Mimi Moncier
In 1984 while studying architecture at RMIT in Australia, I took a yoga class. It was strange, difficult and hard to forget. The lingering memory swirled around for several years until I had an opportunity to try it again in Boston in 1990. It was then I realized the pure poetry of Yoga and how it is a path on which all of our vehicles can navigate. I became committed to my path of Yoga as it nurtured my recovery from a debilitating low-back/psoas injury. During my recovery I became absorbed in Yoga’s power: to unify the body, heart and mind. Yoga’s radical openness and inclusive nature have continued to draw me in more deeply.
After experiencing the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, I began meditating to more skillfully navigate the waves of impermanence that were so raw and evident. After practicing for almost twenty years, I now teach meditations that are focused on mindfulness and tranquility. After two years of intensive teacher training of TMI with Culadasa, I now teach samatha-vipassana(tranquility+mindfulness) and Satipatthana(mindfulness) meditation.
I infuse my yoga teaching with a gentle attention to mindfulness, a broad knowledge of the mechanics of movement, an understanding of the body's energetic maps and an attention to each individual’s architecture. Never exclusive in my teaching, I balance the shear joy of movement with the spirituality of being. I invite my students’ embodiment to the foreground by offering an entry into their world of sensations as a way of cultivating patience, acceptance and loving kindness. I teach all levels with a sense of lightness and humor in my classes in the styles of vinyasa, hatha, yin, and Relax and Renew® restorative yoga. Currently, I teach yoga privates and corporate classes. I LOVE teaching teachers how to cultivate their own individual and authentic voice in my yin and 200hr basic programs.
My Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki II practice compliments my practices of yoga and meditation. The power of touch in its simplicity, directness, and nourishing intentions attracted me to this caring modality that channels universal energy. I provide in-person, mental and distance sessions.
I am so very grateful for the guidance of all my yoga and meditation teachers: Keith Borden, Jasmine Tarkeshi, Judith Lasater, Jason Crandall, Dina Amsterdam, Culadasa, Shaila Catherine and Michael Taft.
As an artist and an architect, I focus on producing trans-disciplinary work that spans the visual arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, installation, and movement. My interest in merging and moving between mediums is based on the idea of breaking down and reconsidering formal systems, including the self, which I deliberately integrate within my studio practice and in the production of my artwork. Subverting formal ideas about architectural space and identity are imperative to my practice. Through the development of Giggling Lotus Yoga and Scrawl(2012-2018), a hybrid space housing yoga, traditional visual arts and performance, I pushed the limits as to what defines the purpose of space beyond its original charge conceiving it more as a blank piece of paper on which to create multiple outcomes and experiences. I have exhibited in Boston, New York, New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, Birmingham and San Francisco. As an architect I worked on several award-winning projects such as the Getty Antiquities Museum and the Getty Research Center. She has an MFA (2010) from the San Francisco Art Institute, a Diploma in Studio Art (2000) from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts where I was also a recipient of the Fifth Year Traveling Scholarship in 2001, and a BArch from the University of Tennessee (1988).
I currently practice art and teach yoga and meditation in Pensacola(my home town) on the Emerald Coast of Florida. For more information about my artwork, go to www.mimimoncier.net.