A school bringing together Yoga, Chinese Medicine and the Wisdom of the Five Elements — with teachings rooted in practice, experience and everyday life.
Explore our trainingsFive Elements Wisdom Academy grew from something very personal. Over the years, the practices and traditions we now teach have helped us understand ourselves more deeply, make different choices and create lives that feel more aligned with who we are.
We created the Academy to share what has genuinely helped us — not as a formula for how anyone else should live, but as a collection of practices, perspectives and tools that people can explore for themselves.
Our work brings together the wisdom of the Five Elements, Chinese Medicine, Daoist Shamanism, Yoga and embodied practices, with a focus on making ancient knowledge relevant to modern life.
Our teachings are practical, experiential and grounded in real life, and yet, rooted in spirit.
We are interested not only in what you know, but in what you experience, what you understand about yourself, and what becomes possible when that understanding is embodied.
Level 1 & Level 2 · Koh Phangan, Thailand · Early Bird until Dec. 1, 2026
Reserve your placePeople arrive at our trainings carrying the pace of their lives with them.
They are tired. Overstimulated. Always thinking about the next thing.
Some feel disconnected from their bodies. Some have lost touch with what they actually want. Some feel trapped in patterns they understand intellectually but don’t know how to change.
Some simply know that something needs to shift.
And often, underneath all of it, there is a simple longingto feel more at home in themselves.
Our work begins there.
We are constantly encouraged to do more, achieve more, produce more and keep moving.
There is value in action, ambition and movement.
But there is also another way of being.
A way that makes space for stillness, rest, receptivity, reflection and simply being present with what is.
This is part of what Yin teaches us.
Not to withdraw from life, but to meet it differently.
To recognise that sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is stop doing. To listen before acting. To rest before we’re exhausted. To create space before we know exactly what needs to fill it.
We believe reclaiming Yin is not only a practice on the yoga mat. It is a way of relating to life.
Nurture · Late Summer
Stomach & Spleen
Release · Autumn
Lung & Large Intestine
Flow · Winter
Kidney & Bladder
Growth · Spring
Liver & Gallbladder
Joy · Summer
Heart & Small Intestine
The Five Elements are at the heart of our work. They offer a way of remembering.
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water are not just ideas to study. They are qualities and patterns we can recognise in nature, in our bodies, in our emotions, in our relationships and throughout the different seasons of our lives.
They remind us that nothing exists in isolation. That we are not separate from nature. That everything is constantly changing. That life moves in cycles.
The Five Elements give us another lens through which to understand ourselves and the world around us.
Instead of asking “What’s wrong with me?”, we can become curious about “What’s happening here?”
And when we understand something differently, we can relate to it differently. We have more perspective. More possibilities. More choice.
The Five Elements are not simply something to learn. They are a lens through which to experience life. A roadmap back to our True Nature.
We are a constitution of all five elements, yet as human beings we tend to meet the world through one of them. The quiz gives you your dominant element, your secondary, and the full breakdown in between.
There is no right or wrong answer — like everything within the Yin and Yang understanding, it is meant to be light.
Begin the quiz
Our teachings aren’t designed to give you more information to carry around in your head.
The intention is to bring the teachings into the body, where they can be felt, explored and integrated.
This is why our teachings are experiential. We combine study with practice — Yin Yoga, movement, meditation, pranayama, Qi Gong, somatic practices, self-inquiry and time in nature and in community.
You might learn about an element and then notice it in your own body. You might study a Chinese Medicine concept and suddenly recognise a pattern you’ve been living with for years. You might spend time in stillness and realise how rarely you actually allow yourself to stop. You might discover that something you’ve been trying to fix doesn’t need fixing at all — it needs understanding, acceptance or a new perspective.
The teachings become meaningful when you can recognise them in your own life. Because ultimately, we aren’t interested in people simply knowing more. We’re interested in people being able to meet themselves and their lives more fully.
And that is what we mean by embodied wisdom.
I appreciate how you made space for people to have other feelings; positive, negative, or otherwise. (...) I’ve grown to appreciate and dare I say, love the practice of Yin Yoga.
Nathan Jorgensen · USA
A three-week immersive teacher training exploring Yin Yoga through the wisdom of Chinese Medicine and the Five Elements.
This is where the heart of our work comes together.
At the core of the training is learning how to practice and teach Yin Yoga through the lens of the Five Elements.
The Elements offer a practical framework for understanding Yin Yoga — from the postures you choose and how you teach them, to the deeper themes and principles behind them. At the same time, they become a lens through which to understand ourselves, our bodies, emotions, relationships and the changing seasons of life.
Some people join to deepen their own practice and understanding. Others come to expand their teaching or learn how to teach Yin Yoga. Many come for a combination of both.
For those who want to teach, the training provides the knowledge, practical skills and experience to confidently create and teach their own Five Elements Yin Yoga classes — bringing the principles of Chinese Medicine and the Elements into their teaching in a way that is practical, meaningful and their own.
The training also weaves in the Daoist art of Face Reading, Feng Shui, meditation, pranayama, Qi Gong, Yang practices, somatic tools, self-inquiry and time in nature and community.
Eligible training hours can be counted toward Yoga Alliance continuing education requirements.
A three-week training is about more than what happens in the classroom.
Three weeks away from the pace of everyday life. Barefoot in nature. Nourishing food. Daily practice. Meditation and breath. The Five Elements. A safe and supportive community. Space to reflect. And, perhaps most importantly, permission to slow down.
We don’t try to manufacture transformation. We create the conditions for it.
And then we let the practice do what the practice does.
It was an excellent blend and balance of the physical and spiritual side of the practice. I now practice Yin Yoga every day and feel very fortunate to have been on the course.
Åse Helleren · Norway
A deeper breath. A softer body. A quieter inner critic. More honesty. More openness. More compassion. A greater ability to recognise patterns — and more confidence to meet them differently.
Students often tell us they feel more connected, more peaceful, more hopeful and more resourced.
They move differently. They breathe differently. They listen differently. They make different choices. And sometimes, the changes continue long after they leave. And sometimes nothing outside needs to change at all.
They simply return home feeling more able to meet the life they already have.
One thing our students often tell us is that they are inspired not only by what we teach, but by seeing how we live.
Five Elements Wisdom Academy grew from a desire to share the traditions and practices that have shaped our own lives — not because they gave us all the answers, but because they taught us to question, to listen more deeply and to make choices with greater awareness.
Our teaching comes from decades of practice, study, experience and real life. We don’t have all the answers, and we don’t believe in teaching from a pedestal. We share what we have explored, what has transformed us, and what continues to shape the way we live.
— Marcela & Tobias
We have never been particularly interested in following a prescribed way of living. We continue to question what we’re told we should want, how we should spend our time and what a successful life is supposed to look like.
For us, this is an ongoing practice.
It means listening for that sometimes quiet inner knowing. Choosing more space when life tells us to rush. Making room for family, nature, community, practice and the things that genuinely matter to us.
We started this work before we had children. Now, as parents, these questions have become even more real. Our boys have grown up alongside this work — seeing us teach, practice, create, travel, spend time in nature and build a life around what we value.
We don’t always get it right. And we don’t believe we’ve found the way to live. But we keep asking the questions.
That is perhaps the most important thing we hope to offer our students too: not a blueprint for how to live, but practices, perspectives and ways of seeing that help you understand yourself more deeply — and make choices that are truly your own.
You have been such an inspiration for me how one can lead his life filled with purpose, connected to his own body & mind. (...) Seeing you & Tobias has been even more inspiring for me. The way you balance & complement each other is just breathtaking.
Johana Friedrichov · Yoga Teacher, Czech Republic
Explore our trainings, retreat and one-to-one offerings.
Six stories in their own voice, and a few in writing.
I loved the reflective aspect of Yin coupled with the connection to the Elements, which is something quite unique. It has heightened my connection to yoga, nature and ultimately to my sense of self.
You showed me the value of slowing down, softening and finding stillness in a world that is overwhelmingly Yang. I never knew the need for Yin until experiencing it with you. It has changed my personal practice and the way I teach.
Personally, I was able to understand my emotions better and learn how to work with them in a healing way. On a professional level, it gave me a greater understanding of the human body and how yoga poses can affect the emotional and mental states of my students.
Level 1 & Level 2 · Koh Phangan, Thailand · Early Bird until Dec. 1, 2026
Reserve your place
The first physicians were shamans, called Wu. Where Classical Chinese Medicine comes from, and why Spirit belongs in the medicine.
Fire is the only Element with two pairs of meridians. How to work with them to bring more joy into daily life.
How the body defends itself in three concentric layers, and what each teaches about resilience.
