Lamu Yoga Festival Teachers

Awham Mohamed Ali is a Lamu-born and raised yoga instruc­tor who trained with the Africa Yoga Project in 2017. Before get­ting his 200-hour cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, he prac­tices yoga for six years. Awham likes to com­bine vinyasa flow with hatha yoga, and gives com­mu­ni­ty class­es to Safari Doc­tors staff and Lamu locals explor­ing the prac­tice. He is the in-house yoga instruc­tor at Fatu­ma’s Tow­er, guest rela­tions man­ag­er at Msafi­ni Hotel, and mem­ber of the Lamu Tourism Asso­ci­a­tion. He is grate­ful that yoga pro­vides him with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to trav­el and explore oth­er cul­tures, places and practices.

He attend­ed his first yoga teacher train­ing in 2012, Nairo­bi Kenya. The style of yoga he was trained in was Ash­tan­ga yoga under the tute­lage of Sharon Moon, a teacher under the Jois Foun­da­tion banner. 

In 2013, he attend­ed the Africa Yoga Project 200Hr Yoga Teacher Train­ing under the super­vi­sion of Kier­sten Mooney, Lisa Tay­lor and Paige Elen­son. Same year he attend­ed the lev­el 2 teacher train­ing under Baron Bap­tiste in Malin­di, Kenya.

In 2014, Richard attend­ed a 4 mod­ule based lev­el 1 Kun­dali­ni teacher train­ing and suc­cess­ful­ly grad­u­at­ed in Feb­ru­ary of 2015.

Richard can cur­rent­ly be found teach­ing Ash­tan­ga Yoga at the Shine Cen­ter and Aca­cia Stu­dio in Nairo­bi, Kenya.

Dionne teach­es at www.bikramyogaharlem.com and www.bodenyc.com. When in Kenya, she teach­es for www.bikramyoganairobi.com. You can fol­low her jour­neys on social media:

Twit­ter: @joyousocean

Insta­gram: @asuoabena

Blog: www.joyousocean.com

A huge believ­er ‘that you are what you eat’, her time spent back­pack­ing around Brazil devel­oped into a fas­ci­na­tion with the gut. After years spent bat­tling food intol­er­ances her time in South Amer­i­ca taught her about holis­tic alter­na­tives, lead­ing to an inter­est in Ayurve­da, Chi­nese Med­i­cine + even­tu­al­ly Yoga. 

Prac­tic­ing under the guid­ance of Yoga­s­phere’s founders, Flo com­plet­ed her train­ing on the spir­i­tu­al island of Bali, under the tantric tutor­age of Octavio Sal­va­do, in the spheres of Moon, Sun, + Fire prac­tice. Inspired by the clas­si­cal roots of yoga her style is focused on med­i­ta­tion + explor­ing the pow­er we all hold with­in.

She is trained in West African Dance, Mod­ern Con­tem­po­rary dance, Lyri­cal cou­pled with East African tra­di­tion­al dances, Hip Hop & Dance­hall as well as some dab­bling in Musi­cal The­atre. Joanne believes that dance for her is a gift and that her gift of free­dom through dance helps to lib­er­ate ad bring heal­ing and health to others. 

Orig­i­nal­ly from Fin­land, Inka is a social anthro­pol­o­gist and polit­i­cal sci­en­tist work­ing for an inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tion. She has lived around the world and is cur­rent­ly based in Rome.

It was her inter­est in east­ern philoso­phies and mar­tial arts that first led her to yoga in Nepal in 2006. She is now a cer­ti­fied Yoga Nidra and Hatha Yoga teacher and most­ly gives pri­vate lessons.

Inka trained as tra­di­tion­al hatha yoga teacher in Dar es Salaam with the Yoga Acad­e­my of Life (based in Gujarat, India). She is also an hon­orary mem­ber of Yoga for Well­ness Tan­za­nia and keen­ly par­tic­i­pates in pro­mo­tion­al yoga activ­i­ties. She attend­ed a “Yoga and tra­di­tion­al medicine”-teacher train­ing course in Peru in 2016 with the Bali-based School of Sacred Arts to fur­ther explore cross-cul­tur­al yoga practice.

This year, Inka will offer more guid­ed med­i­ta­tion ses­sions, hav­ing suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a very spe­cial Yoga Alliance-cer­ti­fied Yoga Nidra teacher train­ing in Goa, India, in 2017.

She is very hap­py to be back to teach at the 2018 Lamu Yoga Fes­ti­val edition!

This lat­er huge­ly influ­enced the way she con­nects and teach­es her stu­dents. Teach­ing since 2013, her class­es draw from many dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions which weave into an intu­itive blend of Hatha, Kun­dali­ni, Yin, restora­tive and mas­sage ther­a­py. She is also a trained sound heal­er and often incor­po­rates sound ther­a­py and mantra invo­ca­tion in her class­es. Through breath, phi­los­o­phy and move­ment, she hopes to help you find what feels good and ulti­mate­ly cul­ti­vate a deep­er con­nec­tion with your­self. Hav­ing led over 20 retreats in var­i­ous loca­tions around Asia since 2016, Kathy enjoys cre­at­ing and hold­ing space for oth­ers to fur­ther their per­son­al devel­op­ment and spirituality. 

When she’s not lead­ing work­shops and retreats, she runs a men­tor­ship pro­gramme for new­ly trained and sea­soned yoga teach­ers alike who are aspir­ing to turn their pas­sion into a suc­cess­ful busi­ness. She also runs a lead­ing com­mu­ni­ty col­lec­tive called Urban Yogis in Sin­ga­pore. Work­ing with a com­mu­ni­ty of Teach­ers from all over the world, Urban Yogis offers a unique, fun and acces­si­ble way for every­one to enjoy yoga out­side of the tra­di­tion­al stu­dio setting.

Kel­ly is trained and qual­i­fied as a Pow­er vinyasa flow yoga teacher with the Africa Yoga Project and has been teach­ing yoga for 6 years now. He is also an expe­ri­enced Hatha yoga and Sup Yoga(Paddle Board Yoga) teach­ing dai­ly class­es in Lamu. In his prac­tice as a yoga teacher and orga­niz­er of month­ly yoga retreats in Lamu, Kel­ly has been able to meet, inter­act and social­ized with peo­ple from all walks of life. He is also the vice chair­per­son of Lamu Yoga Festival.

Yoga is a dai­ly prac­tice of sur­ren­der­ing to the pow­er of now and hon­or­ing one’s truth. My inspi­ra­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty come from a life fuelled by love, hon­esty and courage and the jour­ney of accep­tance and trust. I believe in the val­ue of con­scious move­ment that cul­ti­vates strength, flex­i­bil­i­ty and awareness

My teach­ing style con­sists of fun, intu­itive flow­ing asanas that inspire curios­i­ty about the body and invite an inter­nal feel­ing of awak­en­ing. I like to weave pranaya­ma and yoga phi­los­o­phy into the prac­tice and I am excit­ed when a stu­dent tran­scends his or her own boundaries.

My stu­dents can expect to be lead through an intel­li­gent sequence of pos­tures, with hands on adjust­ments and help­ful align­ment cues designed to build deep­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the body and mind. I am a shi­at­su prac­ti­tion­er and rei­ki lev­el II. My love for the sub­tle body as well as phys­i­cal body can be iden­ti­fied in the way I teach. I sup­port the health of the phys­i­cal body, whilst pro­duc­ing a pos­i­tive influ­ence on ones inner land­scape. In 2017 I began lead­ing 200hr Yoga Teacher Train­ings. Every cell in my body, my intu­ition, my heart, my gut and my soul are scream­ing that I have found my dhar­ma. 2018 will see me co lead­ing a Yoga Teacher Train­ing at Banana House in Lamu after the Fes­ti­val ends.

She start­ed as a yoga teacher on the beach in 1999 and devel­oped her own style, inspired by yoga teach­ers whom she invit­ed to give Yoga Retreats in Lamu.

In 2003 she became a fol­low­er of the Art of Liv­ing organ­i­sa­tion, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and since than has deep­end her yoga, med­i­ta­tion and pranaya­ma. In 2007 she opened her own stu­dio at Banana House and became Art of Liv­ing teacher and Sri Sri Yoga instruc­tor. Moni­ka, always been active pro­mot­ing yoga, is ini­tia­tor of the Lamu Yoga Fes­ti­val and will teach yoga with a smile!

Dru is a grace­ful and potent form of yoga, based on soft flow­ing move­ments, direct­ed breath­ing and visu­al­iza­tion. Dru works on body, mind and spirit—improving strength and flex­i­bil­ity, cre­at­ing core sta­bil­ity, remov­ing ener­gy block­ages, build­ing a height­ened feel­ing of pos­i­tiv­ity, and deeply relax­ing and reju­ve­nat­ing your whole being.

Peo­ple call Dru the ‘yoga of the heart’ — come and open your heart in a Dru Yoga session.

www.treehouse.co.ke

Founder of One Yoga, ded­i­cat­ed to encour­ag­ing peo­ple to love more deeply and live more ful­ly. Ancient wis­dom pro­vides the frame­work allow­ing us to tap into the pow­er of love that regen­er­ates, heals and trans­forms. Uncov­er­ing and align­ing each per­son with their own dhar­ma is a pas­sion. Every­thing I do is cre­at­ed to ignite our deep­est know­ing. Cel­e­brat­ing the renew­able abun­dance of nature and its pro­found effect on our own body ‑mind –spir­it.  In cul­ti­vat­ing aware­ness, a more enlight­ened under­stand­ing of the Self-blos­soms.  Delv­ing deep into the waters of Vedan­ta, Tantra, Sound heal­ing and Shaman­ic rit­u­als, weav­ing my way through yoga’s high­ly evolved tech­niques, cre­at­ing an inner shift towards love and high­er fre­quen­cies, free­dom and cre­ativ­i­ty flow. Shar­ing the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of yoga is my offer­ing to you both on and off the mat.

 Ini­ti­a­tion into the space of ener­gy and light was first taught to me by my moth­er. The grace of Shak­ti and my female lin­eage have enabled me to embrace my earth­ly expe­ri­ences, my pri­ma­ry devo­tion as a moth­er, and explo­ration of my own evolv­ing journey.

 Over twen­ty years of ded­i­cat­ed dis­ci­ple­ship & pas­sion, I try to bring this wis­dom into my life and into my teachings.

 With the breath as a por­tal, body and mind simul­ta­ne­ous­ly unite with the dance of spir­it. Shed­ding the fatigue caused by effort. Giv­ing into deep inner syn­chronic­i­ty and exist­ing effort­less­ly in the moment. An alche­my of the ele­ments trans­forms stiff­ness into flu­id­i­ty, den­si­ty is replaced with shim­mer­ing ener­gy. The land­scape of the body is refined, lib­er­at­ed and illu­mi­nat­ed from with­in. Aware­ness of the self effort­less­ly melts into peace, reveal­ing our puls­ing lumi­nos­i­ty and ulti­mate oneness.

 For festival:

Class­es at Lamu Yoga fes­ti­val will high­light some of Saman­tha’s sig­na­ture work­shops. They will immerse you in aspects of the inner world of chakras, sound heal­ing, yoga nidra, inner move­ment, med­i­ta­tive flows, Shak­ti Spir­it & guid­ed visu­al­i­sa­tion.  Con­nect with your body & soul. Let­ting you feel free, cre­ative, bound­less peace­ful and most­ly full of love.

Saman­tha cur­rent­ly leads Teacher Train­ings in Yoga & Vedan­ta phi­los­o­phy. Offer­ing 200, 500 and pre­na­tal cer­ti­fi­ca­tion inter­na­tion­al­ly. She leads unique work­shops and trans­for­ma­tive retreats.

She leads a Migrat­ing Bird Pro­tec­tion Com­mu­ni­ty & writes for Home mag­a­zine, the Cana­di­an Yoga Alliance Yogi Mag­a­zine as well as a con­trib­u­tor to many pub­li­ca­tions and videos for adults and chil­dren alike. She con­tin­ues to exhib­it her ever-evolv­ing art­work internationally.

​www.yogasamantha.com

ins­ta-Oneyo­gasaman­tha

Face­book-Yogasaman­tha

My TIM­Bo work has includ­ed mul­ti-ses­sion pro­grams and work­shops for can­cer sur­vivors, mar­gin­al­ized wid­ows, men­tal health patients, infor­mal set­tle­ment dwellers, and care work­ers; cross-cul­tur­al train­ings in Kenya and Haiti with par­tic­i­pants from the US and UK; and inter­na­tion­al online pro­grams. I have also led a num­ber of mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion ses­sions and workshops.

On a per­son­al lev­el, mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion helped me calm an anx­i­ety-dri­ven lifestyle, awak­en­ing me to embod­ied pres­ence and liv­ing in the pause. Mean­while, the intro­duc­tion to TIM­Bo in 2012 sup­port­ed me immense­ly in leav­ing an unhealthy rela­tion­ship, mov­ing coun­tries, and resum­ing my career. Hav­ing expe­ri­enced the ben­e­fits that med­i­ta­tion and TIM­Bo afford­ed both me and the indi­vid­u­als I have worked with and men­tored, I am ded­i­cat­ed to strength­en­ing the reach of TIM­Bo and mind­ful­ness around the globe.