BIG OM YOGA RETREAT SUMMER LEADERS
We are super excited to have an amazing line-up of talented instructors and teachers to lead the Big Om Yoga Retreat. Read below to learn more about the wonderful humans who will be leading each experience.
Hailey Boswell and Joe Picorale
Hailey first started doing yoga in college for the physical benefits it offered, but it didn’t take long before she felt the change yoga was making in her heart and mind as well as the body. Yoga helped her deal with the stress of working her way through college in a positive way, and continues to do so. She discovered a new sense of love for herself and others, which she had never felt before. Yoga invites her true authentic self to shine through, and allows her to feel more confident in everything she does. Hailey received her 200-hour teacher certification from Everyone Yoga School in May 2016. She teaches a vinyasa flow style class and enjoys teaching all types of classes ranging from soft, medium, to powerful.
Joe began practicing yoga in 2010 and is a RYT 200. He was one of the original founders of the I AM Yoga Festival in the fall of 2010 and opened the first Be Love Yoga Studio in 2013. With the help of the growing #belovecommunity at Be Love Yoga Studio Joe has since expanded with a second studio in Downtown Jenks America and two franchised studios in Bristow, OK and Owasso, OK. Joe's passion is connecting people and creating the framework for a community that will change the world. Joe is the creator of the Big Om Yoga Retreat and teaches regularly at Be Love Yoga Studio Tulsa.
Derek J. Smith, Certified Wim Hof Instructor
Derek enjoyed his fiery youth in the California sunshine and eclectic culture of the San Francisco Bay Area. Looking for a connection with his father and seeking a geographical change, he moved to Oklahoma at 18 which began his search into the fields of Martial arts, fitness, personal development, and human behavior for 20 years. In 2017 he received his certification with The Wim Hof Method along with 200 hours of Yoga Teacher Training and other human movement modalities. He currently is focused on serving others and does that through personal training and The Wim Hof Method. Derek’s intention is to be useful and to allow Life to play him like an instrument dropping all expectations. He and his wife, Alyssa, are currently opening a business to bring physical wellbeing and mental resiliency to more people via strength training, Yoga and The Wim Hof Method. You can find Derek at Submerge Tulsa.
Sheena Dressel, Evolved Being
Sheena is the creator of Evolved Being, integrative mental health coach, yogi, writer, and human. She offers a wide range of modalities, experiences, and tools in order to aide others in their own personal growth. Ultimately, she is there for others as a support system so that they can realize their dreams. She is a certified hypnotherapist, life coach, yoga practitioner, and reiki master.
TJ Hoopes, Tucker James Music
Born and raised in the desert of Las Vegas, TJ began creating music at the age of 15, found the love and healing through vibration and frequency and began to record and release music stemming from personal experience. Tucker James Music continues to grow, learn, and share all types of music with the intention to spread awareness of everyone's individual birth right for complete liberation and the choice to spread love. His new album “Elemental Freedom” just dropped June 2021! Definitely give it a listen exclusively at www.tuckerjamesmusic.Bandcamp.com Enjoy yourself, enjoy others, and enjoy life! Follow on Instagram and Facebook for tour updates and new music!! @tuckerjamesmusicandyoga Live out loud and check out the music: https://linktr.ee/Tuckerjamesmusicandyoga
Misty Love, Acrolove Certified
Misty Love is a certified AcroLove Instructor and Event Coordinator in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She first encountered acro shortly after coming out of a 15 year abusive marriage. What she discovered was an activity and community that promoted healing on many different levels. Acro helped her learn how to develop trust with other human beings as they lifted her up and supported her both figuratively and literally. Along with presenting opportunities to improve communication skills, Acro also provided her with fun filled ways to become more athletic while enjoying non sexual human touch that we all need to thrive in our daily lives. She views acro as powerful healing tool and confidence booster. Misty became an instructor and continues to sharpen her skills so that she could help spread the passion, love, and joy of Acro with you.
Tiffany Tran, RYT 200, TIYT
In 2016, I received my 200 hours of yoga certification at Everyone Yoga School. Other certifications I have obtained are Level 2 trauma-informed yoga therapy, 40 hours of yin yoga, 20 hours of Hip Hop Hatha, Usui Reiki levels I and II, and I am ordained. Currently, I am working towards my 300-hour Kundalini certification.
I believe that yoga is a journey and that the act of practicing together creates community. I have taught at several other facilities and organizations. Regardless if you practiced for one day or fifty years, I aim to create an environment that allows you to work towards the best version of yourself. While I provide guidance, it is up to you to encourage, push, and respect the boundaries of your own body. Through different periods in my life, yoga provided a space to push myself mentally, physically, and spiritually. I hope that during my classes you experience your moments of personal enlightenment. Much Metta.
Caitlin Bullock, Shamanic Sound Healer
Caitlin Bullock is the only Indoor Disciple of Sifu David Vidato. Attaining the rank of White Sash (the first ever in our schools history) and earning the honorable tittle Shijie, which translates to "Big Sister", Shijie Caitlin has wholeheartedly dedicated her time and energies to growing her skills in Vidato Family Martial Arts & Shamanic Healing Arts.
Kyndal Saverse
Kyndal Saverse is a dancer, gardener, lover, shaker, writer, reader, and conscious consumer. She currently teaches 7th & 8th grade Science at Eureka Springs Middle School. “I love giving students permission to be themselves while also taking full responsibility for their learning.” Kyndal gives enormous credit for her resiliency in teaching due to her background in yogic philosophies.
Kyndal obtained her 500 RYT at Yoga Deza Institute in Fayetteville. She has been teaching Osho Dynamic Meditation since 2019. She holds space for dance forms such as 5rhythms, ecstatic dance, and contact improv. In her free time, she finds self love through reading & writing with a cappuccino in hand.
Shelby Thomas, Founder of Balanced Bodies
Shelby started Massage Therapy in 2007 and Yoga in 2008. She traveled with her practice coast-to-coast and found her roots in Tulsa, OK, where she established Balanced Bodies in 2013. She has trained and partnered with several area gyms, professional sports teams, fitness professionals, and doctors who share her vision for optimal conditioning, health, and wellness through Yoga and Massage therapy.
Shelby takes a therapeutic approach to self-care, fitness, athletics, and pain management with Massage Therapy and Yoga. She specializes in neuromuscular therapy and deep tissue massage as well as an integrative and practical style of Yoga. She studied with Jill Miller, founder of Yoga Tune Up®, and the Roll Model Method®, to combine Yoga and Massage as a way to encourage clients to practice healing themselves with an emphasis on proprioception, mobility, body mechanics, and recovery.
Shelby is a wife, mother, homeschooler, business owner, massage therapist, yoga teacher, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner, blogger, anatomy nerd, and busy body. She has found how to love and care for each and every client, student, and follower by tuning in and creating balance for herself through self-care, massage, and yoga.
Nicole Peltier Hall, Owner of The Yoga Room
Nicole Peltier studied at Mount Madonna Center in the Santa Cruz mountains of California in 2000. She and Tom Tobias opened The Yoga Room in 2001. Her classes are creative and inclusive, all students seem to benefit and enjoy her style of teaching. She enjoys combining music of all kinds with her flow yoga classes and has been using live music to take her class experience to the next level. She also loves teaching beginners and mellow stretch classes. Most of her classes are powerful and energetic, so be prepared to go the distance.
Sue Webb, RYT 200, TIYT
With over 20 years of practicing yoga, Sue is a passionate and devoted instructor of yoga, who is proficient in the art of movement. She is excited to incorporate her dance background into the traditional elements of yoga to present a fun and healthy learning experience for students of all levels.
Sue has been an athlete all her life; dancing and tumbling starting at 5 years old then transitioning to team sports in middle and high school. When not practicing or studying yoga, she enjoys hiking, kayaking, circuit training, and gardening.
Certifications:
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RYT 200 hr training through Everyone Yoga School
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Trauma-Informed Yoga Training Levels I and II, Sundara Yoga School
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Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher Training, School of Positive Transformation
Forever a student of yoga, there is much more she still aspires to learn. She believes through the connection of mind, body, and breath, we can live happier and healthier lives.
Kate Bryan from Veg Out Tulsa
Kate found her passion for cooking as a deep meditative practice a decade ago. She has been vegan for a little under 6 years and by living out her own truth she is now been able to share food as medicine with her community. She has education in nutrition, and a deep dedication to serving others. She studied yoga in Newport Beach, CA in 2019 and teaches locally when she isn’t at the farmers market or whipping up goodness in the kitchen! She strives to bring her two worlds together as her company “Veg Out Tulsa” organically formed; starting in a local yoga studio as a meal prep professional in an Ayurvedic medicine cleanse under a practitioner. From there she has taken off with weekly mason jar meal prep menus, multiple local business caterings, BE LOVES 8th birthday celebration, and now on to her favorite niche- catering yoga retreats. She believes mind, body, and soul is the beautiful trifecta we should always be striving to nourish. Having these two passions intertwine has allowed her to live out her dreams and step into purpose. “My purpose is rooted in food medicine. I found this in a very organic way and as a yoga instructor, I believe it is essential in our practice to fuel our bodies with beautiful nutrition from the earth. I’m so excited to share this space with each of you, and strive to make your tummies and hearts happy! “
Megan Burnett, Owner of 405 Yoga in OKC
A devoted dancer and athlete her whole life, Megan has a passion for movement and sharing the joy and the balance that dancing and yoga both guide us to. In 2006, after dabbling in a few 'gym yoga' classes, she took her first studio class with an instructor who actually touched her and helped align her properly into a pose. She was hooked and immediately started to see a transformation in her dance training and her life. Seeking to also empower others with the tools to find balance within themselves, she acquired her 220 hour Kunga Yoga teaching certification in 2011 and has now earned the distinction of E-RYT 200 and YACEP. She studies and teaches a wide variety of yoga: hatha, vinyasa, power flow, The Rocket, yin, restorative, prenatal, gentle, sahaja dance flow, yoga for athletes, yoga for dancers, and more. She is passionate about teaching healthy alignment and yoga 'from the ground up', hands-on alignment, and creating classes that are both playful and soulful, drawing both beginners and experienced practitioners alike. Her students like to call this 'yummy yoga'! Her Studio: 405 Yoga
David Vidato, Owner of Vidato Family Tai Chi
Born into an American Buddhist family, receiving his first Buddhist/Reiki Initiation from his mother at age 8, David practiced various forms of Bhakti & Raja Yoga since early childhood. His journey to become an instructor of the martial art of Tai Chi Chuan and the healing art of Hatha Yoga, started with his introduction to the Chinese Martial Art of Kwan Yin Temple Kung Fu in 1986. From ages 12 to 18, David studied under his beloved teacher, Grandmaster Chan Siu Duk, until shortly after his death. David then enlisted in the U.S. Army Military Police Corp, where he specialized in Military Martial Arts. After leaving the military to pursue his soul aligned dreams as a healer, David moved to Oklahoma City and graduated from a 3-year Tai Chi Black Sash/Instructor Training program, Massage Therapy School and spent 18 Years of specialized training in Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki & Padmakumara Tibetan Reiki to attain the rank of Reiki Shihan (Master Teacher). Having attended various yoga classes over the years to deal with injuries from military service and martial arts fights, David met his Yoga Teacher Desirae Penton in 2020 and graduated the Dragon Yoga 200hr YTT in October of 2021. David is currently enrolled in Dragon's 300hr YTT and is very excited to bring the dynamic art of Tai Chi to Natural Native Wellness!
Frank-Danny Vekas, RYT 200
An adventurer in adult life for many years, I understand what it’s like to compete in intense, exciting industries, and to feel pulled in different directions by career, art, spirituality, family, and fun. Finding the right balance in the endeavor of adulting can be a hard thing to pull off. Adulting, like medicine and yoga, is a practice. Early in life, I was drawn towards the cerebral aspects of raja yoga, yet it was many years before I experienced the physical vinyasa and then many more before I felt called to share the gift of yoga with others through Yoga Teacher Training with Life Power Yoga.
Like all others on the path of life, I needed a way to calm down, slow down, and enjoy life more fully. There was a nagging, yearning undercurrent of emptiness anchored to my striving. I needed to connect with something deep and heartfelt, a source of meaning and joy.
The practice of yoga and meditation has provided me with the insight that everything I need is within, (understanding, patience, love, and peace) waiting to be called upon. Yoga provides me the opportunities to find physical stillness and internal quiet, both of which have been not only extremely difficult to acquire but are extremely beneficial to my ability to recharge, to re-set, to combobulate if you will. Yoga is not a panacea that fixes all problems; however, yoga can provide opportunities for individuals to listen to the whispers of the mind, body, environment, and energy, thus allowing more appropriate action to take place. Yoga helps make my life more vibrant, peaceful, and easier to handle day by day.
The simple techniques I guide you towards can help you do that too. A sincere yoga and meditation practice can energize your creative endeavors while also keeping you regulated, even at the center of the storm. Who knows you might even get a good stretch if you are ready?
I hope you will allow me to guide you on your journey to a more meaningful lifestyle.
Jillian Acrotribe, Owner of Tribe Circus Arts
Tribe was established in 2017 and started off with just one aerial class per week. Jillian rented space out of a dance studio and started to advertise her business with aerial photography and dynamic classes. By the end of 2019 classes were growing and Tribe needed it’s own space so that they could offer more than just weekend classes. In May 2020, right at the brink of COVID-19 Tribe moved into their own space and through the dedication of our students and instructors Tribe not only survived but thrived. Tribe focuses on adult students, offering them a space not only to learn aerial but also to find community, an identity, friendships and a place to grow themselves. Many of our students, including our owner, found aerial during a trying time in their adult life. This art allowed them to find freedom, gain confidence, focus and determination, that has helped them succeed not only in the air but also their daily lives. Tribe is not just a studio, it’s a place of restoration, it is a community that accepts you right where you’re at in life.