Today in iN’s “Meet the Teachers” series around the Kilifi Wellness Festival, we meet Melina Moors, a yoga teacher and holistic wellness practitioner.
Melina’s offerings include energetic multi-style yoga, slow-paced yin yoga, Thai Yoga Massage, and Handpan sound journeys. She integrates movement, breathwork, meditation, sound, touch and aromatherapy to activate healing, personal growth and higher states of consciousness.
SL: What are you teaching at Kilifi Wellness Festival?
MM: I will be teaching a Thai Yoga massage workshop. It’s a two hour workshop where people will be introduced to the beautiful, ancient knowledge of this practice. It’s all about exploring the power of touch. I think that having some knowledge about this is a gift, because it’s something we can share so easily with friends or partners at home, once you know a few technical things to do to give yourself confidence.
The other session is Yin Yoga with Sound Bath*, with [sound healing practitioner] Narissa. I’m going to be teaching the Yin Yoga and Narissa will be doing the sound bath, as people are taken into the poses. It’s a very slow practice. We are aiming to position the sound bowls on the body [during the yoga practice], for deeper resonance within the body. We will have a long savasana [the final resting posture, taken lying down, at the end of a yoga practice], for around 30 minutes with a blend of flute, voice and Tibetan sound bowls played by Narissa, plus I will play hand pan.
Melina playing hand pan
Melina playing hand panSL: Can you tell me about your background and how you came to yoga?
MM: I’ve been in Nairobi almost 18 years now. I am from Germany; I came for a university excursion, and I fell in love. I had to go back to Germany to finish my degree. Then I came back, moved in with this partner and we eventually married and had children.
I was in tourism the first few years in Kenya, doing safaris. I did like parts of the job, especially the traveling and test trips and all, but it is also a very demanding job in terms of time, including evening calls. So when I had children, I really didn’t enjoy sharing the evenings between work and family anymore.
When I was in the process of leaving tourism, I also discovered yoga. I used to think that yoga was really boring, but I started the practice when I was still in the office job and starting to get, for example, back aches. So I tried it, and I started loving it! Because it was also taking me back into spirituality.
SL: So you began your yoga practice in Nairobi. Where did you start and what did it give you?
First I did hot yoga at the Bikram Yoga Studio in Lavington. Then it was power yoga.
It helped me to be stronger in my mind as well as body, standing up for myself and having difficult discussions in situations that I needed to. So yoga was actually the one modality that helped me find the strength to go through a deep transformation in my private life.
Finding yoga and finding strength from it was reflected in the style that I chose at the time. It was very strength and energy based yoga, both Bikram and power yoga. They’re very masculine types of yoga and they helped me to find that strength to then also have a mental strength to speak up for myself and work on myself.
I was so lucky while I was going through so much to have the yoga alongside the transformation in my personal life – to find myself again, really.
SL: Where did you do your training?
MM: I did the training with Kanga Studio. Kanga is an energetic yoga, a blend of Iyengar and Sivananda styles. Most of the teachers of Kanga Yoga are in India. But of course, because of COVID, a lot of the training was done online. It was eight weeks of online training, six days a week, and then a short break. After the break, there were two months of physical training, for adjustments, in Nairobi.
I actually feel that this was an advantage. For me, it was perfect, because I feel if I had done the training in just a month [which is common for many yoga teacher trainings], I couldn’t have absorbed as much.
I didn’t know initially that I was going to teach when I took the training. That was not exactly the plan. I just wanted to learn more about yoga, because I felt transformational. But when I started to teach in the training, I felt like, “Oh, I’m actually really enjoying this. This is amazing!”.
After that, I trained in Yin Yoga with Norman Blair. Norman has two decades of experience in both yin and yang yoga, his training courses are highly respected and popular, so I was lucky to get in.
Yin has been so healing for me. It’s very slow paced and very different to the energetic style that Kanga teaches. So it makes me flexible in my teaching. Even in the energetic practices, I can go a bit more into a meditative state with people. This is possible even though it’s very physical; I am very alignment focused, especially in my energetic classes. But I know how to change focus depending on the students I have. So I feel like the training was perfect for me, enabling me to have that flexibility in class with people from all walks of life.
SL: I’m interested that you were doing these very strong yogas like Bikram and Power Yoga, and then you decided to train in Yin. Was there something that inspired you to train in Yin in particular?
MM: Yes. When I first practiced, that was Bikram and power yoga, but I never trained [in those traditions], because I already had a sense that they are quite masculine, and it’s not forever, right? So when I did the Kanga training, it made me more flexible because the Sivananda tradition came into the picture, as well as learning anatomy. Then a year into teaching, I was getting more students and I was feeling overwhelmed – because in the energetic classes, I was giving the students a lot of energy with my voice, my instrument. I also felt that my body was getting overworked. I felt like something was lacking in my life, and I came across yin yoga online. I was intrigued. It’s teaching people to slow down. It’s very much the opposite of, and complimentary to, the energetic practices. I felt like this could be a really good balance – this deep, stretching with long holds, and becoming more meditative.
You’re not just sitting cross legged, there’s a bit of activity, yes, but the poses then bring you so deep into places within yourself, emotionally, depending which pose you’re in and which body part you’re focusing on.
So it’s been fascinating for me. When I teach Yin, I am going slow, yeah, I am going quiet. I’m giving space for stillness, you know, and it’s also what I need.
SL: You also teach Thai Yoga massage. When did that come into your practice?
MM: So that was around the time of yin yoga training, and it was so wonderful. It was, again, like magic, because yin yoga teaches you a lot about the meridians on the subtle energy lines already, especially the training from Norman Blair.
Thai massage is based on a blend of Ayurveda, yoga, and the Zen line system which is almost identical to the meridian system. It helped me so much to know more, because I also work with meridians in yin yoga. Going into Thai Yoga massage training, everything was so familiar, because you massage along the energy lines, and you also use acupressure points. It’s beautiful; it’s like a flow. I can also adjust with each person, depending on what they need.
SL: You seem to work very intuitively with people.
MM: Yes, and I keep learning, I keep reading. It’s allways a learning process, a continual journey. I always say my students are my greatest teachers, because every student presents their individual situation, and that will push me to take another step.
Melina also makes yoga bolsters and massage weights (which can be seen in the pictures). The massage weights are filled with washed gravel. They are used in Yin Yoga postures by putting them on certain body parts in the postures to either soothe areas with the weight to deepen the stretch.
You can learn more about Melina Moors on her Instagram @melinamoors
*You can read more about Sound Bath and sound healing practices in our interview with Cendra Tisun-Lépinoy and Ornella Hutchinson: Harmonizing Health
You can easily reach Kilifi for the Wellness Festival flying with Skyward Express to Malindi or to Mombasa, where you will currently find discounted flights.