Bea De Munnik
France
Yoga came in to my life as a slow burning, sometimes flickering flame. Only when the back pain became so severe I couldn’t get out of bed, that flame began to grow out of necessity. For the longest time, I could only do yin yoga, even slow flow brought on sciatic and other pain. Yin yoga, and particularly the functional approach, gave me an understanding of where all this pain came from, how it was connected, and what I could do to heal myself, both mentally and physically. This has enabled me to move forward with more physically active sports en practices, like climbing and Vinyasa Yoga! My journey is ongoing. I continue to learn, and sometimes falter, but the path is always there to return to. I had the fortune to learn about meditation and other contemplative practices early on; they form the red thread in how I teach. My aspiration is to do so with a sense of joy and friendliness, and to learn as much from teaching as my students do from taking my classes. Born in Germany, I spent a large part of my life in Amsterdam and am now sniffing out the French country side.
My Philosophy
Meeting yourself and your discomfort is tremendously tender and at the same time, it's fresh like lemon juice and opens the doors to being joyful about all the obstacles we meet in life. That joyfulness isn't just a goal, but we can also practice it by saying Hello to all those moments of self-doubt, fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, judgement and anything else supposedly undesirable. Just meeting all of that and bringing it into the light of day is half the work.
