DAYF Winter 2022 Teachers

dutch acroyoga festival

DAYF Winter 2022 Teachers

Meet the DAYF Winter 2022 teachers of Dutch AcroYoga Festival Winter 2022

Alfonso & Alberto (ES/MX)

Alfonso & Alberto (ES/MX)

Acrobatic Teachers

ALFONSO SABAIDEE, aka the Icarian Prime Minister, is a passionate and tireless learner of Acroyoga and Acrobatics since the first moment he discovered it. Partner Acrobatics teacher and Cofounder of AcroWings, project with which Alfonso and CĂ©line have been travelling and teaching around Europe sharing their love for Pops, Whips, Balance and Standing Acro in numerous workshops and conventions. Also working and teaching with many teachers around Europe including Alberto with whom he also performs all around the world.
Humour, challenges and technique are the pillars of his teaching practice. Let yourself be encouraged by his energy and enthusiasm to face your limits in a safe and fun environment.

ALBERTO BETSINLAO is a multidisciplinary mexican artist. His path in Circus arts started in 2003, and developed at the same time as his interest in dancing. In the field of theater he has carried out: La Formation du l’acteur Ă  Theater 2 l’acte and the Master of Arts in Physical Theater at the Accademia Teatro Dimitri in Switzerland.
At the circus school “CRAC”. he developed an artistic and acrobatic gesture in his personal research called “Acro-contact partnering”.
His axes of creation and transmission are based in physicality, work based in relationship, communication and subtlety between partners and collectives through body language.

Marysia and Julian (PL)

Marysia and Julian (PL)

Icarian Acrobatic Teachers

Marysia Gawlik & Julian Wash: we define our work as icarian acrobatics. We have been intensively cooperating for 2 years, during which we developed our skills by training ourselves, as well as participating in various types of circus and acroyoga festivals. We are lovers of dynamic elements that require a lot of cooperation and trust in pair. Our shows are a combination of icarian games, acroyoga washing machines and partner acrobatics.

In 2019 we’ve participated in Poland’s Got Talent which motivated us to create three new shows and let us won the program.

So far, we have had the opportunity to share our knowledge in several workshops in Poland, including Krakow, Warsaw, Ostróda, Wroclaw and AcroFever Retreat organized in Burdąg.

Besides their duo, Marysia is an aerialist and instructor of aerial acrobatics for children and adults for 4 years. Julian is a circus artist, he is doing a german wheel and juggling act.

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Wybren Wouda (NL)

Wybren Wouda (NL)

AcrobaticTeacher

Wybren – `the serious skill supervisor® – Wouda

 Wybren is one of the best known teachers in Europe, currently teaching at Codarts Circus Arts, Rotterdam. He has been involved in Sports- and Circus Acrobatics alike since he was a child, and has become world-renown for analyzing dynamic skills, his demanding drills and attention to minute detail. He has the ability to break down the most complex tricks and instruct students step-by-step in the pre-exercises that lead up to it. The rumor goes he sometimes even gives compliments â˜ș

Luigi (Sicily Acro) (IT)

Luigi (Sicily Acro) (IT)

AcroYoga Teachers

About Luigi

Luigi forms a couple with Francesca, from Sicily Acro. Driven by their passion for practicing and sharing, Francesca and Luigi are a couple of instructors who come from the sunny Sicily, an island in the south part of Italy. They met 9 years ago and fell in love also thanks to acro-yoga. Luigi is a Thai and Chinese massage (tuinĂ ) therapist and thanks to his passion for ancient arts he also became a taiji Chuan teacher with more than 10 years of experience and a Meditation teacher.
Francesca comes from the dance world and she is a psychologist who loves the special way acroyoga make people connect and support each other with an open mind attitude, work on personal strengh and bounderins, experiment the “beeing in the present moment”. They are “Partner Acrobatics” and “Acro Love” certfied teachers.

In their practice, they love to create fluid and elegant flows but also enjoy the energy of speed and tempo through whips, whip-pops, and Icarian games. They focus their training and teaching on small details and love to break down complicated moves with ease creating progressions to make sure success even more complex tricks. They believe that practicing acro yoga is a lucky opportunity to grow as human beings, to best express every one own potential and to contribute creating a community of people focused on sharing, supporting and enjoy life. In their way of teaching, there is always a bit of irony between them to remind that smiling is the spice of life. 

They often perform, teach regular classes, organize workshops and retreats all over the world. They are co-founders of the “AcroFusion Teacher Training”, an acro yoga program to become a teacher. The event they like most is the “Sicily Acro Convention”, a cool acrobatic convention they organize in the summer, bringing together many national and international teachers and participants in a marvellous Natural Reserve!

They strongly believe that creating a joyfull atmosfere during the classes help people to bring out their inner sun (the warm, playful, entusiastic part of them) and to be part of a healthy community  where a beautiful laugh never fails!

You can find her and Luigi on FB page “Sicily Acro” and Instagram  “ Sicily Acro”

Amir and Yska (IR)

Amir and Yska (IR)

Acrobatic Teachers

Amir and Yska, both graduated from different circus schools. They acquired most of the abilities and knowledge from practicing independently, mostly by attending workshops or jams and through exploring theirs bodies and learning to flow together.

As long as our connection is getting deeper, we find new ways to explore more moves without words, and we discover methods how to put less effort and get better results.

Acro for us is much more than just a physical practice. It is also a great opportunity to meet new amazing people. From time to time it happens that the people we practice with, become a big part of our lives. On the other side, acro is also a space where we can deal with our fears, insecurities, and self judgement. When we connect with our bodies for a practice it’s almost impossible to hide our feelings, therefore we have no other option but to stay sincere with each other.

Our approach for practice itself is to try to use our bodies’ natural gifts. We believe this what makes the practice more authentic and fluent. Each of us has a one unique body of his, with special features and very different needs. We want to listen to those needs and work with them.

We are inspired by various methods of bodywork and movement such as Acrodance, Ido Portal Method and classic acrobatics. We like to combine it to our practice, to make it more holistic to the body and soul.

Meital & Olivier (IR/FR)

Meital & Olivier (IR/FR)

Acro Teachers

Meital discovered her passion for movement rather “late” in life. after being a proper couch potato for 30 years she found acro and fell in love that instant! the acro practice opened a world of movement for her and she began practicing Ido portal style of movement, contact dance, handstands, aerial acrobatics and more circus arts. Meital beacme a certified acro yoga and yoga instructor, went to Carampa circus school in Madrid and Shabazi circus school in Israel and fell in love with the circus stage as well.
Meital enjoys all disciplines in acro including L basing flows, Icarian pops, h2h and standing Dynamics. She is set on sharing this joyous practice and is very passionate about teaching, analyzing and breaking complicated skills into easy to understand moves. She believes acro is for everyone, and aims to make skills approachable and fun 🙂

Olivier shares his love for AcroYoga in Switzerland since 2015. His acropractice is inspired by the different movement discipline: slackline, dance, thai yoga massage, yoga,…

He furthered his teaching with an acro teacher certification at Seattle Acro with Lux and in 2019 with an Acroyoga International certification with Jason Nemer.

Olivier enjoys all disciplines in acro including old school L-basing flow, Icarians throws, whips pops, H2H and standing dynamics tricks.

Volunteering to teach acroyoga in refugee camp, he values acroyoga has an arts to develop physical and mental stability, nurturing trust, active listening in the spirit of a community where one is supported and fostered to express its true potential.

 « What I would like is to teach is the capacity to move together, in a natural and intuitive way
to find at every instant, balance, fluidity and grace”

Evan Josef Cohn (USA)

Evan Josef Cohn (USA)

Acrobatics

@acrobeatbox

Evan is an international acro teacher who’s certified through Acroyoga Montreal as well as Partner Acrobatics and eventually joined the PA team as a coach. Evan recently moved to Cologne Germany after 7 years of traveling the world teaching, training and doing what he loves. He has completed over 20 weeks of studies with Pitch Catch Circus School of Acrobatics and specializes in teaching H2h, F2h and lots of standing dynamic tricks. With a background of music and a bachelor’s degree in dance and performing arts, Evan teaches with a passion for movement, improvisation and self expression. He’s a strong believer that values such as trust, communication and supporting one another are among the building blocks of this practice. This man’s enthusiasm for acrobatics and the community is contagious and will inspire you to dive into this practice with an open heart and a ready mind.

PacĂŽme (FR)

PacĂŽme (FR)

Acrobatic teachers

Pacome is a jack of all trade! He explored various dance disciplines and movements, was coached by many mentors spread on different continents during more than a decade. These fantastic and blooming experiences led him to pilates, posturology and functional movement analyses. Always wanting to go further, he followed his passion stepping into the Acro world in combination of his other knowledge and kept sharing his passion and skills investing thousands of hours around the globe.
A couple of years ago he became a recognized

instructor at the national circus center in Lille.

 

Avital & Daniel (IR)

Avital & Daniel (IR)

AcroYoga Teachers

L-Base flow movement

For the last 4 years, we are creating together a soft flow transitions and harmonic fluid movement.
Our main passion is to work on making our acro practice smother and dynamic, using balance points and base-flyer communication.

Lennert and Yvonne (NL)

Lennert and Yvonne (NL)

Yoga & AcroYoga Teachers

Lennert and Yvonne met in 2017 and they played some acroyoga the first time. They’re both quite new to the practice, but both got an active background in sports and yoga. Ever since that day, they’re highly  addicted to the practice. You’ll find them often at festivals, conventions and workshops to improve their skills, connect with others, and get inspired for their own classes and workshops. In 2018 they both graduated from the AcroYoga Teacher Training (AYI). They have a huge love for flowy washing machines, whips, whippops and of course icarians.

Besides teaching at festivals and teaching regular classes and workshops, they’re the founders of Dutch AcroYoga Festival, which is held since 2019 in different Dutch cities, several times a year. For the local community, they created AcroYoga Moves, active mainly in The Hague and Leiden.

Recently they got their own AcroYoga temple, a beautiful space in the centre of Leiden where they will organise regular classes, jams, and workshops by both themselves and guest teachers as soon as it’s allowed again!

They’re looking forward to meeting you!

 

Lennert

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Yvonne

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AcroYoga Moves (Lennert & Yvonne)

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Trevor & Sytske (USA / NL)

Trevor & Sytske (USA / NL)

AcroYoga & Acrobatic Teachers

Trevor started his acrobatic journey as a ballroom dance instructor specializing in dance with lifts. Over time, he came to love acrobatics with or without dance involved. He trains and teaches many styles of partner acrobatics: Standing, L-basing, Icarian, group builds, dynamic, and static tricks. He loves to understand the deeper reasons certain movements work and to find those “aha!” moments both in his own practice as well as for his students. 

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Sytske trains and teaches both in her hometown Nijmegen, NL, and in international events. In her teaching she strives to create a safe space, encourages creativity,  and likes to give personal attention. In acrobatics she loves to be able to truly work together, refining the details to create effortless and smooth movements. In her practice, she likes to explore Hand to Hand balances, fluid dance acrobatics and dynamic pops. 

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Sytske and Trevor met while attending Pitch Catch Circus in spring 2019, and they have been training together ever since. They currently teach together in Nijmegen, Netherlands. They both love to discover and work on the refinements and details that make a skill look effortless and calm. They enjoy breaking down complicated skills into accessible progressions to help their students reach new heights. They train most styles of partner acrobatics together and love teaching Hand to hand, Icarian, and Dance Acro. 

Paulo & Ammanda (BE / DK)

Paulo & Ammanda (BE / DK)

AcroYoga Teachers

Ammanda is a certified Acro Yoga international teacher and Vinyasa Yoga teacher, originally from Denmark but have lived in London for the past 9 years where she first discovered Acro Yoga over 7 years ago. Movement and the healing arts have always been part of her life in the form of ballet, dance, acrobatics, different lunar practices and now she lives and breathes Yoga and Acro Yoga. She loves sharing her passion for Acro Yoga through playfulness and trust and dream of expanding the community and share with everyone who wants to play. She has taught at various festivals, classes and workshops in Europe and Indonesia. I truly hope to meet you and fly with you in person one day!

Paulo Carolo
He is 31 years old, very active since young age he grow up in Lamego, Portugal where he practiced handball sport since early age, Paulo and his team won some trophies in the national championship. Afterwards, he joined the army for 7 years, he got to be the responsible of the physical training of the soldiers. Once finished his service, he moved to Brussels and he got introduced to Acroyoga. Since then he has been consistently training and participating in all international festivals he can.

Completed his teacher training in Bali 2020 and teaches regularly acroyoga with Ammanda Christensen, Katrijn de Wilde, Celine Libeer, Christina Markouli and Anouk Jacquet.

Already taught in many international festivals across Europe and Asia.

Paulo is seduced by the fun, the complicity and infinite possibilities in acroyoga and acrobatics.

Laura & Tim (GB-WLS/IT)

Laura & Tim (GB-WLS/IT)

AcroYoga Teachers

Acroyoga on the Road are an Italo-Welsh duo whose passion for moving keeps them up in the air & on the road!

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We live and travel in a camper van, teaching & practising acro in beautiful locations, connecting with local communities, performing at cultural events, festivals, resorts, schools, teaching classes & workshops to adults & children

 

Stefano & Jolien  (BR/NL)

Stefano & Jolien (BR/NL)

Partner Acrobatic Teachers

Stefano has been traveling the world teaching Acroyoga since 2018. His passion is to spread this practice and its benefits to everyone. He truly believes that anyone can enjoy the benefits and all the growth it can offer.

He has a history in Ashtanga Yoga with more than 8 years of practice and he likes everything related to movement. His studies as a psychologist, his past as a professional tennis player and his experience of growth with Yoga and Acroyoga, lead him to understand movement as a symbol of inner transformation.

His love for these practices is based on the knowledge that we can always have fun while pursuing goals, so the practice should be light and become part of our daily life and our journey as conscious individuals.

Jolien has been practicing Acroyoga for many years. What began in her childhood as circus tricks with her sisters, turned into Acro gymnastics in adolescence. Always moving in some way, but sometimes limited by circumstances, Jolien practiced and tried many different movement disciplines.

After high school, she studied Human Movement Sciences and got a master’s degree in Healthy Aging and Neuroscience. It was only after her studies that she discovered Acroyoga, but with the theoretical knowledge and physical practice, she was able to skip a few steps and immediately immerse herself in this world. Being a base for all these years, flying was quite new to her. But she found that the change of roles, makes her understanding of movement even deeper. For her, teaching Acro is like breathing, both something instinctive and necessary for her life. Going into details and technicalities, simply enjoying and letting go of how it should be or finding a way that fits a certain combination, she likes it all.

What she likes most about Acro is opening people up to the infinite possibilities that the human body has and making them happy by doing and creating something together.

Together we like to teach many different things. Since we are both hybrids, we love to create flows where we change roles. With influences of AcroYoga Montreal, we like to come up with new flows and challenging poses that make both brain and body work.

Roald and Marijke (NL)

Roald and Marijke (NL)

Yoga & AcroYoga Teachers

Roald Penning
In my teens I found yoga. 
At 22 years old, out of great excitement for Circus arts, I started my path as an acrobat. And a few years later I was certified as a Holistic Massage practitioner.
Then I found AcroYoga, which blends all three disciplines, so I felt right at home!
By now, I’ve been teaching AcroYoga for over ten years, and I’m still learning new things every day.
I see myself as a teacher and coach in the broadest sense of the word.
Because I love inspiring and challenging people to step into their next level of being, whatever that looks like for them.
I do this both in individual coaching and in AcroYoga.
I love the beauty of meeting others in the depth of their being, and also the fun of playing together and soaring to the skies.
Life is our playground: it’s up to us how amazing and full of love we want to make it.
And that’s possible for every one of us.
Let’s play!

Marijke van der Linde
‘What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?’ AcroYoga guides me to overcome my fears. It helps me to build trust, in myself and others.
It reminds me that life can be playful, that learning can be playful. It shows me what I’m capable of. And what happens during the practice translates to my daily life. 
It feels great to be able to teach this to others. I do this with a lot of enthusiasm and patience. Teaching playfulness and fun is the best job in the world.
AcroYoga came on my path after years of dancing, kickboxing, yoga, meditation, tantra. I instantly fell in love. The teamwork, the playfulness, the gracefulness, strength elements and healing arts: everything I love about movement of body & mind combined. 
I’ve been in traineeship with Roald for several years before I started to co-teach and expanded my skills with AcroYoga immersions – in acrobatics and healing arts – Thai Yoga massage and Yin Yoga. In 2021 I’ve completed the teacher training level 1 with AcroYoga Montreal. 

Jos & Samuella (NL)

Jos & Samuella (NL)

AcroYoga Teachers

Samuella Barkmeijer
In 2017 I started acroyoga. In the beginning it was a challenge, but after a while I started looking forward to the classes and I realized that it brought me much more than just a physical challenge. After a few years of doing acroyoga I did the Acroyoga Teacher Training in September 2019. Now I teach workshops and weekly classes and I am so happy and feel privileged that I can do that.

I love it, that when I am doing and teaching acroyoga, I feel my inner child growing and I can’t think about other things like work or ‘to do’ lists. It helps me to come back in the here and now.

I wish everyone the same feeling that I got through acroyoga in their own journey of life and I love to spread this through acroyoga with you!

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Jos de  Koster
About 5 years ago while travelling through South-America he got first tried acroyoga and  ever since he wanted to learn more and more.

In 2018 he did his teachertraining with Acroyoga International.

Now based in Gouda he started teaching regular classes and teaches at acro-conventions.

As a kid he was already fascinated by movement and liked trying handstands and practised sports like skating, windsurfing etc. 

What he likes most about acroyoga are washingmachines, handtohands, whips and (Icarian) pops and sharing these skills with others.

Tobias Bader (NL)

Tobias Bader (NL)

Acrobatic Teachers

Tobias has an enormous and detailed knowledge about Partneracrobatics & Acrobalance tricks and training techniques, as well as dynamic “Rock ‘n’ Roll and Lindy Hop tricks” & Dance Acro. He has a yearlong teaching background and knows how to break down a trick and how to provide the necessary cues for both base and flyer. Apart from that he’s a singer-songwriter and has a super nice and sweet personality and you definitely don’t want to miss the opportunity to train with him and a fun group of acrobats! 😉

Bart Bendie (NL)

Bart Bendie (NL)

Yoga, Thai & Fly Teacher

Biography Bart Bendie
Around the year 2001, being employed as a technician, I got introduced to yoga. By taking classes from various teachers I discovered the many varieties of yoga, and discovered who is responsible for my health and wellbeing.

In 2014 I decided it was time to lock my toolbox for good and to change the heading of my life. I was open for new content and attended a Thai-massage course, meditation workshops, several AcroYoga immersions and an Anusara yoga teacher training.

The theory out of these educations and the practice out of the lessons of my life; all of them contributed to getting a deeper insight in the mechanics of the human body and the limitlessness of the human mind.

The alignment of the body and mind I believe, are crucial for a supple and sound functioning of the whole. No single body is alike and neither is any mind a produce of the mass. Therefore I choose to start off with a rule of thumb approach, to be followed up by an individual fine-tuning, to deepen the personal experience.

I like to make you aware of what happens on your inside and to distract you from the illusion of importance of having a perfect shape on the outside. The slower and deeper shapes are my preference to work with, although I do enjoy adding some speed every now and then.

In my workshops Acrobatics, Yoga or Thai-Massage I like to balance between serious and silly. The discovery of new personal aspects can sometimes be somewhat strenuous, but when done with sense of humour, the experience of growth changes from ‘I have to’ into ‘I wish to’.

Julia Koneczny (DE)

Julia Koneczny (DE)

Handstands & Partner Acrobatic Teachers

Julia loves movement and exploring all there is in Acrobatics! From gymnastics in her early days, to flowy AcroYoga and handstands, she chose standing Acro to be her favorite. She likes to teach with a combination of technical details, positive vibes and a touch of irony.

Next Dutch AcroYoga Festival Edition

December 8-18, 2022
Next Edition

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