YogaMandali Experience Teacher
Bio
Bilge began practicing yoga in the year 2000 while living and working in Los Angeles. In the beginning, yoga was just a good stretching exercise that balanced her other more intense workouts. Those were her young adult years when life was mostly play. Then, as it does for most of us, life became much more challenging. Her search for meaning in life became more intense and immediate. As such, she felt the need to delve deeper into the philosophy of yoga and into a practice that stretched much further than the mat.
During times of turmoil, difficulty, challenge, emptiness … Bilge always turned to Yoga. Having grown up as a swimmer from a very early age on, she was already used to using the body as a tool for meditative exercise to soothe the senses and calm the mind. But there was a special magic in the way Yoga employed the body to overthrow the rule of the mind and lead the soul to the more subtle realms it so needed to remember. Amazed by what Yoga could do for her, Bilge began studying yoga intensely through various mediums and teachers. She loved being a student so much, she did not feel the need to rush herself into becoming a teacher. It was only in 2016 that she began sharing her overflowing love and passion for yoga with fellow humans but to this day remains committed to learning and evolving in yoga every day. She sincerely believes that the day we lose our joy and excitement about learning is the day we become stale teachers. As you can imagine from this, she is a highly energetic, enthusiastic and versatile teacher who loves to inspire and motivate fellow yogis on their own journey.
Bilge generally leads gentle vinyasa based practices where breath is the reigning Queen and movement is the gateway to meditation. In order to ease our performance obsessed minds into a state of play and relaxation, Bilge uses the power of music and employs her carefully curated playlists. Her flows are neither easy nor hard. Ease begins the moment we still our minds and surrender our bodies to the rhythm of breath and movement. When designing practices for multi day retreats, Bilge aims to take the practitioners on a journey where she balances effort with ease, joy and exhilaration with calm and peace and the physical with the subtle. In addition to vinyasa flow, Bilge also teaches Yin Yoga and breath focused Yoga Therapy practices.
Bilge is RYT 500 certified by Yoga Alliance. She has received her initial 200 hours Yoga Teacher Training from Chris Chavez and completed her further 300 hours of study under the roof of Cihangir Yoga of Istanbul; receiving her teaching modules from such internationally acclaimed teachers as Leslie Kaminoff, Sianna Sherman, Dylan Werner, Chris Chavez, Todd Tesen, Carlos Pomeda, Douglas Brooks and Konstantinos Charantiniotis. She has also attended alignment and physical adjustment workshops by Mark Stephens and furthered her understanding of anatomy by completing online courses with Mark Myers.
Bilge currently lives and works out of Istanbul but loves to travel for yoga, insane displays of nature, and good food.
You can contact Bilge by email
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