but his daily practice and his teaching have been influenced by a number of other yoga styles, particularly ashtanga, Shadow yoga, and the atma vikasa style of Venkatesh.
A few years ago, he gave up a promising career managing a small IT company, and now runs a yoga centre on Clare Island, a small island off the West coast of Ireland. He still works with computers, though, as he is the webmaster of the yoga-ireland.com and yogaholidays.net sites.
Contact Christophe by email: christophe@yogaholidays.net
Rossella Baroncini - coordinator for Italy
Rossella Baroncini was born and lives in Florence where she was trained as a yoga teacher. She has been teaching classes, private lessons, workshops in Italy and abroad from 1987. Rossella is a direct long time student of Vanda Scaravelli (author of Awakening the Spine, 1991) she started to study with her in 1983 at the age of 26 having individual lessons until 1999. Now Rossella continues to explore the teachings she has received from Vanda maintaining his simplicity and freedom. She likes to share the beauty of a practice that reaches you in a natural way.
Contact Rossella by email: rossellabaroncini@yahoo.it
Anke Mein - coordinator for The Netherlands
Anke was born in Berlin and moved to The Netherlands many years ago. Here she discovered yoga through her husband who'd been a yogi for more than 35 years. She's mainly trained by Godfrey Devereux who developed the Dynamic yoga teaching method; besides that she loves Ashtanga yoga which she practiced with various teachers all over the world. Together with her husband she's running a studio in The Hague, which is a result of consequent self-study through a consistent yoga self practice. Her classes are based on her own individual experiences and passion, enthusiasm and confidence in the power of yoga.
Contact Anke Mein by email: info@yogashala.nl
Mat Witts - coordinator for United Kingdom
Mat made a personal commitment to adopting a Buddhist way of life in 1990. He has worked as general manager at a Buddhist retreat centre and is Co-founder and Chairman of the European Yoga Network (www.yoga-eu.net) - the worlds first 100% Solar Powered Yoga Network, run by the worlds first Yoga Community Interest Company. He has internet design, programming and marketing skills and also holds financial qualifications.
Contact Mat by email: administrator@yoga-eu.com