Monica Fayad, Balanced Yoga School’s founder and co-teacher, is one of the area’s most experienced teachers with over 20 years of teaching, over 1000 hours of education and seven years training and assisting teacher training. Monica is a teacher’s teacher. Educated as a massage therapist and a school teacher she brings a keen understanding of the body and offers skilled instruction. Her devotion to the practice of yoga and her community shows in her continued education and the relationships she builds along her journey. Monica offered the area’s first local teacher training and she continues to be grateful for the opportunity to teach yoga to YOU and remain rooted in her community.

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Monica learned how influential movement is on wellness at a young age. Encouraged by her parents’ dedication to health and influenced by their interest in spiritual development, she was taken to the gym to work out her depression beginning in middle school. From that point she found a love for dance and in college her quest for wellbeing was quenched with the combination of modern dance, yoga and meditation. She has completed over 1000 hours of training in vinyasa yoga, Ashtanga yoga, mindfulness, yin yoga, perinatal yoga and Ayurveda for bodywork and yoga. Most recently she completed co-heart level chakra training with Sacred Centers and became Reiki Level II practitioner. Deeply rooted in her practice and dedicated to continual self-discovery, she has brought her passion for the power of movement to the community since 2003.  Monica strives to approach each client and student with compassion, a keen eye and an understanding of universal patterns as well as inherent individualism. Monica teaches Ashtanga with the blessing of her teacher, Melanie Fawer, trained in the lineage of and certified by Sri. K Patabhi Jois, and loves teaching all styles of yoga as they each create a path toward mindful awareness, personal growth and self-compassion.