KARINA'S PROFESSIONAL & PERSONAL BACKGROUND:
Karina Hoepers graduated in 2001 with a degree in Psychology from UFSC, in Brazil. However, this education is just a small fraction of the reason for her deeply insightful coaching. One of the reasons for her being such an experienced professional is that she is dedicated since childhood to deep self-knowledge, love and truth, in a wide variety of ways, from reading self- help books, to visiting private coaches and psychologists and joining group courses. Being a dancer since 5 and a responsible and multi-talented child, already in her puberty she started teaching dance lessons, piano lessons, English lessons and had started modeling and being an actress for TV commercials. In her teens Karina has trained in numerous methods of self-knowledge, including several lineages of meditation, Buddhism, naturology, iridology, Reiki master course, Ayurvedic massage, natural and functional nutrition, detoxification and others. She worked as a holistic therapist already since her teens, sharing all of this knowledge in groups and private sessions. She has developed extensive expertise in the areas of sexuality, pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum, working since 1995 as a Doula (professional who gives emotional support before, during and after birth) and also lectured and helped to train new doulas, as part of the first doula school established in Norway. In 2002 her devotion to total awakening to reality took her to give up most of her clientele and close relationships in Brazil, and she went to Norway to spend as much time as possible in retreats of self-development and Satsangs. In Norway she found romantic and business partnership, which kept her rooted mostly in Norway since then. Since 2002 she became an international speaker on the human potential, traveling to Norway, Sweden, India, etc. to facilitate courses by herself, and during 2008-2014 also with other trainers (working for a NGO for world peace and inner peace, called Balanced View at the time). Karina is a lighthearted speaker and natural entertainer, so she has ease even in speaking to many hundreds of people at once, and connecting well with them. She has also offered workshops in the following themes: Harmonizing Relationships Sexuality with Presence Living as Presence Healing Infidelity Holistically Healing Addictions Holistically Boosting Creativity Dancing from Presence Holistic Care Prior to Conceiving a Baby Karina has had a peaceful mind and expression most of her life, with islands of struggle. By starting to study herself so early she was able to soon learn many approaches to find inner peace and self-empowerment. The final pieces of the puzzle in finding inner peace came in 2008, and since then, Karina enjoys continuous peace amidst all life challenges. She continued learning and sharing on a daily basis about embodying this awakening with full empowerment into every aspect of daily life. With all of this exquisite background, you can expect her offerings to be very mature, integrated, skillful and playful. Watch Karina describing her exciting journey here. DANCE BIO: Karina has 31 years of experience in teaching dance and is a great motivator! As a fun and clear pedagogue, she makes sure everyone gets the right technique! You will improve on quantum leaps! Karina is the most experienced pedagogue, performer, and choreographer in Norway in Brazilian Samba, Brazilian Zouk and one of the best internationally. She is one of the most experienced West Coast Swing instructors in Norway. She also teaches Salsa, Wedding Waltz, Wedding Choreographies, Burlesque routines for stag parties & other events, Traditional American Swing (East Coast Swing), Bachata, Brazilian Forró, Kizomba, Cha Cha Cha, Samba de Gafieira, Brazilian Bolero and Country Two Step. Karina has a smooth, agile, sensual, graceful, elegant and comfortable dance. For this reason her dancer nickname is Dragonfly. She teaches moves that give the best safety for your body. She loves to focus on connection, creativity and contact improvisation. To guarantee a high quality workshop and instruction, she is available to dance with the students and will give them kind personal feedback. You will notice how much more you learn in her class & remember, than in most classes around the world, because her detail orientation and kind personal feedback. Learning correctly with an experienced teacher saves you from lots of frustration later. You can film all her workshop recaps. Karina brought Brazilian Zouk to Norway in 2003 and brought Brazilian Samba on 2002 on a professional level. Watch Karina & her student Ingvild dancing Samba on TV: www.tv2.no/v/924423 In Zouk, she mixes the best of each Zouk style, teaching with a very good foundation of Zouk Love. In WCS, she also blends different styles, and guides students to create their own dance without missing the foundation. In Salsa, she teaches Salsa On2, On1 and Cuban. In Bachata, she blends Sensual, Italian, Dominican and other styles. In Samba, she teaches Samba from Rio de Janeiro, with touches of Samba Axé and other sensual Brazilian moves. From 2002 to 2017 she co-owed a dance school in Oslo (called SalsaSite first, then I Love Dancing), where she was working part time teaching several forms of couple dance and solo dance. During that time she was organizing the Annual Norwegian Salsa Congress, Annual Bachata Festivals and Zouk Festivals, as well as run a dance shop inside her dance studio. Since 2018 she decided to teach solo dance only once a week and some private dance sessions, in order to have more time for coaching. Watch videos of Karina dancing at https://www.facebook.com/KarinaHoepersPage |
PHILIP'S PROFESSIONAL & PERSONAL BACKGROUND: Philip Dons is educated in Co-Active Coaching (CPCC), and was certified in 2015. After that he has taken certification in a leadership training workshop in self-management, awareness and identity training aimed at youth/ young adults. It is based on neurophysiology, cognitive principles, group process, Co-Active Coaching and exercise/ tools from film and media school subjects. He has held courses in communication and personal development for people in challenging stages of life, regularly since 2015. He has worked with leadership training workshops aimed at youth/ young adults nearly on a daily basis since 2016. He has gained good experience in facilitating group processes and individual processes. He has also offered private sessions in Life Coaching since 2014, working with clients who want changes in their lives, in everything from ending with an addiction to what is the meaning of life. Philip's journey into self-development, consciousness, awareness and presence started in 2013. At that time he had lived a life with his head just above the water's surface, living in survival mode and somehow he managed to survive. He was full of negative emotions such as hopelessness, poor self-esteem / self-trust, indifference, self-pity and sadness, to name a few. He was self-judgmental and felt little value as a human, and no meaning of life. He had many truths about who he was, based on his destructive belief systems and actions. He attended a workshop on self-management, leadership training and self- development. He became acquainted with his values and qualities, thoughts, feelings and emotions. He got to work on himself in an arena with people who didn't know him from before and who could give him honest and direct feedback on who he was as a person, based on what they saw in him in the present and not the past. He began to understand concepts such as self-love, self-image, self-esteem and self-confidence. He understood on a certain level the importance of loving himself. Philip began to act in life instead of being a victim and a passive observer of circumstances. He has practiced Sikhism very deeply for 2 years, and has been through different methods of self-help, self-knowledge, self-development and self- investigation. He has done countless hours of silent meditation, learning shabads and harmonium, singing kirtan, leading kirtan and reading Guru Granth Sahib (the holy text in Sikhism). He has contemplated, observed and transformed his thoughts, feelings, emotions habits, attitudes and behaviors. He walked a path which was mainly beautiful and blissful, but also challenging, since he was still struggling to recognize inner peace 24/7. This difficulty was specially when he got challenged through, for example, being held accountable for his actions and attitude. He was efforting to try to get to a special state through different practices, and he was holding on to phenomena like being somebody with a special identity, being liked by others, positive thinking/ feelings, nothingness, enlightenment, ego, oneness, no-self, no thought, the now, stillness and so forth. In May 2018 he met his life partner Karina and she introduced him to the direct path of self-realization and to deep embodiment of awakening. She had worked with that approach for many years, and she had thoroughly embodied that understanding into daily life and habits. More important than understanding this approach intellectually, was to have Karina support him in his process of embodying resting as loving aware presence and to have peace in every aspect of his life. It was crucial to have her clear vision and sharpness in detecting victim mentality, her patience with him struggling with his old patterns of pride, self-importance, self-centeredness, self- righteousness, manipulation, rationalization, justification and denial, and her way to guide him when he was in deep water, so he could find the way to land again. He quickly started to feel more and more peaceful in every aspect and context of life, even in the most disturbing and powerful thoughts, feelings and emotions, he could experience them from loving aware presence without identifying himself with them. He was not ruled by fear anymore. He felt the freedom of not needing to do any practices in order to experience bliss, gratefulness and love. Philip is extremely grateful to Karina for the support she gives on his path, as well as for his strength to admit his misunderstandings, and his passion for truth, discipline and being his best. Watch Philip describing more about himself here. WHERE CAN YOU FIND THEM: They live mostly in Nesodden, Norway (working in Oslo) and a few weeks/ months per year traveling to Brazil or other cities/ countries to teach in festivals and gatherings. You can hire them to offer courses for your groups, festivals or individual sessions. The themes and length can be custom-made to your needs. Classes can be taught in English, Norwegian, Portuguese and Spanish. They will be happy to chat with you about possibilities and to offer more information. Contributions to their honoraries are used to live a sustainable and minimalistic life, respectful to the world. Watch their videos and read more about them on this website and their social media: Dance & Mindfulness, by Karina Hoepers www.instagram.com/karinahoepers and www.instagram.com/donsemann Group: Dance & Mindfulness, by Karina Hoepers YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXiIzuKV95u_zXDremFjR1Q (Playful Self-Mastery) karinahoepers(@)gmail.com and donsphi(@)hotmail.com +47 45851885 (WhatsApp Karina) +47 90688834 (WhatsApp Philip) |