Promoting equity in yoga and positively influencing the changing landscape.
Maya Breuer, created the Yoga Retreat for Women of Color®, co-founded the Black Yoga Teachers Alliance, and is Trustee Emerita of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. She currently offers Yoga Teacher Training Coursework for individuals, schools and other organizations. Maya also speaks publicly about the theory, history, principles, and sacred texts of yoga.
In 1986 Maya began to practice yoga and received her teacher certification from Kripalu, in 1992. To deepen her understanding of Hatha Yoga and to study Yoga Philosophy, Maya traveled to Gujarat, India where she attended the Lakulish Yoga University. Upon her return to the United States, she began to offer Yoga Life Coaching for individuals seeking to integrate yoga practices and philosophy into their daily lives; she also consulted with non-profits and other community based organizations and businesses, on stress and wellness through yoga.
“I did not come to yoga to stretch; I came to live.”
Maya founded the Santosha School of Yoga in 2001, which offers 200 and 300 hour Registered Yoga Teacher Training and Certification Programs. She has been a featured presenter at conferences for Yoga Journal Magazine, The Omega Institute, The Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health and other yoga and wellness based organizations.
While a consultant/educator for the Veterans Administration, Miriam Hospital, substance use disorder and HIV wellness programs in RI. She continued to teach yoga at various locations in the community including homeless shelters, libraries, and churches.
In 2005, the Boston Medical Center employed Maya as a consultant and member of the Data Safety Monitoring Board, for the National Institute of Health Study: “Back to Health: Yoga vs. Physical Therapy for Minorities with Chronic Low Back Pain”. This study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, with Maya as one of the co-authors. She was a featured contributor to: Will Yoga and Meditation Really Change My Life? by Stephen Cope.
Recognized as one of America’s most distinguished Black Yogis, by Black Enterprise Magazine, and featured in the Yoga Journal Magazine article, Yogi to the People Maya received the Women of Achievement Award, from the YWCA, in 2018.
Maya wrote the foreword for Kundalini Yoga for Evolving People: Empowering Yourself in a World of Constant Change by MutShat Shemsut, and a review for Stephen Cope’s The Dharma in Difficult Times: Finding Your Calling in Times of Loss, Change, Struggle, and Doubt. In an online interview, with Awakin.org, she spoke on the topic “Listen to Spirit and Take Action”.
Articles Maya has written about the healing benefits of yoga have appeared in New England Journal, Black Women’s Health.com, Feministing.com, common ground, Citizen Truth.org, Shape.com, Forbes.com, International Journalists.net and the Griot. Recently honored as one of the “10 Black Yoga Teachers Who are Changing the World”, and recopeint of Trail Blazer Awards from the International Association of Black Yoga Teachers and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.
In 2023, the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health honored Maya, with the planting of a tree and a commemorative plaque, in recognition of the 25th year of the Yoga Retreat for Women of Color®.
Maya’s focus today is on training yoga teachers, mentoring and coaching yoga teachers to support their practice and teaching abilities. In addition to the aforementioned work Maya’s contributions to the pedagogy of yoga include timely articles, interviews and trainings regarding discrimination and bias in yoga.
Yoga Retreat for Women of Color™
Join Maya Breuer, Kiesha Battles, and guests as they welcome you and other women of color to the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, NC. Through yoga, dance, poetry, sister circles, and more, join in community and enter a sacred space where you can express yourself freely without social or familial expectations.
Let’s sit down with a refreshing cup of tea and laugh a while!