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Nikola finished her 200-hour RYT certification under Cindy Walker and Linda McGrath at Yoga Source, Los Gatos in 2017. Currently, she is completing her advanced, 300-hour certification under Jennifer Prugh and Noell Clark at Breathe Together Yoga. In her classes, she likes to focus on students’ breath and body awareness, improving students strength, stamina, and balance.
Besides yoga poses and their variations, she also likes to employ pilates to increase core strength. She incorporates working with body energies from her Qigong experience. Nikola loves to find the moments of stillness and gratitude in every class, when students are able to feel more space and fewer limitations and can reconnect with their bigger Self.
Nikola is a translator and linguist, working in Czech, German, and English languages. She has been practicing yoga since 2002. From the very beginning, she loved what yoga was gently asking from her, beyond the physical demands of working on physical strength, balance, and flexibility: to be a mindful, respectful, and careful listener to her own body language and breath. She has witnessed how yoga has transformed the lives of many people around her. Even when her time practicing yoga was limited by her regular job and two amazing children (who are yoga practitioners now too), her curiosity was growing. She continues to practice Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Power, Hot, Gentle Yoga, Meditation, Pranayama, and, lately, Qigong.
What have you learned through your practice?
How do you ground students in class?
I love to use body scanning and tuning in at the beginning of each class. I advise students to start focusing on their body language and let go of whatever the mind is telling them about the past, future, or any judgement. I also ask them if they can feel where their energy currently concentrates – usually in our heads – and see if they can work on sending the energy down to the area below the belly button. According to the principle that energy follows the mind, we focus on the area of the lower dantien, the center of gravity, or the second chakra, Swadhisthana.
How do you ground yourself off the mat?
Non-reactivity is an important one: seeing things in perspective even while sitting near the eye of a hurricane; slowing down or completely pausing when too many things need to be finished and everything seems to be too stressful. Sitting down and acknowledging my emotion is also a big one. Having the opportunity to reconnect with the bigger Self in nature is super important for me: walking, hiking, biking, running, or backpacking. If I don’t have time to do that, looking at a leaf or any part of a plant and doing a short object meditation helps greatly.