fbpx

CYA Advanced Level Ayurvedic Yoga Teacher Training Faculty Members

Faculty Members

Contact us directly if you’d like to know which faculty members and assistants will be supporting Avani during your training program.

Avani Gilbert: Founder & Director of CYA Programs

E-RYT 500 / YACEP / Ayurvedic Yoga Teacher / Reiki Master Teacher / Doula / Prenatal Yoga Teacher / LMT & Clarity Breathwork Practitioner

Mother, teacher, friend, bodyworker, lightworker and breathworker: Avani started exploring yoga as a teenager to counter participation in high school competitive sports and stress/anxiety induced lack of sleep. It was then that she began a lifelong love, journey and an endless (on-going) study in wellness. She has participated in yoga teacher trainings throughout the last 16 years while accumulating 7,000+ hours of teaching experience and over 3,000 hours of wellness studies.

Avani is the director of the Retreat and Training Center AmaSer; the first of its kind in the Caribbean of Costa Rica. She is the lead trainer at the Caribe Yoga Academy where she directs the yoga teacher training program which is rooted in tradition blended with modern science.  She emphasizes the importance of CommUNITY and Seva (Service) in her teachings and in her practices. Her flows are creative and founded with a strong knowledge of functional anatomy and biomechanics. This allows each student to move in a way that is exactly right for their own unique body. She is a lover of Indian Mythology, Mantra and Indian Devotional Song, Ayurveda, nature and whipping up delicious vegan creations.

Avani enjoys sharing Clarity Breathwork as a means to awaken to our truest and highest potentials and unveil limiting core beliefs. She incorporates Reiki into her yoga classes and offers Reiki Attunements (trainings).  She is trained in and teaches vinyasa flow, yin yoga, MFR, Yin-Vin and Restorative style classes.  All of which are Trauma Informed and Sensitive in appreciation for her training with the TSTSY with the Center for Trauma and Embodiment. When not in training, you can catch her on the public yoga schedule at AmaSer.

She is deeply grateful for her studies and time spent with Indira Kalmbach, Sheela and Sreedevi Bringi, Stephen Cope, Dr. Ray Long, Seane Corn, Jo Phee, Dr. Paul Jerard, Donna Kraft Smith, Ashley Ludman, Jillian Pransky, Dr. Rosy Mann and Dr. Jyothi Bhatt, Erin Casperson, Larissa Carlson, Jack Kornfield, Yoganand Michael Carroll and Sharon Salzberg.  She thanks each for inspiring deep enquiry into the philosophy, lifestyle, anatomy, functional alignment, myofascial release, mantra and lifestyle of yoga…but more than anything for contributing toward her path and in the finding of her authentic teacher’s voice. Avani is currently working toward her MS in Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine with Maharishi University.

Follow Avani @AvaniGilbertYoga or visit AmaSerCR.com to learn more about classes, workshops, trainings, and her offerings.

Avani Gilbert - Caribe Yoga Academy Faculty
Amala Humphries - Caribe Yoga Academy Faculty

Jenna Conner: Experienced Yoga Teacher, Trauma-Informed Specialist, Prenatal Yoga Guide and Doula

E-RYT 200 / YACEP / R-PYT

Jenna has always had a passion for movement and spent nearly 20 years training as a dancer and performer. She found yoga in college to help ease back pain and stress and hasn’t turned back. While her yoga practice started as a movement practice, it quickly evolved into an essential life practice, spiritual practice, and mental health practice. 

Jenna has been holding space, teaching yoga for over 6 years, has over 5000 hours of teaching experience and has invested more than 1000 hours into her education as a yoga instructor, reiki practitioner, birth doula, and trauma informed teacher trainer. She has taught yoga in many different parts of the world, and to many different demographics of people. Jenna is compassionate about creating a welcoming space for folks to show up exactly as they are. It’s her personal mission and dharma to use her learned and lived experiences to share the tools of yoga to help others find the capacity to heal. Forever a student of yoga, yoga is a way of life, an everyday practice, and sets the foundation for the person she wants to be in the world.

Adriana Leiva: Physical Therapist, Ayurvedic Practitioner, Mantra, Mudra, History & Philosophy Faculty 

E-RYT 200 / CYT 500 / YACEP

Adriana’s passion for spirituality and body movement started at a young age. At the age of 18 she received her first certification for Yoga and Massage. The process has not slowed down or stopped since! Adriana is  a 500 hours Certified Yoga Teacher, Yogakids Facilitator and co-founder of the ASOyoga (Costa Rican Yoga Association).

She has studied a variety of yogic styles as well as philosophy and Bhakti under Dr. Mark Dycscowksi in India and earned her degree in Physiotherapy. She is on the Costa Rican board of Physicians.

Adriana is also an experienced bodyworker and lightworker and is currently a student with the International School of Methaphysical and Spiritual Sciences. Adriana teaches at AmaSer, with the YTTs of the Caribe Yoga Academy as well as being on the YTT team of the Hari Om Yoga School at the 200 and 500 hour levels in both Costa Rica and Italy.  Adriana joins the Caribe Yoga Academy team for the 200 hour yoga teacher training and for the advanced level training, and the Advanced Level Ayurvedic Yoga Teacher Training lending her expertise in Ayurveda.

Adriana Leiva - Caribe Yoga Academy Faculty
Amala Humphries - Caribe Yoga Academy Faculty

Amala Humphries: Sound Meditation Guide, Physical Therapist & Upholder of the Ancient Texts Faculty

RYT 500 / Physical Therapist / Sound Healing Therapist 

Diana is a physical therapist who started her yoga practice through Bhakti devotional practices in San Jose. She studied Vedic texts of theosophy and philosophy of India as a teenager growing up in San Jose, Costa Rica while living at the Hare Krishna Temple. This set the foundation for her discipline for Hatha Yoga. She finished her first Yoga Teacher Training in 2010 and has continued to study since. Amala has actively been sharing as a yoga guide for over 10 years.

Through Hatha Yoga she found her vocation for helping others through movement and wanted to deepen her practice with knowledge of the physical body which lead her to physical therapy school. Diana continued her yoga practice as a student of the Caribe Yoga Academy and graduated at the most advanced level and continues her studies in Harmonium and Indian Devotional song. Most recently she became a certified sound healing therapist through the Instituto Español de Sonoterapia. Today Amala joins our team for the foundational level and the advanced Ayurvedic Yoga Teacher Training sharing and promotes health through her expertise preventing disease and injury through safe functional movement and biomechanics.

Flora Domenis: Ayurvedic Practitioner and Teacher of Yoga & Ayurveda

Yoga Teacher & Ayurvedic Therapist

Flora is a Yoga Teacher and Ayurvedic Therapist, specialized in Lifestyle and Nutrition. From Geneva to Kerala through Amsterdam, Italy, France, the U.K. and West Africa, fluent in 5 languages, Flora is a true World citizen! Since the age of 12 she has been blessed with growing up in a Yoga conscious environment.

Likewise has her education in Ayurveda been blessed with an array of internationally known teachers such as Dr. Vasant Lad, Dr. Frawley, Vaidya Robert Svoboda, Dr. Claudia Welch, Vaidya Atreya Smith, Donald Vanhowten and other renowned doctors from India.

Since 2012 she has been living full time in the small south Caribbean town of Puerto Viejo. Always on the go, you can spot her smiling on her bike on her way to her tiny beachfront holistic organic vegetarian café, or on her way to organise catering services, cooking workshops, Lectures, Ayurvedic consultations or Restorative Retreats!  Flora joins the Caribe Yoga Academy team for the advanced level Ayurvedic Yoga Teacher Training.

Adriana Leiva - Caribe Yoga Academy Faculty
Amala Humphries - Caribe Yoga Academy Faculty

Nicola Dunn: MSw, Cognitive Behavioral Therapist

Nic joins us for the advanced-level Ayurvedic Yoga Program to dive into Trauma Informed techniques. In support of our Yogic Studies she gives us a firm understanding of trauma responses that we may witness in yoga spaces and helps us to define and comprehend trauma.

Nic has extensive education and credentials in Sociology, Philosophy and Social Work (counseling) in addition to a diploma in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and EMDR.

She worked for many years as a clinical social worker with a specialized investigator role for the Government of Alberta, Canada, and is an Investigation Specialist in the specific area of Trauma response. She has extensive experience working with victims of sexual assault, family violence, response to violent crimes, and threat responses such as high-risk threats like school shootings.

Nic also worked as a clinical social worker in the field of Trauma and Family counseling. She currently runs her own counseling and talk therapy program which has recently added EMDR as part of its services

Keep In Touch with CYA

Want great content or just a little Yoga inspiration? Stay in touch with the Caribe Yoga Team via our Newsletter. We promise to maintain a balance between life and your inbox… and spamming isn’t the yogi way.

[convertkit form=5147776]