Teacher Biography

Anna Laurita E-RYT

Anna Laurita has studied yoga since 1991. She has since lived in 7 countries (in Asia, USA and Latin America) and studied ways of peace and happiness found in each country. She has folded those peace petals into the davannayoga style which she teaches in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in her yoga shala. Anna is an *E-RYT, *E-RPYT, *E-RCYT through the Yoga Alliance, a Senior Yogic Arts instructor, and holds a certificate in Vinyasa Krama in the Krishnamacharya lineage. She offers Yoga Teacher Training programs 4 times per year. Her teachers include: Master Duncan Wong, Sharon Gannon, David Life and Srivatsa Ramaswami. She is known for her powerful practice, intuitive understanding of the body and her creative, and engaging teaching style.
Genlux Magazine (Oct. 2010) said "Anna is powerful in the most enlightened sense of the word. Her personal journey is inspirational, her wisdom elevating and her teaching transcendent."

* E-RYT - Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher; E-RPYT - Experienced Registered Prenatal Yoga Teacher; E-RCYT - Experienced Registered Childrens Yoga Teacher

Anna's teaching philosophy is that you should leave her class feeling "Yoga Good!" With a renewed spirit and energy. She encourages students to go a little deeper and explore their practice in hopes of creating a better understanding of themselves and how they can adapt to new or deeper postures through their breath and intention. She creates a safe environment for experiment and a light hearted tone. Great music is essential to her practice. Anna believes in organic mixes of yoga, combining different yoga styles and different disciplines of physical movement to create a beautiful yoga practice.

Raoul Diaz De la Garza

piano music composer

Raoul will lead monthly Kirtans at davannayoga beginning in September, 2009. Watch the Events page for specific dates. His experience in music and the magic of music in yoga, meditation and life is immense.

Raoul's background includes 2 years at Beijing's School of Performing Arts, PRC. and two years at UC Berkeley California, USA as well as 5 years of Private Piano Immersion in Mexico City with Piano Masters.

For the past six years he has been the director at Saraswati Multidimensional Creativity. This group explores the creative process of music and language as an expression of consciousness.

Prior to his music career, Raoul's creative background includes being creative director at McCann Erickson, in Mexico, Japan and Hong Kong. He spent five years prior producing, editing and assisting the director for Mandoki films in Mexico City, Mexico.

Raoul leads a meditation group twice per week in his own meditation space in Vallarta and loves to surf, practice yoga and meditate.

He has performed live piano concerts in Australia, China, France, India, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, and the USA.

He has produced six CD's of piano music composed in India, Japan and Mexico.

"The attraction that one finds in music makes one wonder if there is a mystery hidden behind it, if there is a language of sound which could be learned. The answer is that the language of music and sound is the language of the soul. It is our inner language, the natural language of life."

"It is the tone and rhythm of sound which have an influence on the tone and rhythm of our being. By the help of music we can tune ourselves to the spheres where we wish to be, aiming to higher planes of expression where we can discover the inner and outer balance of our own bright soul, for understanding, freedom and love."

Barbara Crompton.

Barbara Crompton is a recognized luminary in the yoga,health and fitness field. She draws from her immense background of hatha yoga, yoga flow, power yoga,yoga trance, yin yoga, pilates, Nia, fitness and anatomy to uniquely weave together a master class. Her love of movement,her zest for living and her wisdom and knowledge from her travels and study in India and Thailand creates a dynamic yet calm and richly personal experience for all she touches.

Nora Plonsky

Over the past 25 years Nora Plonsky has experienced yoga with teachers from various traditions as she has traveled throughout the world and lived around the United States. In 2002 she received her Yoga Alliance certified training in Phoenix, AZ with an emphasis on assisting those with various physical conditions. Her teaching reflects these diverse experiences as she leads you through a practice that honors the individual. You can expect a class that emphasizes strength, flexibility, and proper alignment for a healthy body and deep breath work and meditation for a peaceful mind. She has taught in Europe, Mexico, and Arizona at various wellness facilities, senior centers, conferences, elementary schools, and at the college level

Yoga is about playing and experimenting. The mat invites us to express our individuality, intuition, and creativity.

Paola Montes Campillo

I have been practicing Yoga for four years.
My first yoga studies began with the precise alignment discipline of the Iyengar style and then I moved onto explore Vinyasa and other variations. In the past two years I have been dedicated to the Ashtanga style practice and from the many styles I have practiced I have built a well-rounded and creative Vinyasa style for my students with attention to alignment, breath and intention. With a flare for creativity!

Knowing that yoga practice needs to be creative, evolving and to easily transmited to others, so I took the Teacher Training at Davannyoga to enhance the experience of being a student and a teacher. I also wanted to enhance my personal practice. Through this program I gained the teaching skills needed to easily transmit my experience and creative, feel-good yoga practice to my students.

Yoga practice needs to be progressive in order to achieve a connection between body, mind and spirit. While practicing Yoga one needs to be constantly aware of your breath and wellness. Your body needs to be listened to, treated with love, respect and kindness.
This strong internal connection (Union) must be to be in harmonize with your environment. Practicing Yoga starts with YOU!

Alejandra Suarez

Eleven years ago I met my beloved teacher Geshe Tenzin Wangyal with whom I began to learn meditation practices from the Tibetan Bon tradition. At that time I lived in Valle de Bravo and I soon became part of a very loving and supporting group of practitioners.
Seven years ago I moved to Puerto Vallarta with my two sons and my husband and found in yoga the same kind of loving community and also the perfect complement for my spiritual path.

I've been lucky to learn yoga from teachers with very different backgrounds and styles but all with great love and kindness. I started teaching three years ago and I just loved to to be able to share something that is so precious to me.

Yoga is a refuge where I can let go of everything and just rest in the present moment. It is a great place to be.

Mary Bolton

Envisioning a world in which we are each living our most authentic, inspired lives, Mary shares her knowledge of the many practices of yoga to help others discover a richer, fuller experience of the world. She encourages exploration and a deeper understanding of the body as the vehicle through which we encounter ourselves and relate to the world around us. Mary’s teaching is informed by her depth of study and infused with creativity and playfulness. She guides challenging and rejuvenating classes to tune and nurture the body, ultimately dedicated to freeing the mind and unleashing the spirit. She intertwines breath with alignment and a deep internal connection to allow others to rediscover their innate brilliance.

A student of yoga since 1991, Mary has completed trainings in Anusara, Ashtanga, Vinyasa Flow, Restorative, and Yoga Therapeutics. Her teaching is further enhanced by her studies in tantric philosophy, meditation, kirtan, sanskrit, and energy healing. Forever a student, she continues to refine and enhance her own practice in order to better serve others.

Licia Rosetti

I began practicing yoga in 1996 when I enrolled in an intro to yoga course while in college in Boulder, Colorado. I was immediately hooked. It has been in times of my greatest need that yoga became much more than a practice, but a way of life and refuge. I have been lucky enough to discover many styles that I enjoy and about six years ago I stumbled into a class taught by Jessica Patterson, an extraordinary Jivamukti teacher and dear friend, who changed my practice and my life. I went on to complete the 200 hour teacher training at Davannayoga in 2010 with another transformational teacher, Anna Laurita.

I believe that yoga allows us to go inward with compassion to see where we are resisting a naturally peaceful state in our experience. The practice of yoga helps us see where we are limiting ourselves in our habits and beliefs, to ultimately find true freedom and joy. My hope as a teacher is to transmit my experiences and knowledge in a lively Vinyasa style class. Breath, music, and remaining present in the body will allow us to let go of what we think we “should” be and be who we are and who we always have been. That, to me, is yoga.

Carmen De Alba

I discovered Yoga when I was pregnant and I fell in love with the practice (nearly 13 years ago). My foundation is Iyengar and over the years has evolved into an organic flow, thanks to my teacher Anna, founder of davannayoga, where I became a Certified Yoga Teacher.

My first child was a home water birth with my husband, midwife and family doctor, in 2000. This birth experience was my initiation in becoming an activist supporting natural, free, harmonious birth. In 2003 another powerful experience was the birth of our second daughter. At this time I became seriously interested in becoming a midwife an embarked on this new path through the following trainings:

* 2004 - studied with Ina May Gaskin on The Farm in Nashville Tenn. Afterwards I became a voluntary assistant in the births of young mothers in our rural community of Boca de Tomatlan.

*2005 - "La Naturaleza del Nacimiento" in Oaxtepec, México with Witt Naoli Vinaver.

*2006 - together with two German midwives organized "International Dolphin Fiesta" a symposium about the relationships between pregnant mothers and wild dolphins with the assistance of Dr. Horace Dobbs from England.

*2007 - "Birth and the Human Family; embracing the power of pre-natal life" in Los Angeles, California.

* 2008 -"Midwifery skills" with Dr. Norma Emilia Escalante in San Francisco, Nayarit.

*2010 - "Quantum Midwifery" workshop in Querétaro, 56 hours, lead by Whapio Diane Bartlett founder of Matrona in Motion.

I am a Social Worker with two local organizations and I assist mothers with infant development and nutrition. Since 2009 I have been in the Rural Midwife program at the local Social Security Medical Services group in Puerto Vallarta. I am a certified yoga teacher and a certified Janzu therapist.

Eduardo Hernandez Becerra ("Lalo")

I am a Puerto Vallarta native. All my life, I have been very active and always seeking new challenges. In 2006, I found yoga and was instantly intrigued. Although I had been engaged in many kinds of activities (both physical and artistic) it was yoga that presented me with a sense of continual challenge and constant learning. My passion for yoga is strengthened with every practice. Since a young child, I have had a keen interest in helping others. I originally aspired to learn about modern medicine, but yoga pulled me to explore more traditional sciences aimed at healing the body. I studied Ayurveda for two years and more recently began a program studying osteopathy to further my knowledge of body alignment and rehabilitation. My yoga classes focus on the natural movement of the body following the breath, with gentle adjustments and Thai massage to enhance muscle-skeletal alignment. Lalo is certified to teachYogic Arts.

Terry Connell

After twenty years of endless winters in Boston, MA (USA) I am happy to start exploring my "ex-pat" status here in Vallarta. While living in Boston, I was fortunate enough to study with some of the greatest yoga teachers in the United States, including Rolf Gates, David Magone, and Bo Forbes. I blend both Kripalu and Vinyasa styles into my classes, with focus on proper alignment and core awareness and a smooth, full rhythmic breath. My classes are both challenging and relaxing - designed to help students grow at their own pace.

Terry Connell is a certified yoga teacher through Kripalu.