Why Yoga is About Presence, Not Perfection – An Interview with Céline Suremann
Céline Suremann is a yoga teacher, embodiment guide, and founder of yoga teacher trainings centered around reconnecting with the body, breath, and inner awareness. Through her work, she explores how yoga can move beyond physical postures and become a practice of self-connection, reflection, and living with greater presence.
In this interview, Céline shares her perspective on embodied teaching, developing an authentic voice as a yoga teacher, preserving the depth of traditional yoga in modern practice, and how movement, breath, and meditation can help us return to ourselves in everyday life.
Céline Suremann, Yoga & Embodiment Educator
How has your understanding of yoga as a practice of returning to yourself evolved over the years?
When I first began practising yoga, I had no language for the idea of returning to myself. I only knew that it gave me a moment to be with myself during a chapter of my life when everything felt unclear. Over time, the practice helped me feel myself again and discover a sense of safety within.
My understanding has deepened through the realisation that yoga is connection. It invites us to reconnect with ourselves, beginning with the physical body. We learn to pause and ask: What am I feeling? How am I today? What does my body need?
This physical awareness can become a doorway into our inner world. As we become more present, layers begin to soften and we can hear what is moving beneath the surface. We create space to listen to the quieter voice within us.
Today, returning to myself means remembering that it is safe to be here, within my own body and experience. It is an ongoing practice that continues to evolve with us. We simply keep returning: to the mat, to the breath and to ourselves, whenever we need it.
“For me, yoga is a way of returning to myself, again and again.”
What distinguishes an embodied yoga teacher from someone who is technically skilled at teaching postures?
For me, technical skill and embodiment are complementary qualities. Technical knowledge creates safety. It helps a teacher understand how the body moves, how to guide students clearly and how to offer variations that support different bodies and needs.
Embodiment expands the experience beyond physical form. An embodied teacher invites students to notice what a posture evokes, how energy moves and what becomes present beneath the visible shape. The body becomes a doorway into feeling, awareness and the subtler layers of practice.
Warrior II is a simple example. Technically, we can explore the foundation of the feet, strength in the legs, the position of the pelvis, an extended spine and a steady gaze. These details create clarity and stability.
From an embodied perspective, we can also ask: What does it feel like to inhabit the qualities of a warrior? Can I feel grounded through my feet while keeping softness and adaptability in my upper body? Can I remain present and focused when life around me feels uncertain?
An embodied teacher brings these layers together, creating a space where students can feel safe in their bodies and become curious about their inner experience.
How do you help future teachers move from being inspired by their teachers to developing their own authentic voice?
At the beginning, there is a very fine line between being inspired by a teacher and finding your own way of teaching. We often return to certain classes because of how a teacher creates the space and how we feel in their presence. Naturally, we begin by absorbing some of their language, rhythm and approach.
I remind my students that inspiration is a valid starting point. A 200-hour training provides a foundation and introduces different ways of creating a class. A teacher can be precise and alignment-focused, more somatic and embodied, poetic, philosophical, or energetically oriented. The structure may provide a framework, while personal interests shape how each person brings it to life.
A large part of developing an authentic voice comes through practice. My students teach regularly in small groups, experiment with language and receive feedback. I also step back as much as possible, giving them space to find their own words and build trust in them.
Over time, they begin to recognise what genuinely resonates with them. Their voice becomes clearer through teaching, listening and trusting how yoga wants to be expressed through them.
How can modern yoga remain connected to the depth of its traditional teachings while meeting the realities of contemporary life?
Modern yoga has evolved into many different styles, and each of them can offer a meaningful way into the practice. At the same time, the traditional teachings carry a depth that remains deeply relevant to our lives today.
When we study texts such as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, we encounter questions that human beings are still facing. The kleshas, for example, describe inner patterns that contribute to suffering. These teachings may come from another time and cultural context, yet they continue to offer insight into attachment, identity, resistance and the workings of the mind.
For me, keeping this wisdom alive means exploring its original context and finding ways to make it experiential today. A philosophical teaching can become a short Dharma talk, a journaling reflection or a theme carried through an asana practice. Hatha Yoga also offers ways of working with breath, meditation and the subtle body, expanding our understanding of what yoga can be.
Modern knowledge about anatomy, movement and the nervous system can live alongside these teachings. When we weave them together with care and respect, yoga remains rooted in its history while continuing to meet us within the reality of contemporary life.
How can yoga move beyond performance when perfectionism and comparison are so visible in the industry?
Yoga moves beyond performance when we return to the question: Why am I practising?
I often hear people say that they are too inflexible for yoga. Yet flexibility, touching your toes or moving into a deep backbend, has never defined the practice. These can be natural effects of working with the physical body, while the postures themselves are only the visible tip of a much larger iceberg.
Yoga also includes meditation, breath, concentration, self-study, reflection and the way we relate to ourselves and the world around us. The physical practice offers one doorway into this wider experience.
Social media often places attention on shapes, bodies and advanced postures. As teachers and practitioners, we can consciously redirect that attention towards questions such as: How does this feel in my body? What am I noticing? What do I need in this moment?
This kind of listening also develops discernment. We begin to sense the difference between a challenging experience, temporary discomfort and something that may cause harm.
Every body will express a posture differently. The depth of yoga lies in the awareness we bring to the experience, and that depth can exist within every shape.
What can someone do when they feel disconnected from their body and struggle to hear what they actually need?
The first step is patience and compassion. We live in a world where our attention is constantly drawn outward, so many people have lost the habit of noticing what is happening within them. Rebuilding that connection takes time.
I usually begin with something very tangible: the breath. You can place a hand on your belly or ribs and notice how your body moves as you breathe. In a standing or balancing posture, you might shift your weight from one side to the other and observe the sensations in each leg. Does one side feel heavier, warmer or more alive? Can you sense pressure, pulsing or movement?
These simple questions guide the mind back towards the body. We begin to rebuild a relationship between awareness and physical sensation. From there, subtler listening becomes possible.
Meditation can then become a natural next step. We first arrive in the body, then gradually create space to listen to the heart, intuition and deeper inner knowing.
Stillness can feel difficult when someone has been disconnected for a long time. Movement and breath offer an accessible beginning. In my experience, much already starts to shift when we become present enough to feel ourselves again.
How can movement, breath and meditation become practices people carry into everyday life?
The key is discipline. In yoga, we often speak about tapas, the quality of committed effort and inner fire. Within the energetic teachings, this fire is associated with the centre of the body and our capacity to act, create and follow through.
Discipline becomes more sustainable when the practice feels realistic. I recommend creating different versions of a personal ritual: one for five minutes, one for fifteen minutes and one for the days when you have more time.
A five minute practice might include moving the joints, observing the breath for one minute and sitting quietly for another. The purpose is to create something you can return to regularly.
These practices can also become small moments throughout the day. You can place reminders in your calendar to take three conscious breaths, move your body or listen to a short guided meditation. Each pause becomes an opportunity to reconnect with yourself.
Tapas asks for consistency and discernment. We learn to stay present through challenge while continuing to respect the body’s boundaries. Discipline grows every time we choose to return, even for a few minutes. Over time, these small acts allow movement, breath and meditation to become part of how we live.
Your teacher training carries the phrase “Remember Who You Are.” What does this idea mean to you personally, and how does it shape the training?
“Remember Who You Are” expresses the heart of the training. Yoga brings us back into connection with ourselves. From that place, we can hear our needs, wishes, dreams and desires more clearly. We begin to sense what is truly ours beneath the expectations, roles and noise of everyday life.
Remembering also means recognising that there is often more within us than we allow ourselves to see. In a supportive community, we can explore this safely, grow alongside others and develop the courage to use our own voice. Each person is invited to discover their way of teaching, expressing themselves and showing up.
This idea shapes every part of the training. We build a strong foundation through anatomy, philosophy, physical practice, breath, meditation and teaching methodology. Alongside that knowledge, there is space for reflection, embodied experience and genuine connection.
Some people arrive with a clear desire to teach. Others simply feel that yoga has become something deeper for them and want to follow that feeling. What connects them is the sense that there is more to discover.
For me, this training is an invitation to remember the wisdom, voice and potential that are already within you, and to give them space to unfold.
What can a yoga teacher training offer someone who is still unsure about teaching, and what does it mean to embody yoga beyond the mat?
I often say that I wish everyone could experience a yoga teacher training. It opens a door to wisdom and practical tools that can support us throughout life. You learn about your physical body, thoughts, emotions and habits. You practise showing up in front of others, staying present when your nervous system feels activated and finding your way back to regulation.
Learning to teach is a significant part of the journey. It can also become one expression of everything you discover. Your decision to teach can emerge during the training or later. The training begins with you.
This is also where practising yoga becomes embodying yoga. Embodiment is what happens when the experience follows us beyond the mat. In a challenging conversation, can I pause before reacting? During a stressful moment, can I feel my body and choose how I respond? When a posture feels difficult, can I meet that experience with awareness and discernment?
To embody yoga is to remain human while allowing the practice to shape how we live, relate and respond. My deepest wish is that students leave the training feeling more connected to themselves, clearer in their own voice and able to remember who they are.
Discover Remember Who You Are, Céline’s 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training in Zurich.
Receive personal reflections, new offerings, and invitations directly in your inbox through the newsletter.
Read more from Céline Suremann
