Yoga Center Santa Cruz

Jan 2024

I've been attending level 1-2 classes with Maya Lev at the Yoga Center for the past year. Classes currently take place at the Vet's Hall in a spacious warm room with high ceilings and a quintessential Santa Cruz vibe overlooking Front St. Maya is a gem and a master teacher and I am so glad to discover her. Here's what I love about Maya: She has a deep knowledge and embodied understanding of Iyengar Yoga, anatomy, and human movement that consistently comes forth in her teaching. Each class is artfully crafted, with a progressive flow that ends with the whole body feeling completely stretched, worked out, lengthened, and strengthened. Maya has an exquisite verbal teaching style that allows students to move from one asana to another with clarity and precision about what to do, pay attention to, and feel. Students can drop deeply into their own bodily experience and are not required to frequently stop their practice to watch or copy a teacher. When she does demonstrate, which is not even in every class, it's to show specific details about a pose to help students understand how to refine their approach, and it's always very useful, like an "aha." Maya seamlessly instructs both students in the room and on Zoom in a hybrid way that truly works - with dual attention to each population that does not distract from the other. She teaches both groups while moving around the room making hands-on adjustments that give gentle yet clear and firm guidance. What an art! Maya always brings a meditative spiritual quality to each class, and she's down-to-earth and funny too - a great combination! As a Feldenkrais Method® movement teacher of 30 years and a person with many previous injuries and limitations who needs a really good teacher, I truly appreciate and feel safe with the master level of Maya's teaching. We are lucky to have Maya and the other excellent instructors at YCSC.

Jan 2020

Kofi is by far the best yoga teacher I’ve ever experienced. Not simply because he traveled to India 9 times to learn directly from B.K.S. Iyengar himself, but because of his teaching method. Most “teachers” just assign the asanas and leave you in the challenging position. What Kofi does while he’s assigning them in ritual order is introduce a theme he’s teaching that day about how the body works and why you’re doing the yoga. Then when you’re in position, he tells stories of all kinds from his own personal history in Ghana, then England then the US, which stories illustrate via metaphor the lessons he’s helping you learn about how to train your body, and...read full review

Oct 2019

Amazing, high level Iyengar style yoga instruction in Santa Cruz. I came here 16 years ago after getting hurt doing flow yoga and I never went back. Maya’s technical skill and inspiring instruction have helped me in countless ways. Laurie and the other teachers are awesome too. Yoga Center, Santa Cruz is simply the best.