Co-Founder · Lead Trainer · Yoga & Embodied Practice
Marcela Mota
Marcela Mota is a Brazilian-born Yoga teacher, lifelong traveller and devoted student of Yoga, meditation and the wisdom of nature.
She brings more than 15 years of international teaching experience in Yoga and embodied practice. Her approach weaves together yin and yang practices, Taoist philosophy, nervous system awareness and intuitive wisdom, creating learning spaces that are grounded, experiential and deeply human.
Her path to teaching was not a straight one. Before Yoga became her profession, Marcela worked across the United Nations, corporate and public sectors, with an academic background in International Affairs and Business Economics and Management of Sustainability.
Over time, Yoga and meditation became a pathway to a very different way of living. They gave her the space to listen more closely to herself, question some of the ideas she had inherited about how life was supposed to look, and eventually find the courage to follow a different path.
Today, she travels internationally with her family, teaching Yoga teacher trainings, immersions and workshops. She is trained in Ashtanga Vinyasa, Yin Yoga, 5 Elements Yoga Therapy, Rocket Vinyasa, Pre- and Postnatal Yoga and Trauma-Informed Yoga, and is an E-RYT 500 and YACEP. She is also trained in Thai Vedic Massage and Reiki.
After more than 15 years of teaching, Marcela has facilitated more than 40 teacher trainings and supported hundreds of students in becoming Yoga teachers around the world. She is a Lead Trainer at All Yoga School, Retreat Leader at Rebel Yoga Retreats, as well as co-founder of Five Elements Wisdom Academy.
What continues to fascinate her is the complexity of being human — and the many ways we can come to know ourselves more deeply.
She has a particular passion for the Five Elements of Nature and the ways their patterns and rhythms can offer another lens through which to understand ourselves and the world around us.
Marcela brings a playful spirit, deep curiosity and a genuine love of people into her teaching. She doesn’t see herself as having all the answers. Instead, she sees teaching as an invitation to explore: to turn inward, become more curious about our own experience, and find the courage to live in a way that feels increasingly authentic.
Becoming a mother has been another profound part of that journey. Building a life that allows space for family, travel, teaching, nature and the things she values has continued to challenge and reshape her understanding of what a meaningful life can look like.
For Marcela, this is ultimately what Yoga is about: not becoming someone different, but becoming more fully who we already are.