- Caryn, Australia - Mental Health Facilitator

Unlike most, if not all Western yoga teachers I have met in the 16 years I have been doing yoga, who I would classify mostly as “spiritual bypassers” (focused on reaching heightened states, and not willing go to their darkness or shadow aspects), Umaa combines both. This powerful mix can transport her students into alternate realities.

Given these exceptional skills of Umaa, she has attracted a lot of different misfits from around the world (myself included) to join her and learn from her, each with their own powerful and sometimes tragic stories. She has taken them under her wing as a great mother would, and guided them, and challenged them and pushed them to their limits in order to help them grow and develop increased permanent states of consciousness – not just momentary heightened awareness.

I have witnessed her teachings and they are not always gentle and kind, but they are certainly what was needed to quickly develop self-awareness and greater consciousness. Umaa is a genius in her domain. No one understands, or teaches yoga like Umaa. (And I have experienced some other very good yoga teachers – at YB and around the world – but none come close to Umaa’s teachings.

S.A.T.Y.A. was a combination of Yoga, Ayurveda and Tantra. A unique blend. I would add to that list, out of this world Psychotherapy too. Uma understands shadow work or seeing and working intensely into our human darkness. Unlike most, if not all Western yoga teachers I have met in the 16 years I have been doing yoga, who I would classify mostly as “spiritual bypassers” (focused on reaching heightened states, and not willing go to their darkness or shadow aspects), Umaa combines both. This powerful mix can transport her students into alternate dimensions of reality. Hard to explain in words, or to anyone not present, but I have on numerous occasions time and space travelled with Umaa.