About Marina
Versatile creator and yoga teacher, Marina is a vocal and visual artist who in her work integrates a deep pursuit for transformational living. Her CDs include Ballades of The East and Earth Chants. She lives in the Netherlands and specializes in singing inspired by the World music from the Balkan region, as well as improvised and intuitive singing. With more than 20 years of professional experience in yoga teaching, Somatic Movement Therapy, voice, and bodywork, she has developed her unique blend. With her yoga classes and workshops, she assists people to get in touch with their authentic presence and well-being. In addition to her yoga program, she also offers Meditative Concerts and events, as well as personalized mini-retreats and massages at her private practice in Arnhem. Her music can be found through all major online stores such as iTunes, Spotify, Bandcamp, CDBaby, Amazon, YouTube, Pandora, and SoundCloud.
My approach
"I am a certified yoga teacher at the Iyengar Institute in Amsterdam and a registered Somatic Movement Coach. My background in bodywork and various dance, movement, and voice disciplines have had a major influence on her understanding and the way I teach. The primary focus of my work is directed toward deep relaxation, conscious natural breathing, and the release of tensions in the body and mind. In my opinion, these are necessary, but forgotten priorities of modern life. The pace of Restorative Gentle Yoga is slow. This offers the opportunity to develop body awareness and thus learn to recognize and release deep-seated tensions in the body. Gentle, slow, conscious movement is an essential part of these lessons. By moving the body consciously and using the so-called 'Somatic Movement' approach, we can be diving deeper into each yoga pose. In addition, Restorative Gentle Yoga practice includes gentle and restorative yoga postures. This yoga practice promotes precision and thus helps develop a sense of 'being centered' and moving effortlessly and easily.”
Origins of Somatic Work in Yoga
"A somatic movement is generally a movement that is performed consciously with the intention of focusing on the internal experience of the movement rather than the appearance or outcome of the movement. Movements are performed slowly, with an emphasis on quality rather than quantity. Working in this way can reeducate the body and, more importantly, reeducate the nervous system that controls our posture and movement.
Developed by Thomas Hanna in the 1970s, Somatic Yoga was heavily influenced by the methods of Moshe Feldenkrais – a pioneer of the Feldenkrais Method, which is used to improve human functioning by increasing self-awareness through movement. Additionally, earlier methods such as the Alexander Technique, developed at the turn of the century, helped improve the evolution of this practice. Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, pioneer of the somatic disciplines and the founder of the Body-Mind Centering system developed it further and created a new form of understanding Somatic Movement in relation to yoga. Donna Farhi has her own teacher training in which she combines the teachings of yoga and somatic movement.
The yoga that I teach is a blend of Somatic Movement and Traditional Yoga that I have studied and practiced over the years with some of these teachers. The work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen - Body Mind Catering, as well as Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Embodied movement, Embodied awareness, Somatic Movement, and Experimental Anatomy, has been part of my coaching training at the Institute for Somatic Movement Studies in Amsterdam, (NL). In training with Donna Farhi, (NZ), I learned to apply these profound transformative therapeutic skills to the practice of yoga I now teach as Restorative Gentle Yoga"
Yoga as my path
My services
My music
Ambient music with drum, voice, nature sounds and ASMR by Martris
in collaboration with sound artist Sharon Stewart. This is music for stress relief, relaxation...
Ballades of the East, original music by Martris, in collaboration with pianist and composer Rudjer Glavurtic, is a set of contemplative world music songs with piano and voice...