https://www.spandainstitute.com/

Spanda Institute, Largo da Fonte do Cabo 3, Ericeira (2026)

08/10/2026

Giving Back 🌱
Somewhere in the world, a tree is growing because you studied with us.

Over the years, at Spanda Institute, we’ve helped plant more than 1,000 trees across the globe, from the forests of Nepal and the Amazon to the mangroves of Mozambique and Indonesia, and many places in between.
We’ve planted at least one tree for every student who has ever studied with us, both online and in person. We know that planting trees alone won’t solve the environmental challenges we face. But we believe in taking responsibility, however modest our contribution may be, and making care for the natural world an integral part of what we do. Trees help restore habitats, protect biodiversity, support local communities, enrich the soil, and regulate our climate. Their benefits extend far beyond the moment they’re planted, and far beyond the people who planted them.

We also regularly support local charities where we teach, from animal shelters and food banks to disaster relief efforts and other community initiatives. We do this because we believe that, as yogis, giving back is an essential part of our path. For us, yogic principles such as ahimsa (non-harming) and seva (selfless service) are not merely ideas to contemplate. They are a compass for how we live, inviting us to reflect on our relationship with the world, what we take from it, and what we give back. Because the practice of yoga doesn’t end when we step off the mat. That’s when it begins.

07/10/2026

🇮🇹 Torino, Italy | 200-hour YTT
Our 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training in Terra Yoga Torino Terra Yoga Torino with Stefania Covello avolese begins this November. This extensive training is in a hybrid format, with some lectures online so you can learn from different Spanda teachers as well as your lead trainer. Six months of practice, study and growth, rooted in tradition and informed by science.
Only a few spots left; applications close in 30 days!

🇬🇧 London and online 🌎 | 85-h Prenatal & Postnatal YTT
Deepen your knowledge and learn to support women through pregnancy, birth and postpartum with confidence and care. Join our Prenatal & Postnatal Yoga Teacher Training at SOMA SOMA Yoga Studio Wandsworth with Gea • Yoga | Prenatal | Postnatal - in person or live online.
Starting this November, only a few spots left.

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | 200-hour YTT
Start 2027 somewhere unforgettable. Join us in Sri Lanka, for an immersive 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training by the ocean with Bruno Morais and Biki Aloe Retreats as well as our other faculty supporting you through the online pre-training.
Single rooms are now sold out, but we still have a few spots in other room categories.

🇵🇹 Portugal | 50-hour Advanced Chakra Flow YTT
or a 5-day retreat
Chakra Flow is back in Ericeira. Join us this April at Maré Guesthouse Ericeira for a 50-hour Advanced YTT or experience Chakra Flow as a 5-day retreat — practice, explore, surf and restore by the ocean. Nina Yoga Teacher Trainer, Therapist, Author, Entrepreneur returns to the shala, teaching alongside Bruno Bruno Morais and Maddie LILY WILD • Yoga Teacher • Musician • Sound Healer. 🤍 Early Bird places now open.

🇵🇹 Portugal | 200-hour YTT
Spring in Ericeira. Join us at our home base in Portugal for our next 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, an immersive journey into practice, philosophy, movement and the art of teaching with Bruno, Biki, Nina and the Spanda faculty.

🇧🇦 Sarajevo | 200-hour YTT
Sarajevo, we’re coming back. Our 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training begins in May 2027, a year-long hybrid journey combining in-person weekends with our Ada | Yoga Teacher and flexible online study with Spanda Institute faculty.
Learn, practise and grow with us.

🌍 Online | 200-hour YTT
Your teacher training, on your schedule. Our online 200-hour YTT combines on

07/10/2026

PRACTICE INSIGHT - Samana Vayu Mudra

Samana is one of the five Prana Vayus - the different movements or qualities of Prana within the body. Samana Vayu is the inward-moving, gathering energy that draws towards our centre. It is traditionally associated with the navel region, digestion, assimilation and our ability to transform what we take in.

Samana Vayu Mudra brings all five fingertips together, creating a simple gesture of gathering and concentration. We use this mudra to connect with the qualities of Samana Vayu and to bring awareness towards our centre.

In the Spanda method, we often weave Samana Vayu Mudra into classes exploring Agni, the fire element, and Manipura Chakra. These practices connect to the navel centre, inner fire, transformation, and personal power.

Samana is not only about digestion. Its centring and integrating quality can also support a sense of physical power, steadiness and embodied strength - gathering our energy rather than allowing it to disperse.

How to practice:
* Bring the tips of all five fingers together on each hand.
* Keep the touch light rather than pressing the fingertips together.
* Rest the hands comfortably on the thighs or knees.
* Bring your awareness towards the navel and the centre of the body.
* Stay for several breaths, noticing the quality of gathering inward.

A simple mudra to explore when your practice calls for focus, integration, inner fire and strength.

02/10/2026

Stay with the discomfort” is a common phrase in yoga classes. The idea behind it is not necessarily problematic. An asana, for instance, can give us opportunities to notice discomfort without becoming reactive and recognise that something difficult or unfamiliar doesn’t automatically mean we need to move away from it. Learning to stay present with uncomfortable experiences can be valuable. But, when the intention becomes helping someone stay with difficult internal experiences, we begin to move into therapeutic territory, suggesting that the teacher believes the discomfort is something the student should work through.

This distinction matters. Inviting someone to notice what they are experiencing differs from encouraging them to remain with it. As teachers, we cannot know what a particular discomfort means. It may be the intensity of an asana or an unfamiliar movement, but it may also be pain, fear, or a sense that a boundary has been reached. For someone with a history of trauma, this can be particularly significant, as trauma may involve experiences where boundaries were ignored, choice was limited, or leaving an uncomfortable or threatening situation was not possible. Some people may also have learned to tolerate, disconnect from, or override their own signals as a coping strategy. This will not be true for everyone who has experienced trauma, but it is one reason we should be careful about assuming that staying with discomfort is the more beneficial response.

TSY is not about removing all discomfort from the practice, nor does experiencing discomfort automatically mean that something is unsafe. Rather, it asks us to consider who decides what happens next. A teacher can invite a student to notice what they are feeling without deciding whether they should stay with it or move away from it. The student may choose to remain, change the intensity, move differently, rest, or come out of the asana altogether. None of these responses needs to be framed as more valuable than another.

Encouraging curiosity can support awareness. Encouraging someone to override their own signals because we believe staying will be good for them is something quite different.

30/09/2026

WHAT SETS US APART?
Rooted in tradition, grounded in science

Bringing traditional yogic teachings into conversation with modern science has been part of our mission from the beginning. Today, we are happy to see more yoga schools moving in this direction. For us, however, this is not simply an addition to our curriculum, but an approach that has shaped the way we teach, question and evolve our programmes over many years.

Our approach is multidisciplinary, bringing together traditional yogic teachings with contemporary research and knowledge from fields such as anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, neuroscience and psychology. We have great respect for the traditions from which yoga developed, and our programmes include Yoga Philosophy, meditation, pranayama, subtle anatomy, mantra, mudra, Ayurveda and other traditional practices. At the same time, we believe that respecting a tradition does not mean accepting every teaching without question, or that traditional knowledge cannot be examined in light of what we know today. As our understanding of the human body, nervous system and psychology continues to develop, so does the way we teach. We embrace traditional practices that remain meaningful and relevant, while being willing to reconsider ideas that no longer align with current knowledge and research.

But what sets our approach apart is perhaps not simply that we bring science into yoga, but how deeply this dialogue is woven into our education, and how much it informs the way we teach movement and anatomy, but also the way we approach philosophy, history, trauma-sensitive teaching, psychology and the role of the yoga teacher. We don’t see tradition and science as opposing sides, nor do we use science simply to validate ancient teachings. Instead, we remain curious about where they meet, where they differ, and what each can teach us. For us, being rooted in tradition also means allowing yoga to remain what it has always been: a living, evolving practice.

28/09/2026

Our newsletter is back! 💌

After a little time away, we’re reviving our newsletter and giving you even more reasons to have it in your inbox.

Along with our latest news and updates, subscribers will get access to exclusive discount codes, scholarship announcements, special opportunities, and other useful resources - most exclusively for our newsletter subscribers!

So, if you haven’t yet, sign up to get the news, opportunities, and perks first.

🔗 Link in bio

24/09/2026

CHAKRA FLOW
3–9 April 2027
50-hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training
or a 5-day Chakra Flow Retreat
Ericeira, Portugal Maré Guesthouse Ericeira

We have been planning this for a while, and we’re happy to finally have the dates for Chakra Flow - one of our most sought-after advanced teacher training modules. We’ll be welcoming you at Maré Guesthouse, our home base, located in the heart of Ericeira’s old town and steps from the ocean.

Chakra Flow is an advanced TT module that explores how to create classes, workshops, and masterclasses using the Chakras as our map. We journey from the physical to the subtle, exploring creative sequencing, Mandala Vinyasa, Namaskars, and peak asanas before moving deeper into Pranayama, mantra, voice, meditation, and visualisation. The Chakras are our guide, but what you’ll learn goes beyond them: you’ll learn how to take an idea (theme) and weave it meaningfully through an entire practice, choosing the right tools to create an experience that feels intelligent, cohesive and embodied.

If you’d rather experience Chakra Flow without the teacher training, you can join us on a retreat. This means that you join the practice in the morning, join selected afternoon sessions, and keep the rest of your days for yourself to surf, hike, explore and restore.

You’ll be guided by our amazing team, and this one also feels special because after quite some time away from teaching in-person, Nina Yoga Teacher Trainer, Therapist, Author, Entrepreneur will be returning to the shala to teach alongside Bruno Bruno Morais and Maddie LILY WILD • Yoga Teacher • Musician • Sound Healer

Early Bird places are now open.
Link in bio for the full programme, prices & booking.

22/09/2026

200h YTT in Ericeira, Portugal Maré Guesthouse Ericeira

October applications close this week.
Spring applications are now open.

Our October 200h YTT in Ericeira, Portugal is just over a month away, and we’re already in full-on prep mode, getting everything ready and excited to meet the new group. 🤍 We’ll be closing applications for this cohort at the end of this week, but there are still a few places available if you’ve been thinking about joining us.

And if the timing isn’t right for you this autumn, we’ve just announced our next Ericeira training, 17 April–5 May, and applications are open now! :)

Why choose us?
If you’re looking for more than learning a set sequence, our 200h combines a comprehensive Vinyasa-based teaching method with a science-informed approach to anatomy and physiology, functional movement, pranayama, meditation, Ayurveda, philosophy and more.
We keep our groups small, take a trauma-sensitive approach to both learning and teaching, and place a strong emphasis on practical teaching experience, so that if you want to teach after graduation, you feel ready to do so. You’ll also complete online pre-training before we meet in Ericeira, receive extensive learning materials to return to afterwards, and become part of Spanda Sangha, our community of graduates around the world.

More info + applications through the link in bio.

17/09/2026

YOGA MEETS SCIENCE: Pratipaksha Bhavana

Long before we had the language of cognitive psychology or neuroplasticity, yogis were already interested in a very practical question: what do we do with patterns of thought that repeatedly take us in a direction we don’t want to go?

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali offers a practice called Pratipaksha Bhavana. When thoughts arise that are contrary to the principles we are trying to cultivate, we consciously introduce and strengthen another way of thinking. The practice asks us to notice habitual thought patterns and then consciously cultivate a different response, gradually changing the mind’s tendencies through repetition. Rather than allowing a habitual thought to run its familiar course, we interrupt the pattern and practise another response.

From a neuroscience perspective, this becomes particularly interesting when we consider neuroplasticity: the brain’s capacity to change in response to experience. The more often we think, feel or respond in a particular way, the more familiar that pattern becomes to the brain.
When we interrupt a habitual thought and practise a different response, we begin to create and strengthen alternative pathways. With repetition, these new patterns can become easier to access, so our habitual response is no longer the only one available to us.

This is essentially what we mean when we talk about “rewiring” the brain. It doesn’t happen simply by replacing a negative thought with a positive one, but through repeatedly bringing awareness to an established pattern and practising something different.

The yogis were observing the patterns of the mind rather than studying the brain, but Pratipaksha Bhavana points to something we now understand through neuroscience: the patterns we repeatedly practise can shape the way we think and respond.

24/06/2026

TSY: Holding Space: What It Means — and What It Isn’t

“Holding space” is one of those phrases that has become so common in yoga and wellness-adjacent circles, but what does it really mean? The term describes something important but it is also frequently misunderstood and misused.

So what does it actually mean?

The concept of holding comes from psychology and psychotherapy, describing therapeutic presence, attunement and, importantly, containment. In a therapeutic environment, creating a safe relational space where another person can experience and process difficult emotions is essential. So, in practice, “holding space” should mean creating conditions where someone can safely explore what is happening for them. If someone is grieving, anxious, angry, confused, or processing something important, holding space means being present without rushing to fix, advise, judge, or redirect their experience.

But here’s where the conversation becomes important.

Holding space does not simply mean being present. In many wellness and yoga circles, the phrase is often used casually, as though showing up and caring is enough. While presence is valuable, the original psychological context points to something more.

A therapist, counsellor, or trauma-informed facilitator is trained to remain emotionally grounded when another person becomes distressed or dysregulated. They learn how to regulate themselves in the presence of strong emotions, recognise signs of overwhelm, maintain appropriate boundaries, and support the process without making it about themselves. Importantly, they may also be able to help someone move from a state of dysregulation toward greater stability and regulation, either through co-regulation or by guiding them through a self-regulation process; these are learned skills developed through appropriate training and practice.

Some trauma-sensitive yoga trainings include aspects of this work. Psychotherapy trainings certainly do. But simply calling oneself a “space holder” does not automatically confer these abilities, and without them
“holding space” becomes a phrase that sounds meaningful while obscuring the limits of what is actually being offered.

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