Charlene Maka
From a very young age, Charlene felt an instinctive drive to help others. Later in life she learned that she came from a lineage of natural healers. According to her mother, her Filipino grandfather would have people from his province come to him for healing. He would incorporate the energies from the Sun & Moon, in conjunction with other things to successfully heal others of their ailments.
At 17 years of age, she joined the USAF. During her 4 years of active duty, she was trained & worked as a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant. She was part of a multi-disciplinary treatment team working in inpatient mental health, substance/alcohol abuse & outpatient upper body physical rehabilitation clinic scenarios.
After finishing her commitment to the USAF, she moved back to California & continued to work as a traveling therapist within the San Diego area. She worked in numerous hospitals & nursing homes providing physical rehabilitation therapies to many patients with various physical conditions & diseases.
Even though Charlene was helping many people, both physically & mentally, she felt there was something missing. This led her to search for answers outside the conventional frame of thought. In 1999, she stepped into her first yoga class & intuitively felt that this was the beginning of a journey that would lead her to the missing link in helping others.
Yoga was the bridge that connected her to the philosophy of Wholistic Healing. In the following year, she met her life partner, Josh Maka, who introduced her to the world of massage & bodywork. Together they embarked on a journey of self healing encompassing the Mind, Body & Spirit. During that same year, they completed their first of many 10 day silent vipassana meditation retreats. She also completed one of these silent retreats while pregnant with her 2nd child named Yoga.
Over the years she studied many aspects of holistic healing at School of Healing Arts in San Diego, to include several types of bodywork modalities, body reading, wholistic nutrition & hypnotherapy. Many years later she received her Reiki Attunement & became a Reiki Master. After the birth of her 3rd child in 2005, she discovered Bikram Yoga & took her first class.
Although, she had been doing Yoga for years, she knew that there was something special about the Bikram Yoga series. After developing her Bikram Yoga practice for many years, being a massage therapist/bodyworker & full time mother to 3 very wonderful boys, fate would open a door, giving her the space to embark on a path to becoming a Bikram hot yoga instructor. In 2011, she completed the 9 week intense, onsite training in Los Angeles & became certified in teaching the series.
Currently, you can find Charlene residing in sunny Florida. If she’s not teaching Bikram or Yin yoga, you can find her working as a Holistic Health Practitioner providing massage therapy specializing in connective tissue release & body/mind life coaching sessions within her community. She also assists her husband Josh with his many massage therapy & yoga educational events throughout the country.