about

A small yoga and Ayurveda studio at the edge of the forest.

Near Titisee, in the very heart of the Black Forest, Germany.

Ten yoga mats. That is the whole room, and it is on purpose. It means I know your name, I know about your knee, and I can see when something is not working before you have to tell me.

Classes run through the week. Workshops follow the seasons. When the weather is good we take the practice outside, into the woods that start at the door.

What an hour here is like
You arrive, you leave your shoes at the door, and the room is warm and quiet.

You do not need to be flexible. You do not need to have done this before. Most people here are somewhere in the middle and stay there happily for years.

We move, we breathe, and I watch you the whole time. You will hear your name. You will be told what your left shoulder is doing. Nothing is performed, and nobody is looking at anybody else.

Then you go home. What I want from that hour is simple, and I would rather promise something small and deliver it every week: that you leave calmer than you arrived, a little stronger each month, and in a better mood for the rest of the day.

Why the studio is out here
I first came to this forest in 2015, on holiday. I left feeling better than I had in a long time, and it was not the holiday. I came back the following year to check, and I have come back every year since.

Some places take your energy. The Black Forest gives the energy back. That is the only reason the studio is at the end of a small road instead of somewhere easier to reach.

Where the name WALDVEDA comes from
Wald is forest. Veda means knowledge.

They belong together. The oldest Indian writing on Yoga and Ayurveda came from people who went to live in the woods, sat still, and paid close attention to what happened around them. All of this started outdoors, under trees, long before anyone thought of a studio.

Watch a forest for a while and it tells you two things. Both of them shape how I teach.

Everything has its own time. This is not the same as slowing down, and I want to be clear about that, because most of what you hear about wellness tells you to do less with your life. A forest does not do less. In spring it works incredibly hard. Then it settles. Then it rests. Then it starts again.

For you, that means your practice in February is not your practice in June, and that is not you falling off. Some months we build. Some months we hold. You will not be asked to be the same person all year.

Nothing lives on one thing alone. A forest is not ONE tree, and it does NOT run on ONE nutrient. YOU are NOT that simple either.

Yoga is good, and it works better next to strength training. Ayurveda is good, and it works better when you also know your blood values and have a doctor you trust.

So I teach Yoga and Ayurveda here, and I will also tell you when they are not the whole answer and when you need something else. You will not hear that in many studios.

About me
I am Maria. I teach every class here myself.

I am a 500-hour certified yoga teacher and an Ayurvedic practitioner, trained in India, and I hold a Master's degree in Psychology. I am still studying, mostly anatomy, because I want to know exactly what is happening in a body when I ask it to do something.

Teaching is the part of my life I am happiest in. On the mat, in a room full of people, or properly looking after someone.