PLEASE note that all our teachers speak English

Kevin Gardiner

Senior certified Iyengar yoga instructor

Kevin Gardiner, a native New Yorker, began studying yoga in 1970 and has been teaching Iyengar Yoga since 1982. He has had the great good fortune to have studied many times in India with the Iyengar family for extended periods each time. He is indebted and eternally grateful for the genius and compassion of BKS Iyengar, his daughter Geeta and son Prashant whose tireless dedication to the subject is the heart of Inspiration.

He was a co-founder of the Iyengar Institute of Greater New York serving on it's Executive Committee and in various leadership roles continuously since it's inception. In the States Mary Dunn has been a guiding light and his primary teacher since the early 80's and he has been inspired by the teachings of Manouso Manos, Ramamand Patel, John Schumacher, Faeq Biria, Jawahar Bangera, Dean Learner, to name a few. He is holding a Senior Intermediate I Teaching Certificate granted by Guruji himself.

Until December 2006 Kevin also had his own yoga studio in Manhattan. He then married Erika, also a certified Iyengar teacher, and relocated to Erika's home town of Budapest where they have set up a new home and are now teaching at their own studio. Over the years he has travelled extensively, teaching in North and South America, as well as many years and countless workshops in his ancestrial home of Ireland.

A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Kevin was a professional actor, director and teacher for 15 years, including seven years of touring Shakespearean productions in traditional repertory style. Along the way he also sustained a ten year practice of Tai Chi and Shaolin Kung Fu.

His teaching is highly detailed and textured, seamlessly incorporating many components of yoga philosophy and the sutras, while continuously challenging students to gain greater sensitivity and awareness in each asana. He has a tremendous pracaitcal understanding of the living anatomy of the human body, and a lighthearted and off-beat sense of humor.

Mobile phone: +36-20-977-3919

Erika Répássy

Certified Iyengar yoga instructor - Intermediate Senior level 2 (2018)

I found yoga after years in tourism, marketing, dance and music. Living abroad for a long while I had the opportunity to study with leading Iyengar yoga teachers in Europe and the USA creating a strong bond between yoga and myself.

I started the exploration of the Iyengar method in the Iyengar Yoga Institute in Maida Vale, London in 2002, followed by further tuition in Dublin where I also got certified in 2006 and later in the Institute of New York City. I feel privileged for having the chance of taking workshops with insightful and inspiring teachers including Guruji, BKS Iyengar himself at the Yoga Journal Conference, Estes Park, Colorado in 2005.

My present teacher is my husband, Kevin Gardiner (USA) and Sheila Haswell (UK). I have been a number of times to the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, India where I’m returning regularly. I have been teaching in Hungary and some other European countries since 2005, I've been involved in teacher training programs in Budapest and Slovenia since 2008 and assessed extensively in Europe. I also served as the founding chair of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Hungary for some 9 years.

Mobile phone: +36-20-555-4167

Mária Tolner

I went to my very first Iyengar Yoga class in 2007 kind of "accidentally". It was a life changing experience. The precision in the implementation of the asanas, the pursuit of balance and the customizable system of Iyengar Yoga which allows continuous development caught me immediately.

Yoga is balance, attention and concentration. Practicing Yoga puts you in the present and helps to achieve the harmony of body, mind and soul.

I started to teach in 2009 when I passe my Hatha Yoga Teacher exam. Later on in 2014 I finished the Iyengar Yoga teacher training program with an Introductory certifiacate.  In the same year spent a month at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in India where I attended the Iyengar family's classes.

My present teachers are Kevin Gardiner and Erika Répássy.

Throughout the past years I participated in amazing workshops taught by great teachers such as Manouso Manos, James Murphy, Bobby Clennell, Rita Keller, Stephanie Quirk, Sheila Haswell, Patricia Walden,  Bob Blaeser which gave me loads of inspiration.

Tihamér Tóth

You can find the therapy approach in every asanas from the very first Tadasana  through the most difficult asanas to Savasana in the Iyengar method.

Certified Iyengar Yoga teacher (intro II.), Programmer in mathematics (BSC on univ. ELTE), Bodybuilding-fitness instructor. I started Yoga in 2003, I met with the Iyengar method in 2008 in Berlin. I participated and studied at the Iyengar Teacher Training Course in Budapest between 2011 and 2014, I’ve got my certification in 2014 organized by the Iyengar Yoga Association of Hungary. I studied at RIMYI Pune,India with the Iyengar family. My teachers are: Kevin Gardiner, Erika Répássy. I participated on several Workshops thaught by senior teachers such as: Manouso Manos, Rita Keller, Laurie Blakeney, Joan White, Sheila Haswell, James Murphy, Dean Lerner...

 

IRÉN SÓS (Hu, Eng, Pol, Ru, It)

Profession: tour operator, tour guide, interpreter, translator
First meeting with yoga: I started practising yoga according to the Iyengar method in 2010 and I have been practising since:)
Main teachers: Répássy Erika, Kevin Gardiner, Trapp László
Why Iyengar yoga? 
I went to my first Iyengar yoga class because of the persuasion of a good friend; I have been going back since. Pure chance - if it exists - directed me towards this method, the preciseness of which has enchanted me immediately. I knew then that I don't have to search further as I have found what I was looking for.

 

LILLA SZÁSZ (Hu, Eng, Ru, Fr)

Profession: photographer, teacher, interpreter, translator

First meeting with yoga  I started practising yoga at Padma yoga studio in Budapest in 2006. Initially I went to hatha classes, and there, within the framework of a yoga day, I participated in an Iyengar presentation class led by Erika Répássy, certified Iyengar yoga instructor. I fell in love with Iyengar yoga there and then; however I have tried many types of yoga, I always come back to the Iyengar method. 

Main teachers: Repássy Erika, Kevin Gardiner

Why Iyengar yoga?

An Iyengar yoga class makes you work hard, relaxes your mind, rrequires continuous attention and inward concentration. I can see everything in myself, and, on the others, too, when I am visiting the classes as an observer. It is like as if someone was holding a mirror to me, to us. Like a continuous travelling inwards, where I can find out more and more about myself. And sometimes it is hard, too, mostly because of the same reason. But it is worth :) To me it is like doing art.

 

VALI GARAI 

Descartes declared, "I think, therefore I am." But yogis say, "I think, therefore I am confused about who I am." I teach yoga, therefore I am - here is my statement. Teachers don't decide to become teachers just because they love math or music, they become teachers to be of service.

The unbearable lightness of pre-yoga life was the art of movement, contemporary dance, Balinese Dance, and Multiple Marathon running. It was in 2003 when I tried the asana practice from the eight limbs of yoga for the very first time. Honestly speaking and fallibly enough I considered it as playing music in space (dance) or as physiotherapy to complement long distance running. It took ten years till it sunk in that yoga will show my boundaries, give me the mirror to myself and of the world. I am ever so grateful also to all my teachers, who have shepherded me onto the Path and keep me with their endless devotion on the road.

Yoga is like a visit to the doctor – on the way out, one should always feel better compared to the way in. Physically, spiritually, morally. People entrust themselves to you for 1,5 hours and you have to give them respect that derives from confidence in what you are doing. At the end of the class, you may abolish what is crude, violent or destructive in them, you can help them. By that they can be touched, entranced or – best of all – moved to a silence that is vibrating round the room. There is one moment of tingling silence that suggests the teacher reached out.

As a certified Iyengar yoga teacher, during my yoga class, well-constructed asana sequences are performed with subtle, effective deepening. Deepening into the depth and detail of the asana, we practice. The lesson is instructed in Hungarian or English if required.