YOGA TEACHER TRAINING
The Salt and Light Coalition Yoga Teacher Training is a rigorous 200 hour Yoga Alliance Certified Program where participants in the HEAL program learn how to teach yoga. Through our partnership with Holy Yoga, our participants also have the choice of becoming Holy Yoga Certified Teachers. Please do not apply to take part in our teacher training program as it is limited to participants of the HEAL program.
Course Breakdown:
• Techniques, Training and Practice with Lead trainers Izabel Olson and Alexia Bauer: 75 Hours
• Yoga Philosophy: 20 hours
• Anatomy & Physiology with Dominika: 20 Hours Teaching Methodology: 15 hours
• Teaching Vulnerable Populations: 25 hours
• Yoga Marketing and Business with Jessica Mitchell : 6 hours
Non contact hours:
• Reading and Journaling Anatomy Book: Functional Anatomy of Yoga by David Keil (total: 10 Hours)
• Reading and Journaling Teaching methodology book: Holy Yoga by Brooke Boon (10 hours)
• Reading Training and Practice Books: Hatha Yoga Illustrated by Martin Kirk, The Breathing Book, How can I practice Christian Meditation by Joel R. Beeke (25 hours)
• Yoga Lifestyle: Seva and Service (20 hours)
OUR TRAINERS:
Izabel Olson
PhD.; 200 e-ryt, M-HYI, YACEP, Kids Holy Yoga Trainer and Instructor
Izabel Olson, PhD, 200 E-RYT, is the founder and director of Salt and Light Coalition. Izabel stumbled into yoga in her native Brazil and fell in love instantly because the practice reminded her of dance, an art form she was passionate about, but had long been forced to forget due to an injury. During a trip to India to deepen her yogic studies, she became conflicted with her faith and yoga passion. After almost quitting yoga, she found Holy Yoga ministries which allowed her to combine her passion for yoga and her love for God. Olson was born and raised in Brazil and brings latin rhythms and movement developed deep in the streets of Rio, to create a well rounded and fun yoga practice. Izabel was a professional dancer and is currently an enthusiastic Holy Yogi and Ashtangi. Her classes are grounded in the traditional techniques of the Ashtanga method and in the grace and love of faith, while playing with the freedom of Latin movement. Always focused on a trauma-informed practice, Izabel has taught Holy Yoga at the Cook County Jail, at the Vine, an after school program for low income youth, and at the Dream center Chicago, a residence program for trafficked women. Izabel is currently serving at Salt and Light Coalition, while simultaneously being part of the Holy Yoga Leadership team, and a course instructor for their level 3 Kids Holy Yoga program. Izabel is passionately dedicated to promoting the use of faith, yoga, meditation, and pranayama as pathways to healing and empowerment.
Izabel’s Yoga Certifications: 200 e-ryt | 500 hr yoga teacher training (at present) | M-HYI (Master Holy Yoga Instructor) | Trauma Sensitive Holy Yoga Instructor | Kids Holy Yoga Instructor Trainer | Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider (YACEP) | Yin Yoga certified
Alexia Bauer
500 E-RYT | Lead Trainer
Alexia’s first encounter with yoga was a playful one. As a five-year-old she would walk around the house on her knees in lotus posture, mimicking the photos she found in a yoga book in her grandfather’s library. The book disappeared but the inspiration remained in the back of her mind. Seventeen years later, Alexia realized that she couldn’t deny her hunger to learn the practice of yoga: she left Guatemala, her home country, and moved to Chicago to start her teacher training. Alexia’s first influence was Kino MacGregor, one of the few certified Ashtanga teachers in the country. Kino’s inspiration helped Alexia discover that her heart is in the Ashtanga yoga practice. Alexia practiced for six years under the guidance of Todd Boman, who supported her practice and taught her faith and dedication with his own shining example. She apprenticed with Todd in the mysore classes and learned how to teach the method. In July 2012 Alexia went to Mysore, India for the first time and studied for six weeks under the guidance of Sharath Jois at the Jois Institute where Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga was first codified. In 2013 she got a 200-hour certification from Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor at the Yoga Workshop in Boulder, Colorado.
Alexia teaches, the mysore program at Yogaview, Chicago, corporate and private classes, and she volunteers and helps with the teacher training program at Salt & Light Coalition. She has found daily practice to be profoundly transformative, calming, and empowering. As a teacher, Alexia inspires students to persevere, with enthusiasm, and share in these benefits.
Dominika Malinowska
“My wish is to grow, my wish is only to grow, and whatever else happens can happen.” The words of Swami Rudrananda define my approach to yoga practice; it can be playful but also exposes layers of self that are uncomfortable to face.
As a chiropractic physician, exercise specialist and a yoga teacher, I have an extensive background in movement therapy and anatomy. I had a privilege to teach human sciences to doctoral students, massage therapists and movement specialists. I have been facilitating yoga classes, teacher trainings and workshops for over 10 years.
When I am not treating patients or lecturing, I enjoy walks with my spoiled puppy, great food and exploring the world with my husband and baby!
Jessica Mitchell
M-HYT, 200 RYT | Yoga business and Marketing
Jessica Mitchell, chef turned yogini, has harnessed the entrepreneurial spirit she has had for years. Among her multifaceted career in the culinary industry for almost 20 years, she owned and operated a cafe and catering business for four years. Throughout the years of leading teams, she turned to yoga as a means to soothe the laborious aches from the long hours in the kitchen, and has been a practitioner for 15 years.
As her love for yoga grew, Jessica felt called to become an instructor and completed her Holy Yoga teacher training in 2016. She has since went on to complete her 500 HR Masters, trauma sensitive touch training, leadership training, and 200 RYT through Salt and Light.
Her background in business has translated to the self care industry and opened Living Divina Yoga and Fitness Studio in late 2016. She has utilized this space to build community, hold space for those in need of healing, and host various workshops. Jessica has been an active volunteer for Salt and Light since the fall of 2017 and has bridged together her two passions for the purpose of using yoga as a tool for healing and teaching culinary skills as a means to introduce nutrition, for the ladies in the cohorts.
As a committed volunteer, her newest role has been to teach the cohorts what it means to use your mission as your vision and harness the power of your story to integrate into your business or ministry. In turn, marketing strategies are taught to cast their vision, utilize their yoga instructor certification, and be able to structure a class to teach as a means of income.
Alison Cox
YOGA TEACHER / TRAINER VOLUNTEER
Alison, a Texan native for over 30 years, recently moved to Chicago in early 2018, and has fallen in love with the people she has met and summertime in Chicago!
Alison began her yoga practice in 2010 after encouragement from her therapist to focus on a mind-body-breath experience to respond to years of anxiety and fearful-driven behavior. Yoga was also a way for her to reconnect with her roots of conscious body control and movement from many years spent in competitive gymnastics and cheerleading. Past injuries and an emotionally draining job at the time brought lingering physical and emotional stress levels to a new high which led to frequent time spent on a yoga mat. After just only a year of practicing, she began to feel physical pain release from her body and along the way she discovered a new way to associate with meditation and breathwork to embrace life’s gifts rather than be buried by unavoidable stress. She is still relearning this every day!
Five years into practicing she trained with Sunstone Academy in Dallas, TX, for her 200-hour yoga certification, and during that journey, Alison prayed over her dreams of sharing yoga with others, specifically to women and girls in healing and restoration from sex trafficking and exploitation. She has worked with trafficking survivors, professional athletes to prevent injury, and to students inside various studios, churches and corporations, in Dallas and now in Chicago.
Currently, Alison is an E-RYT 200, a Yoga Alliance continuing education provider (YACEP), and a certified Trauma-Sensitive Holy Yoga Instructor. With the inconsistencies of this world, each day and practice bring different challenges, but two things she aims to be consistent with are to be a humble learner and to set an intention each day to glorify her Creator in all she does, on and off the mat.
