about svarūpa

Stephen Thomas

Stephen [eng] is an expe­ri­enced Yoga teacher and prac­ti­tion­er. He leads class­es, Teacher Train­ings, Work­shops and Immer­sions. His teach­ing is root­ed in the tra­di­tion­al Yoga prac­tices. His philo­soph­i­cal back­ground is influ­enced by stud­ies in Yoga as well as Buddhism. 

Stephen is long term stu­dent of  O.P. Tiwari of Kaivalyad­ham, India – a mas­ter in the sci­ence of Pranaya­ma and Ayurve­da. He com­bines that foun­da­tion with over 20 years of study and explo­ration in the fields of  Align­ment based Asana. He has spent these decades refin­ing an evo­lu­tion of prac­tice that has spanned many years in Ash­tan­ga Vinyasa, Anusara and his love of Iyengar’s approach. He teach­es in a way that under­stands the val­ue of trans­for­ma­tion through effort and ded­i­ca­tion with­out impos­ing Dogma.

Stephen teach­es at his own stu­dio, SVARUPA in Bern and as a senior teacher at AIRYOGA in Zurich. He is a father and ded­i­cates his time to fam­i­ly life, writ­ing, doc­u­ment­ing and research­ing Yoga.  He also works one-on-one with many stu­dents and helps to men­tor teach­ers in the community.

Brigi Thomas-Moog

Bri­gi [de/eng] is a ded­i­cat­ed stu­dent of Yoga since 2008. Her back­ground in west­ern sci­ence, com­bined with the pro­found stud­ies in Ayurve­da with her main teacher Pan­dit Dr. David Fraw­ley allows her to merge the wis­dom and approach to Health from both those per­spec­tives.

Sev­er­al years ago she met her Asana teacher Judith Adank, who stud­ied for many decades with B.K.S. Iyen­gar in India. Through the growth of that con­nec­tion, Bri­gi weaves insights from that tra­di­tion into her teach­ings. She also stud­ies Pranaya­ma, Asana and the Sub­tle Body with her hus­band Stephen Thomas.

Her Hatha Yoga class­es are strong yet slow paced, focused on align­ment and Iyen­gar inspired. She uses intel­li­gent sequenc­ing and offers insight into clas­sic pos­es (Asana) through the use of props. This allows clear align­ment and longer holds so the effect of the prac­tice might be felt in oth­er lay­ers of the being. She teach­es from her heart and shares from her own expe­ri­ence of being on this path of Yoga.

In the Ayurvedic Con­sul­ta­tions she offers clients to look through a holis­tic lens which intends to tar­get and ini­ti­ate lon­glast­ing changes in spir­i­tu­al and phys­i­cal prac­tice. Empha­sis is giv­en to dai­ly life rou­tine and habits in order to estab­lish new pat­terns, re-bal­ance and re-align har­mo­ny in body, mind and beyond.

Roberto Cardillo

Rober­to [de/fr/ita/eng] is respon­si­ble for the online plat­form of Svarū­pa Yoga and pro­vides all tech­ni­cal means and assis­tance in the dif­fer­ent cours­es & trainings.

The call to answer some fun­da­men­tal ques­tions in his life, led him to explore dif­fer­ent meth­ods and tech­niques in the field of per­son­al devel­op­ment end­ing up in the field of Yoga as the most effec­tive one. Yoga in all its facets, has accom­pa­nied him as a good friend for many years now. He is par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by top­ics relat­ed to mov­ing, strength­en­ing, breath­ing, med­i­tat­ing, let­ting go and the con­stant work on one’s own inner peace.

Hav­ing rec­og­nized late­ly that this excit­ing jour­ney is ever­last­ing, Rober­to feels that it is the moment to pass all this on, and share the ben­e­fits and sup­port it has pro­vid­ed and still does to him.

You can join him for a jour­ney into Met­ta prac­tic­ing Yin with him or sim­ply by lay­ing down on the mat and sur­ren­der to the touch of sacred body work expe­ri­enc­ing the effects of a regen­er­at­ing Thai Yoga Massage.