I'm İlayda — a movement teacher based in Berlin.

I don’t have a background in dance, ballet or gymnastics. I was stiff for most of my life. Yoga was the first thing that changed that: after years of forward folds, I touched my toes for the first time, and it felt like a door opening — not because touching your toes matters, but because I'd assumed my body simply didn't do that.

Then I stalled. Yoga alone wasn't going to take me further, and I didn't want to keep hoping for progress. So I went looking for the actual method: flexibility and mobility classes, contortion training, private coaches, years of understanding how change in a body really works.

Now I teach flexibility, mobility, and Pilates in Berlin and online — mostly to people who start where I started. The ones who want a first forward fold, a first wheel, a back that survives a desk day.

What I believe hasn't changed since that first toe touch: you're more capable than you think, and the point was never the pose. It's what you learn about yourself getting there.