Meet Our Instructors
Nancy Talley, Owner - RYT 200
Nancy began her yogic journey in 1997 while working in the Los Angeles fashion industry. To relieve stress and insomnia she explored Kundalini and Restorative classes but soon found Vinyasa to be her calling. She attended the White Lotus Foundation to study under Ganga White and Tracey Rich for her 200 RYT. Currently on the path to her 500 RYT Nancy has been studying Yin Yoga and has completed the Self-Awakening Yoga Therapeutics Teacher Training under Don Stapleton.
Nancy reminds her students to work with compassion towards themselves and to stop and enjoy the journey rather than focus on the final pose they are trying to achieve. She purchased Soaring Spirit Yoga Studio in 2010 and hopes to continue to serve the growing yoga community in Prince William County and surrounding areas.
“When we see that the cosmos is rippling with change, it is difficult to conceive of anything that does not change.” –Paramahansa Yogananda
Summer Kiser, Founder - RYT 200
Melissa Sistoza - RYT 200
Melissa Sistoza is a 200RYT, a Prenatal Yoga Certified Teacher, as well as has trained in Self-Awakening Therapeutics Yoga and is always supplementing her education with workshops and reading. Melissa first began her practice as a way to de-stress from the responsibilities of new motherhood. Several years later she’s still committed to a regular practice, but found it has become much more than a de-stressor, it’s her way of life. Melissa draws on inspiration from various methods of yoga that continue to influence her teaching and day to day living. She follows the Eight Limb Path of Pantanjali as a basic guideline for raising self awareness and a compassionate lifestyle. This she believes is the underlying process of connecting to eternal grace and total liberation of the Self.
Sophia Brock - RYT 200
Sophia took her first yoga class in 2004 to see what this “yoga” thing was all about and was instantly in love with the sense of peace that yoga brought to her and has continuously taken classes since.
Sophia completed her 200 hour Interdisciplinary Holistic Yoga Alliance certified Teacher Training at Pure Prana of Old Towne Alexandria in December of 2008 and YoKid (www.yokid.org) teacher training January 2009. She will forever consider herself a “student” because there is so much to learn regarding this ancient practice that teaches you peace, calmness, stability, harmony and healthy thinking and living.
Sophia has taken workshops with Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, Seane Corne, Cyndi Lee, Patricia Walden, Dinabandhu Sarley and Alanna Kaivalya. She will continue to enhance her training via attending yoga classes, conferences, workshops, Yoga videos and reading/studying yoga related materials. Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize!
Johanna Seltzer - RYT 200
Johanna has been practicing yoga for 10 years. After years of study and teaching dance, she immersed herself in Vinyasa and Iyengar styles of yoga, later broadening to include Ashtanga, Jivamukti, and Anusara. A lifelong mover, the focus of yoga changed her, bringing awareness and compassion to an otherwise hectic life. Johanna is eager to share this discovery and help others achieve balance in their lives. She is a 2009 graduate of the holistic yoga teacher certification program at Pure Prana Yoga Studio, currently teaching at Soaring Spirit Yoga Studio, Mt. Vernon Athletic Club, Mt. Vernon Recreation Center, and YoKid.
Francie Trainor - RYT 200
Francie began practicing yoga seven years ago as a complement to her dancing, an extension of her meditation practice with a strong focus on Tantra. She completed her 200 hr RYT training in Vinyasa Yoga in October 2010 through YogaFit. Francie plans to continue studying toward her 500hr RYT over the next two to three years to further deepen her practice. She seeks to promote wellness, a deep sense of well-being and confidence in her students, patiently encouraging growth, healing, unabashed creativity and joyful self-acceptance.
She also teaches Classical and Folkloric Egyptian Belly-dance, improvisational dance classes, Meditation, and Meditative Art.
"Who loves, loves love, and loving love, forms a circle so complete, there is no end to love." St. Bernard
Kathy Brobst - RYT 200
Kathy has been working in the fitness industry for 14 years, beginning her career as a certified group exercise and pilates instructor. She began her yogic journey when she began teaching BodyFlow, a combination of yoga, tai chi and pilates. Kathy was diagnosed with advanced degenerative disc disease and a heriated disc and doctors offered her only pain pills and cortisone shots. Kathy increased her yoga practice and today is pain free thanks to the healing power of yoga not only physically but mentally and spiritually. Kathy completed her 200 RYT yoga teacher training through YogaFit. Kathy’s goal is to share her joy of yoga with others and offer them hope in any difficult situation. Her passion for yoga helps her see that together as a community, we can make the world just a little kinder, one class at a time.
Marilyn Peppers-Citizen - RYT 200
Marilyn has been involved in the fitness industry since 1991 teaching at military installations in Virginia, Georgia and New Mexico. Her love of yoga began when a friend invited her to a YogaFit workshop in 1997. She went on to take several other workshops and has practiced on her own. In 2010 she traveled to Arizona to complete her 200 RYT at the Yahweh Yoga Christian Teaching Academy (www.yahwehyoga.com). Marilyn teaches a class dedicated to invigorate, challenge, or relax the participants depending on the student's needs. She is passionate about her personal growth and education, enabling others to experience mind, body, and soul health through the practice of yoga.
Kodi Campbell
Kodi, a native of Oregon, graduated from Oregon State University in 1999 and has lived in Idaho, Mississippi and California before moving to Virginia. She has been practicing yoga since 2002 and earned her Yoga Alliance RYT 200 hour certification in 2006. Kodi teaches beginning yoga, power yoga, vinyasa, prenatal and yin styles. She also holds an AFAA Group Fitness Instructor certification and Pilates Mat I & II certificates from Balanced Body University. Kodi has three children, ages four and under, and enjoys spending any free time she has traveling, camping, scuba diving, white water rafting, and participating in road races and triathlons.
Graise Lee Jenni - RYT 200
Graise has come to us highly recommended by her beloved teacher, Dharma Richards (yogagardennc.com). Graise teaches a fast moving vinyasa flow, with each practice focused on a topic that she hopes will help her students take their yoga out into the world. She believes that each practice should be a meditation and an offering, but also a place of learning.
In the outside world, Graise is a Wildlife Systems Ecologist, working towards her PhD in Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at NCSU. She works with endangered species, specifically birds. Graise and her husband have 4 cats, 1 snake, and 2 little brothers between them. Her favorite place to be is roaming around in the woods, tromping through streams, or walking on beaches adding birds to her life list with her best buddy, a Catahoula Leopard Hound named Ace.
Substitutes
Kelly Christopher-O'Brien - RYT 200
Kelly grew up on the South Side of Chicago in a close knit community of family and friends who she is still very close to. After high school she lived in New Zealand for a year on exchange, which sharpened her already present sense of independence and gave her a new perspective with which to view her life in Chicago upon her return. Having caught the travel bug she became a flight attendant which allowed her access to any location that peaked her attention and she traveled extensively. Her husband and she met serendipitously through mutual friends and have lived in at least 5 cities in the last 8 years and visited countless others together. Throughout this time Yoga has been something that has evolved for her from a healthy activity to an involving and introspective part of her life. Kelly has reached a point in her practice where she now wants to share what she understands Yoga to be. In teaching she hopes to grow her understanding through interactions with those who choose to practice with her. By sharing the gift of Yoga she hopes to bring awareness in life of the lessons and practices of Yoga. Enabling one to create a life of balance, strength and flexibility both physically and spiritually. Kelly is a graduate of the Pure Prana Holistic Teacher Training program.
Mina Habibi - RYT 200
Mina has been practicing yoga for 10 years and teaching yoga for 8 years. She is a Registered Yoga Teacher at the 200 hour level and completed her teacher training through the Pure Prana Holistic Teacher Training program.
What started as a simple curiosity has turned into a way of life. Mina is constantly in awe at the power of yoga and hopes to spread the word as far and as wide as possible. Mina incorporates chanting, mudra, the Yoga Sutras, the chakras plus more to elevate and inspire students to go deeper within themselves and discover and awaken to their true nature. She strives to make her classes safe and effective as well as fun, light hearted and full of variety.
Mina works as a graphic designer for a family of human services non-profits and in her spare time dabbles in photography, jewelry making and other fun arts and crafts. She stays present with her daily photo blog at shininglotus.blogspot.com and shares her humble home with her wonderful husband and best friend, Shawn and three wacky cats, Lucy, Lenny and Tiki.
Knowing that the prize is in the process, Mina continues to learn, study and evolve as a yogi and a yoga teacher on this fabulous and wondrous journey.
Cristina Kuhn - RYT 200
Cristina has been actively practicing yoga for four years, although yoga has been a part of her for most of her life. After graduating from Pure Prana Yoga Studio's Teacher Training Program, she became a RYT 200 with The Yoga Alliance. She is inspired daily by the everyday joys of life and truly believes, "The joy of life, the happiness of life, is in balance." - Yogi Bhajan
Paula Giammarco - RYT 200
Paula graduated from Pure Prana’s Holistic Teacher Training program in 2008 and is registered at the 200 hour level with Yoga Alliance. As a dancer and avid mover she stumbled into a yoga class about 10 years ago in Minneapolis and after many classes with different teachers and styles she felt something shift inside. It was when her practice shifted from primarily physical to spiritual that she experienced her first “aha” moment a yoga practice offers. In her classes, she encourages students to ride the breath, explore the movement and observe the mind. Her classes are slow-flowing but intense, creative but safe, challenging but never competitive…with a little philosophy slipped in to take with you on your journey.
She moved to the Alexandria area in 2005 and continues to be an active part of D.C.’s modern dance community performing with CCP Dance Company since 2007. She has a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Minnesota, is trained in Laban Movement Analysis/BF and is employed with Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services division. On and off the mat she strives to find the connections between movement and breath, head to heart and feet to core for herself and for her students.