svarupa academy faculty

Stephen Thomas

Direc­tor Svaru­pa Academy

Stephen [eng] is the founder of svaru­pa and our senior teacher. He brings 25 years of expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge and remains pas­sion­ate about his study and prac­tice. He was a long term stu­dent of O.P. Tiwari at Kaivalyad­ham in India — a mas­ter in the sci­ence of Pranaya­ma and Ayurve­da.

He com­bines that foun­da­tion with decades of study and explo­ration in the fields of align­ment-based asana, breath and med­i­ta­tion. His work brings togeth­er a sub­tle mix of prac­tices from the vinyasas sys­tems and  his deep con­nec­tion to the clar­i­ty of B.K.S Iyengar’s approach. He teach­es in a way that rec­og­nizes the pos­si­bil­i­ty of heal­ing, free­dom and joy through dis­ci­pline and ded­i­ca­tion but with­out impos­ing dog­ma. “Yoga is not nec­es­sar­i­ly the path, but rather it shines the light on one’s path and reveals the essence of one’s self — svaru­pa.“

Stephen leads the pro­grams and teach­es at both stu­dios of svaru­pa in Bern. For over 15 years he also holds class­es, train­ings and immer­sions as a senior teacher at AIRYOGA in Zurich. 

He is a father and hus­band 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. His pas­sion for trav­el, art, archi­tec­ture and design can be seen in our spaces.

Céline [de/eng/esp] has been study­ing and shar­ing yoga for more then twen­ty years. She’s an advanced cer­ti­fied Jiva­muk­ti yoga teacher, nutri­tion and holis­tic health coach, and founder of the for­mer Dayayo­ga Bern stu­dio.

Céline has been part of sev­er­al teacher train­ing cours­es and is a men­tor to many teach­ers. Her per­son­al sad­hana is the base and inspi­ra­tion for her teach­ing. Asana, pranaya­ma, mantra med­i­ta­tion, kir­tan and the study of the ancient yog­ic texts are her dai­ly prac­tice and anchor in a busy and often chaot­ic life as a moth­er of three chil­dren.

Céline con­veys the yoga teach­ings in a relat­able and prac­ti­cal way, is known for her cre­ative but bal­anced sequenc­ing, her love for chant­i­ng, and her heal­ing hands. Her inten­tion when teach­ing is to sup­port and serve stu­dents on their jour­ney, and to inspire them to con­nect with their inner wis­dom and reach beyond per­ceived lim­i­ta­tions.

www.celineryf.com

Céline Ryf

Asana. Mantra, Philosophy

Christina Eggenschwiler

Anato­my, Asana

Christi­na [de/eng] is a life explor­er, sea seek­er, moun­tain peak­er and for­est keep­er. She is also a sports sci­en­tist, a move­ment ther­a­pist and an out­door guide.

Her career as a move­ment pro­fes­sion­al and ther­a­pist start­ed with a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a Pilates instruc­tor in 2006 dur­ing her stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bern. To this day, she is part of the edu­ca­tor team and is in ongo­ing for­ma­tion as an ambas­sador for Slings Myofas­cial Train­ing. In 2010 she com­plet­ed her Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Sports Sci­ence. ‘Through her open­ness to modal­i­ties out­side the ‘yog­ic’ realm, she con­stant­ly finds a new appre­ci­a­tion for the human body, the mind and the soul, for their inter­play and union.

Over the last 12 years she has been offer­ing retreats, teach­ing work­shops, orga­niz­ing as well as teach­ing for fes­ti­vals and lead­ing teacher train­ings. Since 2014 she is in the orga­niz­ing team of Gueril­la Yoga Bern 1, a non-prof­it char­i­ty project. Start­ing in 2018 she’s in ongo­ing train­ing for a Cer­tifi­cate in Advanced Stud­ies (CAS) in Move­ment and Sports Ther­a­py with mod­ules in oncol­o­gy, heart dis­ease, men­tal ill­ness and more. Christi­na likes to com­ple­ment her sci­ence-based and prac­ti­cal train­ings with an inter­est in ener­gy work and holds a Rei­ki 1st lev­el cer­tifi­cate with Reiki­gar­den 1 since 2021 (to be con­tin­ued).

www.the-yugen.com

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.
www.celineryf.com

Brigitte Thomas-Moog

Ayurve­da, Asana, Restora­tive Asanas

Pascale Sommer

Asana, Pranaya­ma

Pas­cale [de/eng/esp] has been a ded­i­cat­ed stu­dent of yoga since 2010. Since then, her pas­sion for delv­ing deep­er into the prac­tice of yoga remains unwa­ver­ing.

In the past years she has con­tin­ued to deep­en her prac­tice and teach­ing by explor­ing var­i­ous meth­ods and styles of yoga, com­plet­ing sev­er­al teacher train­ings, fur­ther edu­ca­tions and men­tor­ships.

As a Yoga Ther­a­pist (OdAKT) and prac­ti­tion­er of Thai Yoga Mas­sage, she enjoys work­ing one-on-one with her stu­dents and clients, sup­port­ing them to ini­ti­ate trans­for­ma­tive process­es or find ori­en­ta­tion dur­ing chal­leng­ing times.

Her teach­ings are joy­ous yet pro­found, hon­or­ing the roots of yoga. She is eager to meet you where you are and cre­ate a space for con­nec­tion, growth, and end­less explo­ration.

www.pascalesommer.com

Elisa [de/eng] wrote her mas­ter the­sis on the grand emo­tions in Shakespeare’s son­nets. After grad­u­at­ing from uni­ver­si­ty in Switzer­land, she moved to New York City to com­plete her dance train­ing. But soon she found that her inter­est in the human psy­che was bet­ter served on the mat. In 2009 she trained to become a teacher at OM Yoga Cen­ter NYC.

After mov­ing back to Switzer­land she soon start­ed teach­ing full time. In 2010 she crossed paths with Stephen Thomas and became more versed in the sub­tle aspects of yoga, espe­cial­ly Pranaya­ma.

Elisa is con­vinced that the expe­ri­ence of embod­i­ment opens up a space for reflec­tion. This might be why her focus has been on Yin Yoga for the past 12 years. The process, the inner jour­ney and the very human desire to evolve
form the bassline of her work.

In 2022 Elisa pub­lished her book Yoga for Recov­er­ing Addicts – Sto­ries of Hope and Ways of Self-Heal­ing. Togeth­er with her co-host, she has been pro­duc­ing the pod­cast Kopf Herz Vul­va since 2023.

Elisa lives in her home­town Berne with her hus­band and their children.

Elisa Malinverni

Yin & Restorative