About Coco
The Guru is within
Coco's influences are broad, integrating teachings from various styles and teachers, including Sufis, Shamans and healers of varied paths. Her greatest inspiration, however, comes from within. Coco teaches that we are intuitively guided when we quiet down and listen.
Nicole Daignault, a.k.a. Coco, did her first yoga practice in her early 20's and knew that her life would be different. From the age of 13, when she was diagnosed with having scoliosis (a curvature and rotation of the spine) as well as a leg-length discrepancy, Nicole has experienced acute and chronic bouts of pain. She felt a pain-free bliss after that first yoga practice, and she began the physical and mental journey of body consciousness control, and she remains ever grateful for the great wisdom and compassion she has gained due to the imbalances in her own body. The successful sequences, methods, and lifelong efforts she's benefited from are her joy to share with others.
In 1999 Nicole made her first trip to the source of yoga: Mother India. She did her Teacher Training under the guidance of Sunil Kumar, of the Yoga Training Center and was certified by the All India Yoga Society. For many years, she travelled the world, practicing and teaching yoga in the Himalayas, on top of pyramids and on island beaches. As her love of yoga and her understanding and fascination of the body grew, Nicole became a Myomassologist and subsequently spent a year in Thailand learning Thai massage as well as shamanic healing practices.
Today Nicole is a mother of two children and a well-known, sought-after yoga teacher not only in her home town of Windsor, Ontario, Canada but also internationally (contact Coco directly for information on travel and yoga abroad!). She inspires people with her knowledge, passion, love and nurturing. Her classes assist and challenge both beginners and adepts. They open the body, heart and mind. Unique and authentic, her teachings integrate bits and pieces of wisdom cultivated over years and miles, but mostly from the rewriting of her own physical story with her intuitive practice.
Nicole believes that no matter what brings one to yoga, whether a desire for less physical pain or increased mental clarity, a dedicated practitioner is already free.
While Nicole’s classes ground, strengthen and relieve the physical body, awareness of the astral body is awakened as well as other subtler aspects of the practice. Proper breathing, proper posture, meditation, chakra awareness, increased agni,and concentration on AUM are emphasized. All while having fun!
Over the years people have come to know Nicole as a teacher who can give unique guidance to each individual, based on particular needs. She has taught workshops on yoga for people in wheelchairs and has taught caregivers how to alleviate their clients' pain through ASSISTED YOGA techniques. Classes for the very elderly as well as classes for pregnant women, mommies and babies, and kids yoga have been a few of her specialties. In August of 2012, Nicole was inspired by a young woman with Down syndrome who participated in a private group class. Since then, she has taught Modified Yoga to numerous individuals with various physical as well as intellectual disabilities (see the Modified Classes icon for schedule of current classes).The community has rallied around these classes and Nicole has been written about in The Windsor Star, has given several interviews for the cjam.fm radio program called "HandiLink". See the MEDIA RELEASES icon for links to these.