Maya Lev is the Director and owner of Yoga Center Santa Cruz. Maya's love of yoga was initiated by her first teacher, Sarah Pepper, when she was a freshman at UCSC. She subsequently became a student of Ruth Hille, a founder of Yoga Center Santa Cruz, who encouraged her to consider teaching yoga. Maya attended the teacher training program at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco and began teaching in 1993. She is profoundly grateful to Kofi Busia, her primary teacher for the past 22 years, for inspiration, guidance, and insight into the subtle mechanisms of the asanas and their effect on the body. In her teaching, she combines a rigorous physical practice with a deep reverence for the spiritual transformation yoga offers to each student. Maya also holds a master's degree in Counseling Psychology from CIIS of San Francisco, and conducts a private practice as a licensed MFT in Santa Cruz. Her other preoccupation is parenting her two awesome children.