Bio
Eri Economidou
Authorized teacher by SYC
Eri was born and raised in Athens. In the summer of 2001, she met ashtanga yoga from Cliff Barber, a true yogi, who had withdrawn from society to stay in Preveli Crete.
From the first moment, in the unique surrounding of Preveli river, she was overwhelmed by this combination of dynamic practicing, emphasizing in concentration and breathing. Later on, she would continue practicing by herself, bearing in mind Cliff’s guidelines together with a first series asana print out.
Until 2004, she experiments with various types of yoga practice and she attends an intensive hatha and ashtanga yoga training course at Effect Academy.
Since then, she teaches yoga in various places in Athens and later on, in Xanthi, during her study in architecture.
In 2012, she returns in Athens and devotes herself to teaching ashtanga yoga solely.
Thereafter, she apprentices to authorized teachers who inspire her and help her obtain an everyday practice. She considers Paramaguru Sharath Jois to be her mentor and lives by his guidance and teachings.
Among her teachers, she distinguishes Eleftheria Lagoudaki, being her scholar since January 2014 and teaching at her school the years before the breakout of the pandemic.
In 2014, with her teacher’s support, she starts her own ashtanga yoga class at aikido dojo Shu Ren Kan and she teaches there for 4 years. The class gathers loyal practitioners and is active until now.
In August 2015, she travels to Copenhagen to meet Paramaguru Sharath Jois for the first time, the official successor of this tradition, in a 6-days Led Intermediate and Primary Series Workshop and Conference.
Later, in summer 2018, she travels to Mysore India, the homeland of ashtanga yoga, together with her 2-year-old daughter, to study beside Sharath Jois.
In 2022, after two more trips for studies at Sharath Yoga Centre, the only school authorized to certify ashtanga yoga teachers, she receives authorization level 1. Thus, she accepts her Guru's blessing to keep on spreading this method, with devotion and respect, in the exact same way as it is taught at SYC until today.
At the time being, Eri is a member of the Greek Yoga Association and founder of Ashtanga Yoga Ano Patissia (AYAP).
Asana Workshops:
She attended seminars with Eddie and Jocelyne Stern (2014), David Swenson (2015), Ty Landrum (2017), Laruga Glacer (2017), Ranko Vairagya (2018), David Robson & Jelena Vesić (2023), Adam Keen (2024).
Beyond Asana:
In 2019, having the need to approach yoga beyond the asana, she took a 4-topic course with Seth Powell, on Sanskrit, Indian history and philosophy as well as study and analysis of the scripts of Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad Gita.
She has attended 3 semesters of courses on Sanskrit and Indian philosophy at the Hellenic-Indian Society for Culture and Development with Demetrios Vassiliades and fulfilled successfully Madhyama level A course.
During her second trip to India, she attended everyday classes on Sanskrit and analysis on Hatha Yoga Pradipika writings, with Laksmish Bhat.
Her studies in general:
From a very young age she studies piano and dance. She gets a degree on architecture and civil works. During her studies, she was teaching yoga and dance, in classes for adults and children. Combining the above, leads her in case studying “Architecture and dance”, researching the architectural design through movement and kinesthetic experiences.
Eri always thought of herself as a restless one. She found “peace” in this wonderful system. Through her teaching she intends to share and spread the tradition of ashtanga yoga. A system that, if it is applied regularly and with devotion, can help us built concentration and self-acknowledgement mechanisms, so as not to pass by “now” and gradually get rid of anxieties and expectations imprinted in our minds.