UNGUARDED LIFE is a project by Christian Marti. Yes, I am that guy on the picture above.
I am a Swiss explorer of breath, sound, and movement based in Ecuador and Switzerland. Wherever I am, I create experiences based on my passion for Tantra, Yoga, breathwork, music, dance, bodywork, and writing.
If I had to put a date to the beginning of my journey towards an unguarded life, it would be Friday, the 3rd of March 2017. I lived in Amsterdam at the time, and went through a deep dark crisis. And somehow decided it was time to jump off a cliff. But without the actual cliff. Instead, I googled “Tantra” and signed up for the first workshop that resonated; it was “Four Pillars of Tantra” by House of Tantra. It was evening, and I had to walk a couple of minutes from the bus stop through the forest to reach our retreat house in Meeuwenveen. I am not normally scared of the dark, but in these few minutes, I felt my whole body as tense as it ever was. So much fear, so much resistance. To keep walking, to enter the house, to say “Hi!”, to jump off that edge, that forever changed my life. Since then, I am on a quest to learn how to live an unguarded life.
I am deeply curious about life. About what moves people, about how you live your life, about what I can experience in my body, about how things work, about connections, about why I feel the way I feel, about transformation, healing, acceptance, self-love. I love to dance without following set steps. And I feel that is the way to live my life, too: To follow the music, trust my instinct, feel in my body what is right and what is not. On this page, I write and share about all this and about projects in my life, in different forms.
I have attended various workshops and courses in Breathwork, Sexual Healing, Tantra, Massage, Yoga, and Men’s Work. As described above, this journey started in March 2017, with “Four Pillars of Tantra” by House of Tantra (Estera Saraswati and Zenon D. Dorje), and their work has influenced me profoundly. I have returned to them in September 2017 for the Sexual Healing intensive “Phoenix Rising” and participated in a “New Year’s Dream Manifestation” retreat in India with Estera at the end of the same year. The spring of 2017 was an intense period: I also participated in the workshop “Tantra Pleasure and Healing” in Ängsbacka facilitated by Lorenzo Stiernquist, and in a Dark Tantra / Shibari workshop in a castle in France led by Kristina Marlen. And I started a deep journey with my brothers at the ManKind Project; my Initiation was in March 2017, and I have since staffed at three initiations and attended numerous men’s circles. I love to explore touch, and my massages are largely intuitive. However, I also explored it in a more systematic manner: In March 2018, I attended a sport massage course at Xund am Zoo, as well as the Tantra Massage course “Sensual & Healing 1” with Elana Andermatt, both in Zurich.
In November / December 2018, I attended two Spiritual Sexual Shamanic Trainings of the International School of Temple Arts (ISTA) in the Valle Sagrado in Peru. Throughout the year 2019, I took part in the Path of Awakening year-training by Wild Tantra in the Netherlands. And in October 2019, I started my training as a practitioner of the BioDynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release System ® (BBTRS) – which I will complete mid-2023.
From January - March 2019, I spent 7 weeks at Durga’s Tiger School near Quito, Ecuador, for a deep dive into Tantra, Yoga, and Shamanism. And I learned to teach the Kaula Tantra Yoga series and got my 300-hour Yoga Teacher certification. In November 2019, I co-founded Kaula Yoga Zurich and started to teach the series in regular classes. At the beginning of 2020, I returned to Ecuador and extended my teacher training to 500 hours (and I am now a RYT-500). In February of 2020, I became part of Durga’s Tiger School faculty, and I taught Kaula Tantra Yoga, meditation, and Tantra Wisdom and lead singing circles online and at our location in Ecuador until August 2020. Now, I am bringing Durga’s Tiger School to Switzerland.
In 2023, I was participating in the Nativ Group Facilitator Yearly Training Course, held by Shachar Caspi, Arynn Dvir, and Araminta Barbour.
Since 2021, I offer transformative events together with my partner, Carmen. Our digital home is called FULLY ALIVE.
I also hold a BSc in Architecture, an MSc in Spatial Development and Infrastructure Systems, and a PhD in Transport Engineering, all from ETH Zurich. I offer services related to transportation and land use planning with my company marti raum+verkehr (in German). I also occasionally write about public transport, walking, cycling, and the space between buildings, e.g. on the LITRA blog (in German). I am excited to participate in progressive transport and planning projects. Or just to hear about them. If you are interested in my research, my PhD thesis might be a good place to start.