16 Reasons to Meditate in 2016

David Cornwell was born in Northern Ireland in 1979.

He trained in Buddhist meditation in 1999 and as a yoga teacher in 2003.

David was one of the founding members of Cihangir Yoga until 2012. During this time David was the senior director, and grew the studio from a small improvised space, to be the largest studio in Turkey, with two locations, teaching up to 400 students per day.

David attributed the success of Cihangir Yoga to several factors; the studio was owned and managed by dedicated yoga teachers who shared the same vision of yoga, the yoga classes were of the highest quality, there was a mutual respect and fair treatment of teachers, we endeavoured to make the studios beautiful, and importantly everyone was welcome.

When David opened Cihangir Yoga he slashed the cost of classes by 50% of the going rate in Istanbul. This meant that for the first time yoga was accessible to the general public. In 2012 David withdrew from CIhangir Yoga to focus on Advayta Yoga and his social project “Free Yoga”.

In 2011 David launched Free Yoga, to train meditation and yoga teachers for free; and to support young people and the disadvantaged to become teachers. David will continue to offer Free Yoga trainings every 2 years.

In 2013 David launched Advayta Yoga with his wife Zeynep Aksoy to share his passion for yoga and meditation practice and Advayta.

David learned yoga from Godfrey Devereux, and is deeply grateful for his teaching.

David maintains a meditation and yoga asana practice. He is training in Trauma Healing in Ireland and has completed