About Prasa Yoga
Welcome to Prasa Yoga! I created this platform to offer classes covering yogic postures, breath, lectures, restorative, and more. All the contents want to be interesting for different levels of experience.
Yoga is a path of realizing who we are. Through physical, energetic, emotional and mindful practices, we learn how to observe our bodies, breath, sensations, thoughts. Through this process, we unveil tensions on both the physical and emotional level, and we learn to accept what we explore.
I am very passionate about teaching and excited about connecting with you. For this it is very important to me to provide useful content to practitioners that want to deepen their knowledge about specific aspects of the practice, but also to those who are currently starting exploring yoga and need a bit of support and direction to make their practice a habit, with the purpose of understanding it better.
Why "Prasa"
I chose the Sanskrit word Prasa for my yoga studio as I feel that it resonates with me, with my practice, and with what I wish to be transmitted through this community.
Prasa has different meanings depending on the context. The 3 on which I am focusing on are:
-
to be soothed, appeased
-
to stop, cease, remove
-
to conquer
The first meaning ”to be soothed, appeased” is deeply connected to the idea of yoga as an instrument for healing and calming. Yoga chitta vritti nirodha. How do we achieve this? By “stopping, ceasing” the movements of the mind: . This second meaning of Prasa, that can be reconnected to the removal of distraction, and of emotional and mental blockages, brings us to a state of clarity and awarenss. By knowing ourselves as a full system of body, energy, thoughts, and soul, we remove all the mental constructions , the veil of maya, that make us identify with fears and frustrations, while everything that exists is love and connection.
And this is what yoga takes into our lives. That clarity of mind, that awareness of who we are, that helps us opening to new opportunities, to creativity, and to our many times forgotten childlike energy.
Learning to embrace this and to enjoy this journey feels extremely empowering, and we learn that we are able to “conquer”. And this conquest has nothing to do with ego and attachment to the results of our efforts. It is instead connected with that awareness that allows us to identify our nature and our potential, and to journey around while aligning with who we are in its deepest sense.
About Me
Born in Italy, I have been living with my family in Milan until the age of 24, until when in 2015 I moved to Sydney, city that became home for the following 4 years.
It was there that I discovered yoga, in a moment of my life when I was unconsciously looking for more balance and connection to myself.
Since that first clumsy class in the back row of the room in 2018, yoga practice has become part of my life, few minutes per day at first, to then gradually develop a proper routine of learning and experiencing.
Its impact on me was positively disruptive, and already in 2019, once back to Milan, I decided to do my teacher training. The lockdown followed, and during this period I maintained a little free community gathering for daily classes, which was keeping us motivated and giving us an appearance of normality.
Since then, I have never stopped teaching.
At the end of 2020 I relocate to Portugal, Matosinhos my current home, where I have taught in several studios, and participated to the organization of small events.
Through the practice I try to give to my community a tool to gain more awareness of themselves and of their potential, in order for them to become empowered and true to their nature.
All of this in a very unpretentious and friendly manner.
Despite being a lover of movement, arm balances, and energetic sequencing, I care about focusing on the integration of the physical practice with the theoretical parts of this discipline.
A practice done with genuine intention helps us realise the existing synergy between our body, breath, and the more subtle layers of our being.
I am excited and honoured by the opportunity to spread my love for yoga, and I am grateful for all my teachers and students.
Marta
Photo credits
Special credit for the pictures in this section goes to @earthsandy, who hosted me in her sacred space in the magical setting of Porto Yoga Shala.