MEET YOUR GUIDES

Lorena is the creator behind the vision of Casa Copal. ​​​​​​​​
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Lorena's been a student of yoga for 13 years. ​​​​​​​​
She started her training in Mexico & soon, she was following her heart to dive deeper into her practice, Eastern philosophy & ancestral wisdom from the mountains & jungles. ​​​​​​​​
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Mexico, India, Nepal, California, Peru, Greece, & Canada are the places where Lorena kept shedding layers & finding herself over & over again. Connecting to these sites' potent energies, trekking sacred mountains, cleansing in the holy rivers, and honoring her teachers, the land & wisdom keepers, Lorena understood she, too, was meant to carry these teachings forward in her own way. ​​​​​​​​
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Lorena's offerings weave together all she's experienced & she believes her dharma is to hold space for people to gather to laugh, share love, be free, sing, move & heal. ​​​​​​​​

“Hayley’s goal as a teacher is to lovingly guide you back to yourself. To give you the space, in your body and in your mind, so that your soul can be what shines through. 

Hayley has studied the teachings of yoga here in Vancouver, in Thailand, and in Mexico. A forever student and a lover of travel, you can always safely bet that she has another plane ticket and another teacher training booked at any point in time. 

In her classes you can expect safe movements, great tunes, fun sequences, and a whole lot of love and support.”

Tiaga Prem has been practicing and teaching yoga for 25 years. He began his yoga journey with his first teacher Bhagavan Das. He continued to study the practice academically at University with a degree in Religious Studies specializing in Yoga Philosophy. At the advice of a professor and spiritual mentor, he left his pursuit of being a religious studies professor, to live the embodied life of a yogi.

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After many years of study and practice in Ashtanga Yoga, Jivamukti Yoga, Vinyasa Krama Yoga via T.Krishnamacharya - he eventually met Sri Dharma Mittra and spent many years learning from him.

Tiaga Prem has a deep knowledge of classical yoga philosophy, has pilgrimaged to India, continues to practice Ashtanga Yoga, and is an initiated student of Sri Dharma Mittra.

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He has been on the senior teaching staff for teacher trainings at Dharma Yoga Center in New York City, and has taught internationally for many years.

He is the founder of the Tattvas Yoga Studies Program. And was a co-founder of the Dharma Temple in Vancouver.

Community is Deanna’s Dharma. Both a student and a seeker of the sacred, Deanna’s classes are raw, creative, fluid, inspired by the teachings of Nature and Ancient Yogic practices. It was through her own personal trauma that she discovered the immense healing through yoga and pranayama. Since then, she’s devoted her life journey to become a healer and to share her life’s passion with the world. Her classes invite you to dive a little deeper into your internal layers, to mould the light and dark within ourselves, to constantly shed the old parts of you and to begin again. To become deeply rooted in your own body. ​​​​​​​​
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As a teacher, she is committed to passionately bring healing to those who wish to reconnect with their spirit, and to create a safe space where you will be invited to be YOU, and she will be honoured to accompany you on your own unique journey in finding a deeper relationship to your authentic self.​​​​​​​​

Sarah has trained in the Usui system of natural healing and has explored other healing modalities through her experiences in shamanic and kundalini yoga, and celtic embodiment. Reiki has been, and continues to be, a transformative part of her personal journey and she is grateful to share with the Casa Copal community.

Compassionate, healing-oriented, story-lover, rhythm; an eternal believer, balancing the want and the need.

Wendy’s offerings are a direct language to the heart; intuitive, ever-expanding, and above all safe in nature. Her teachings have taken her to many beautiful places within Canada; around North, South, and Central America; and the Caribbean introducing her to many fabulous human beings along the way.

Wendy started her Yoga journey in 2010 in Ecuador, where she was born and raised in the midst of a women-led family. Her mother, a doctor, and her grandmother, a shaman, and healer by heart, were the perfect combination to ignite her passion to discover her gifts and skills in the self-care world. She grew up watching her grandmother create natural remedies from her kitchen and impart wisdom to whoever needed her help. Her Yoga path challenged her mental, emotional, and physical body; and in 2012 in Costa Rica, she did her first Teacher Training. Since then, she has been leading classes, workshops, and retreats. She has had many mentors besides her family; Wendy studied under the umbrella of great teachers including Dharma Mittra, Seane Corn, Leslie Kaminoff, and Ashley Ludman. She considers herself an “eternal student”.

Diagnosed with Lupus at age 16, Wendy lived through a series of events that threatened her life, pushing her to find a more sustainable way of living. After losing her grandmother when she was 13, being in heavy treatments for her disease until she was 19, and some heartbreaks in between; she discovered Yoga, Meditation, and Breathwork.

“It is not always what you want but ALWAYS what you NEED.”

It was through these practices that at the age of 23 she entered a remission stage for Lupus. This meant tangible proof of all her hard work using the tools and practices that she created and now teaches to her students. She is an advocate of befriending your body and your mental being, as someone who has dealt with anxiety and depression, she knows how important is to create a toolbox full of coping mechanisms to create a safe and balanced environment.

“To say Yoga saved my life is underestimating what it really did. Yoga gave me my life, my power, my purpose, my passion back.”

While studying Breathwork, Meditation, Energy Healing, Therapeutic Yoga, Chakra Alignment, Shadow Work, and Bodywork, she began to create her own craft and teaching style. That is how Energy Breathwork and Kinematic Yoga were born. It has been an amazing 10 years of teaching and the rewards of being able to share her experiences and knowledge while helping others is the greatest gift this career has given her.

Her style of teaching/coaching is a direct reflection of who she is. Directness with a brush of humour and a lot of empathy make her offerings a safe place to start peeling away the layers that are no longer needed and discovering our true nature.

Saghi is your studio manager at Casa Copal.

In Persian, Saghi means the cupbearer, the one who holds the vessel & serves others. As the path of Yoga unfolds for her, Saghi is discovering that her dharma has always been to hold space as a teacher so that the wisdom of ancient teachings can be carried forward & shared with others. 

She is deeply curious about the different ways Yoga connects people back to themselves & she believes that our bodies are powerful portals to wholeness. Whether through movement, Bhakti (the yoga of devotion), breathwork, or meditation, every modality is a path to lead you to You. 

Saghi sources from traditional Yoga teachings, Shamanism, Poetry, and Earth-based wisdom. All these are woven together in her classes to cultivate a safe & accessible space for you to rest your soul and soak in the medicine of the teachings. 

The art of embodied movement through breath is ever present in a variety of ways in Diego's class. Expect a wide range of mental, physical and spiritual engagement in your practice. From Bahkti Marga (Devotional Yoga), to Vinyasa Yoga (Yoga of Intention),

Diego carries an active and playful practice challenging you on your mat; whilst engaging with a meditative rhythm to engage deeper states of consciousness. Diego incorporates multicultural archetypes including Non Dualistic Tantrica Yoga, Andean medicine practices of Peru, and Toltec medicine traditions from Mexico.

Tara Achkar is a certified Traditional Tantra Hatha Yoga and Meditation teacher as well as an Ayurvedic Practitioner. With over 8 years of experience practicing yoga, Tara’s teaching style takes a holistic approach through the mind-body and breath. Tara works with the physical body to expand your experience and release any physical blockages, and with your breath to expand your awareness of life and be in-tuned with your higher self.

Teresa(she/they) has been on fire for supporting her community for over 20 years as a Celebrant, Integrative Bodywork Therapist, yoga teacher and teacher trainer, Full Spectrum Doula including End of Life, Grief Guide and Ecstatic Dance Guide to name a few of her paths of service. It is her passion to create spaces for reclamation, spaces for community connection and spaces to be validated, held and celebrated in the human experience.

Teresa believes in co-creating in spaces together and bows deeply to being a forever student. Her teaching style is unapologetically loving, consent focused, compassionate, playful, authentic and always a co-creation with YOU ALL.

Our resident artist Ananda Enns braids the spiritual into the physical, sharing beloved tools + elements of her evolving personal practice. She weaves music with a combination of conscious breathing, chi gong, meditation, slow flow, free flow, kundalini + classical yoga asanas. 

She completely her 200-hr YTT in 2019, with a focus in Dharma Yoga + Philosophy, before becoming a mother in 2020. 
In her classes she holds a sacred space to support the community in an intuitively guided exploration of intentional movement + home-coming to the energy bodies. 

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All levels welcome. Come as you are. ♡

Sara Jade has spent the majority of her life as a student of mysticism and yoga.  

SJ is a mama, and a weaver of community offering somatic spaces + spiritual practices to explore our unique inner alchemy. SJ shares simple breath + movement exercises to encourage Self Nurturing, and the energetic flow of prana or Qi. Over the 4 week series you will build self-trust, intuition and strengthen your relationship to personal power and your frequency, resulting in a greater sense of equilibrium and sovereignty.