Team
Pau Castellsagué
A family trip to India, back in 2005, started it all. I dropped my career as a radio sports journalist and together with my brother Wari and my sister Mireia launched the Omshanti Yoga Studio (2006) and, later on, the Barcelona Yoga Conference (2011).
The path has been filled with Yoga, AcroYoga and soon enough Thai Massage showed up and stole my heart. For the last decade I have traveled around the globe sharing this art, inspired by teachers of the Sunshine Network. Laurino Bertelli, and his dedication to Vipassana meditation, the visionary OsteoThai founders David Lutt & Arno L’Hermitte, and the Sangha spirit, generosity and joy from Takis and Kerys at the Sunshine House Greece.
After graduating from a 5-year Osteopathy program at SICO (Switzerland), under the mentorship of Phillipe Druelle, the mission is crystal clear… to create a global platform, the Thai Massage Academy, and dive deep into this magical fusion between Thai Yoga Massage and Osteopathy.
Alexandra Ruiz
Passionate for bodywork and everything that allows the body to express it self.
My journey began in 2002 with studies that include: Breema, Thai Yoga Massage, Circus arts, Watsu, Indigenous Medicine and Spa Therapies. I started to teaching Hatha Yoga in 2005 and after some years AcroYoga came into my life allowing me to ingrate everything that I have studied into one practice.
For the last 10 years I have dedicated myself to sharing worldwide my passion of bringing people together through this practice of joy, playfulness and loving touch with the intention of reaching all the communities that have the desire to play, connect and FLY!
Itzhak Helman
Itzhak Helman is a trained as a Thai massage teacher since 1997, he is an authorized teacher of The Sunshine Network. Over the last 20 years, he has been practicing Thai yoga massage together with developing is own independent method combining: vipassana meditation, yoga and Thai massage as one unit.
His main inspiration is based on the Eastern philosophy of his teacher Asokananda as well as other great masters like Piched and Chaiyuth. From 2001- 2005 Itzhak made Auroville Universal Township in India as his home, there he was engaged in Therapy work at the Quiet Healing Center together with teaching students from all over the world.
Currently, Itzhak is based in Thailand Chiang Mai giving courses at the Sunshine Massage School and around the world. Itzhak is known for his passionate and honest way of teaching.
Valerie Imbach
My name is Valerie Imbach . Movement, dance and the human body in its various forms of expression have always been a great passion in my life.
During my training as a movement pedagogue and therapist in Basel from 2005 to 2008, I came into contact with yoga for the first time and was immediately fascinated and deeply touched by this powerful and subtle, holistic art of healing.
I spent most of the following years in India, where, in the company of various teachers (OP Tiwari, Surrinder Singh, Ajay Kumar, Radhanath Swami) I had the opportunity to delve deeply into the world of yoga and its diverse aspects.
Back in Europe I did my first teacher training in Vinyasa Yoga (200h TT), followed by an Advanced Teacher Training in Hatha Yoga (+ 300h ATT) with Stephen Thomas , who has since been one of my greatest inspirations and the most important companion on my yoga path – especially also as a yoga teacher – has become.
In addition, there was further training in Yin Yoga with Biff Mithoefer (+ 50h TT) and a deepening in Hatha Yoga and Pranayama with Stephen Thomas (+ 100h) in Airyoga, Zurich.
I have been teaching yoga in Basel regularly since 2010. Currently at B.Yoga Basel , Meyohouse Basel and Unisport Basel. My journey and experience in bodywork was and is deeply shaped by my work as a manual therapist.
First in classic massage, later in Thai massage , since 2019 as a craniosacral therapist and in summer 2021 I completed my five-year training in osteopathy ( SICO ).
Vangelis Varis
Vangelis Varis was born in Athens, Greece, and the last 17 years he lives in the island of Evia with his family. He was introduced to the oriental arts through Tai Chi and Yoga, after that it was easy to flow with the beauty of Thai Yoga massage.
At the Sunshine House he met his first, and very special teacher and mentor, (Krishna)Takis, who has been a strong influence since 2009. Many other amazing teachers came on his way and shaped his practice. Other techniques that have greatly influenced him are OsteoThai, Chi Nei Chang, Craniosacral therapy, Lomi-Lomi massage.
Since 2016, deeply inspired by the scientific western approach of Osteopathy, he has completed the 5 year program at SICO (Swiss International College of Osteopathy), which has provided him with a unique touch in his treatments and further on, his teaching at his own seminars.
Vangelis seeks healing through massage and music sounds. To achieve it, he attends polyphony and dancing classes and is also a musician- he loves percussion, while his latest passion is santur, thus indulging into greek-eastern traditional melodies and rhythms, along with the music bands “Fistiki Saloni” and “Eziak”.
Elisabeth Green
My journey started with a knee injury in martial arts, a chicken knee and my curiosity to understand anatomy!
From there the path took me from the Judo mat to my Yoga mat and into a lifelong inquiry into medicine and holistic health. I studied physiotherapy and worked as a physiotherapist in a hospital and soon opened my own practice in Vienna, where I give manual treatments up to this day.
When Thai Massage came into my life in 2016, it opened a door to my heart and I felt I found the holistic bodywork practice and community I had internally been searching for. Also in 2016, I started studying Osteopathy and I believe that bringing together the precision and clarity of Osteopathy and the mindfulness of Thai Yoga Massage is a magical cocktail. Sharing my knowledge and enthusiasm for these holistic healing approaches fills me with joy.
I completed my 5-year study of Osteopathy at WSO (Vienna) and am currently in my Master’s degree program.
I am fascinated by the body’s inherent capacity to heal and deeply inspired by osteopathic philosophy and the way our bodies speak to us if we learn how to listen.
Oliver chamorro
The Physiotherapy Degree in 2006 gave me the foundations for the path that came later: Thai Massage, CranioSacral Therapy, Chinese Medicine, AcroYoga, Yoga & Movement and Osteopathy. This is what you can find in my teachings. I feel like an eternal student and sharing what I love and learn the most.
For me, Thai massage is meditation, dance and healing. It gives me the opportunity to flow, to be present, to create, to communicate without words.
Along this path, my passion for Thai massage has been growing thanks to teachers such as Dayalu, Laurino Bertell, KrishnaTakis and with David Lutt (whom I have been assisting for years) and Jörg Schürpf I graduated from the Master OsteoThai.
Currently, I continue studying Osteopathy and sharing workshops and training in Spain and Europe, and giving therapies next to Granada where I live with Sharon and our 2 children Alma and Kailu at the @cortijoalegria
I have a passionate, therapeutic teaching style and cultivate joy as much as I can in the formations I teach.
♡ ♡ “Life is a constant movement, go where your heart takes you.” ♡ ♡
Almuth Kramer
I´m an Osteopath in training, AcroYoga teacher, Yoga teacher (BYV), bodyworker (Thai Yoga Massage) and clown based in Berlin. I studied dramatics and communication science in Berlin and Buenos Aires. Besides teaching AcroYoga and Yoga I am working as am co-organizing the German Kula Celebration – a yearly AcroYoga festival.
I love to connect with people of all ages – from kids to grandparents – because I learn so much about life, health and the abundant practice of Yoga and AcroYoga by observing and serving the different needs and skills of each single being.
To watch people exploring trust, growing in their spectrum of movements and expression, deepening connections, inviting letting go and rediscovering playfulness means a world to me and makes me happy.
Thierry Bienfaisant
Thierry Bienfaisant is an international Thai Yoga Massage teacher recognized by Thai Healling Alliance. He has been teaching for 10 years in Belgium, in many European countries and in Thailand, at the famous Sunshine Massage School.
Osteopathic student at the Swiss School of Osteopathy (SICO) and invests in a Post Graduate osteopathy program in France.
From 2007 Thierry meets the first steps of the osteothai in Chiang Mai who transforms and inspires his practice.
His organic student path in osteothai with Davi Lutt such as a practitioner, assistant and teacher, is rooted respectfully in Eastern traditions and osteopathic approaches.
For nearly 20 years, this meeting with the art of Thai Yoga Massage, and this path of transformation, bathed in Vedic tradition and traditional Chinese medicine, infuses inspires his enthusiasm during the sessions and teachings.
Thierry is also a graduate of Shiatsu and Oriental Medicine, massage therapist at Sydney’s Nature Care College.
