Living with painful headaches and joint instability, Cynthia began studying yoga and strength training to improve her own well being in 2003. Wanting to share this same sense of freedom and make yoga accessible to as many people as possible, she received her 200-RYT certification from Feel Your Best (FYB) whose philosophy is the “Person not the Pose.” Upon graduating in 2005, she began teaching a gentle, benefits-oriented teaching style that incorporates Iyengar (alignment), Ashtanga (power), Viniyoga (therapeutic) yoga. Over the last 10+ years, she’s lead alignment-based, accessible yoga classes that balance effort with ease. She encourages conversation, individual discovery as well as ways to personalize the yoga practice. Cynthia’s worked with clients of all fitness levels, abilities, and ages.

Ever inquisitive, she continues her yoga education through personal study, workshops and conferences. She’s certified in Chair Yoga with Stacie Dooreck’s SunLight Yoga and certified in Core Functional Fitness with Hope Zvara. As a certified ACE Personal Trainer, she brings functional movements, postural strength, and healthy range of motion to her yoga classes. As a certified NETA Wellness Coach, she shares ways to add healthy habits and reduce stress in everyday life. She’s also a member of Yoga Alliance.

Cynthia holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in Graphic Design from the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh. Prior to teaching, coaching and consulting full time, she worked in corporate marketing and communication departments in several industries for 23 years.

To give back to the yoga community, for the past 10 years she has donated her service and talents at Yoga Journal Conferences around the USA.

Q&A with Cynthia Akey

Q. How long have you been a yoga teacher?
A. I have been teaching yoga since 2005 and practicing since 2003. But I found my first yoga book when I was 13 and started practicing some of the asanas. It opened a whole new world.

Q. What areas do you specialize in?
A. I specialize in alignment-based practice and have experience teaching gentle, therapeutic, restorative, chair, yin, vinyasa, corporate, yoga for runners/athletes and yoga for beginners.

Q. What brought you to your current style of practice?
A. I came from a place of pain – migraines and joint instability. Being hypermobile, I sought structure and strength and was drawn to Iyengar yoga and its use of props to make it accessible. I am fascinated with intentional energy and breathwork incorporating these into each pose. As I age, my practice continues to evolve to better suit my daily needs.

Q. What can a new student expect?
A. A student can expect to approach each practice with a beginner’s mind and awaken personal “a-ha” moments. I specialize in uncovering the subtleties of asana, pranayama and meditation. In each class, I encourage discussion and offer moments for individual discovery so that each student may make the practice their own. To ensure classes are accessible, we’ll use props – wall, chairs, bolsters, blocks and straps. Mindful modifications and hands-on adjustments will be provided.

Q. What recent industry trends have you found noteworthy?
A. I’ve seen a shift from a practice of personal development and self-reflection to one of action and activism. While yogis are here to inspire health and wellness, we can awaken and transform our hearts, minds and community.

Q. What are your current wellness goals and how are you addressing them?
A. Balancing work and life. Too often we overextend ourselves to do more. Currently, I’m focused on mantra, meditation, pranayama, making time for reflection and some quality sleep.

Q. What is your favorite beautiful spot in Milwaukee?
A. I spent the last few years living in a land-locked city in northern California. I really missed Bradford Beach and Lake Michigan. I love to watch the waves and walk on the sand. It’s a great place to meditate and renew my spirit. I missed the seasons too – so it’s great watching the trees leaves change colors.

Q. What is your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?
A. So much has changed in the past few years while I have been away. It’s been fun to rediscover the Milwaukee area. I really enjoy Blue’s Egg because breakfast is my favorite meal.

Q. What are your top three favorite things to do/hobbies?
A. I love to travel with my husband, spend time with my cat who behaves like a dog, and learn anything. I also enjoy being creative – with food, jewelry, graphic design, and event planning.

Q. What do you do to de-stress?
A. To reduce stress, I visit my “beach” – in person or just visualize it. I like to get some exercise – walking in nature, riding my spin bike, or practicing yoga and pranayama. I’m a fan of old movies and musicals. So a cup of tea and “Hello, Dolly” help me laugh and smile.

Katie is an ACSM Personal Trainer and TRX Level II Trainer. With each client, she has learned that a quality fitness routine carves the path to everything people want in life. More joy? Begin with fitness. More energy? Begin with fitness. Less pain? Begin with fitness. Focus at work? You get the idea! Her philosophy is that improving total wellness will open each client’s life to new opportunities and unimagined successes.

Katie’s energetic, thoughtful and creative approach to designing individual programs comes from an understanding of what it’s like to feel unhealthy. While taking care of others comes naturally, taking care of herself used to settle low on the priority list. Over time, her weight increased as her mind to body connection decreased. It was group fitness classes, yoga and massage that reconnected her to energy, strength and joy! In the five years Katie has been training, her knowledge and connection to fitness has allowed her to move clients toward goals in a way that is specific to their needs.

Katie works with each client to determine individual goals, abilities, experience, available time, budget and desires. She’ll provide positive, creative, focused sessions and integrate ideas for complete wellness into individual training programs. Start today and get to know the joy that movement brings into your life!

Q&A with Katie Hunt
Q. How long have you been a personal trainer?
A. Five incredible years.

Q. What areas do you specialize in?
A. I specialize in making fitness fun. My specialties include bodyweight training and TRX suspension training.

Q. What brought you to your current style of practice?
A. I believe in challenging myself to do things I’m afraid of. Believe it or not, it used to be the gym! Thankfully, when I began taking group fitness and yoga classes, I was welcomed, challenged and pushed in a supportive environment where I made countless new friends and built a better life! I’m here to bring that same experience to each person I cross paths with.

Q. What can a new client expect?
A. New clients can expect a carefully crafted session, an introduction to tools they can use for a lifetime and the satisfaction that comes from feeling strong and successful. Clients can also expect me to hold myself to high standards and be a constant source of up-to-date wellness information.

Q.What recent industry trends have you found most noteworthy?
A. It is incredible to see the fitness industry gearing up to teach people the importance of a mind and body experience. While I can teach anyone to squat, it is in connecting the brain to the muscle that makes the magic happen!

Q. What are your current personal wellness goals and how are you addressing them?
A. My top three goals are to balance high intensity workouts with a restorative practice, be able to do a freestanding handstand and spend seven minutes a day in silence. I attend a minimum of one restorative or yin yoga session per week, practice one or more of my handstand progressions daily and simply unplug my devices and set a timer for seven unplugged minutes in the morning. My planner has a chart to track each goal!

Q. What is your favorite beautiful spot in Milwaukee?
A. I love Atwater Park! The view of our lake, the amazing set of stairs, the quiet beach in the morning and the fun playground all make this my go-to spot for outdoor workouts and relaxing.

Q. What is your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?
A. Beans N Barley is my spot! Variety, local, great people, healthy choices, smart portion sizes and reasonable prices all make this my favorite for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Q. What are your top three favorite things to do/hobbies?
A. Cartwheels, Aerial Yoga and creating simple five ingredient recipes.

Q. What do you do to de-stress?
A. Inversions, reading, acupuncture and thai massage are my top ways to de-stress.

Lauren’s journey with yoga began when she was in college and in need of a physical form of exercise to stay in shape. As her practice evolved over the years, she discovered the life-changing effects that practicing yoga both on and off the mat can have on the mind, body, and soul.

Through yoga and its philosophy, she was inspired to be the best version of herself she could be and found the confidence to follow her heart and intuition to live the life she had always dreamed of. She believes in surrendering to the workings of the universe to find stillness and tranquility in the mind, something that she had struggled with for quite some time in her own life. She is both excited and humbled to be able to share this wisdom and join her students on their journeys with yoga!

Lauren received her 200-Hour YTT certification through the Yandara Yoga Institute in Baja California, Mexico. Here, she studied Hatha Yoga, including Vinyasa Flow, Yin and Restorative, Prenatal, and Kundalini. Each class incorporated meditation, mantra, and a variety of pranayama techniques.

She strives to incorporate the many elements of yoga into each of her classes, making each class memorable and inspiring. Her aim in class is to encourage her students to call attention to their own inner radiance, and to honor this radiance through the connection of breath and movement!

Q&A with Lauren Wein

Q. How long have you been a yoga teacher?
A. I completed my 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training with Yandara Yoga Institute in Baja California, Mexico in June 2019. Here we practiced the many aspects of yoga from sun up to sun down, including participation in satya circles, nightly satsang gatherings, meditation, mantra, and asana practice. My personal practice began in 2013 when I was a freshman at the University of Minnesota, and I have been practicing ever since!

Q. What areas do you specialize in?
A. As a teacher, I specialize in connecting the emotional, energetic, and spiritual body with the physical body and breath. I want each of my students to walk away from my class feeling inspired and renewed, ready to take on any challenges that life may throw their way with an open mind and an open heart.

Currently, I specialize in Hatha and Kundalini yoga, and I am working towards a certification in Pre-Natal/Pregnancy yoga.

Q. What brought you to your current style of practice?
A. I needed a new outlook on life, as I came from a place where I felt I was always reaching for something more, continuously searching for the one thing that was missing in my life. Through my journey with incorporating yoga and its philosophy in my daily life, I discovered that the only thing that was missing was my ability to feel and show appreciation and gratitude for the things I’ve had all along.

Q. What can a new student expect?
A. A new student can expect to feel balanced and liberated as we work up a sweat lengthening and strengthening the muscles. I will encourage you to flow through the postures as if you are performing your own unique dance, while no one is watching or passing judgement! By incorporating traditional Indian music and kirtan into each class, I invite my students to open their hearts and their minds, and find empowerment in their movements.

Q. What recent industry trends have you found noteworthy?
A. Discussions on yoga and yoga therapy helping with depression and mental health. Now a days with all the technology and social media, yoga can be seen as a good release for anyone who may be struggling.

Q. What are your current wellness goals and how are you addressing them?
A. I am working on using the three elements of Kriya Yoga from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as a guideline to live a balanced life: self-discipline in finding time for my own personal yoga practice each week, self-study in recognizing my faults and applying life’s lessons, and staying present each day as opposed to worrying about the future, the past, or things outside of my control.

Q. What is your favorite beautiful spot in Milwaukee?
A. I love the view of Milwaukee from the end of the break wall on Lake Michigan!

Q. What is your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?
A. Dorsia on Brady Street! They offer flights of pasta and INCREDIBLE pizzas with super fresh ingredients! The best pizza I ever had was the Prosciutto, a pizza that has a fig mostardo base. Delicious!!!

Q. What are your top three favorite things to do/hobbies?
A. I love to play competitive sand and indoor volleyball! I’ve been playing at Bradford Beach for the past few summers and it is always a blast.

Right now, I am learning how to play the ukulele and I would like to make this a hobby of mine one day!

TRAVEL! I have a permanent travel bug living inside of me. Nothing excites me more than stepping off an airplane in a new country or city.

Q. What do you do to de-stress?
A. I love to spend time outside in nature when I need a way to de-stress. Nothing a good, long hike through the woods can’t fix!

I also find meditation with mantras to be a beneficial. Whenever I am feeling stressed about something that is out of my control, I turn to my Mala beads and my list of favorite mantras, and I pick a mantra that offers the wisdom I may need in that present moment.

A Wisconsin native, Lindsey Ruenger has been teaching yoga since becoming certified in 2018. With a background in dance, she felt naturally drawn to the practice of yoga. Her exploration as a teacher has brought her a sense of overwhelming purpose. She finds it a gift to be able to offer students a safe space to let go and find ease in movement.

But even as a teacher, she sees herself as a student – always learning and exploring the practice with open eyes. You can expect her classes to be fluid, dynamic and strengthening with an emphasis on breath. In addition to yoga, Lindsey currently teaches mindfulness practices and dances professionally.

Q&A with Lindsey Ruenger

Q. How long have you been a yoga teacher?
A. I have been teaching yoga since getting certified in summer 2018. However, I have taught dance and fitness classes since 2011.

Q. What areas do you specialize in?
A. I love teaching all styles of yoga but have a core understanding in Hatha.

Q. What brought you to your current style of practice?
A. I began practicing yoga throughout my dance career, explored different styles and landed on Hatha yoga during my teacher training. But, my personal practice looks different every day. I really try to listen to my body and its needs physically, mentally and spiritually. Sometimes this can result in a rigorous flow, and sometimes a meditation or restorative practice.

Q. What can a new student expect?
A. Students can expect my classes to be easeful and flowing while also strengthening and dynamic. Most importantly, I prioritize connecting the movement to breath.

Q. What recent industry trends have you found noteworthy?
A. I’m a big advocate for kids yoga and meditation. I really believe children need it because they can internalize stress and tough emotions in the same way that adults do. I also have been involved with teaching yoga at outdoor festivals, a trend I’ve been seeing bloom over the last few years. I think bringing people together to connect with nature, each other and themselves is so rewarding. It really makes for a fun and vibrant experience.

Q. What are your current wellness goals and how are you addressing them?
A. My current wellness goals are to maintain a healthy, balanced diet while continuing to move my body in a variety of ways (yoga, pilates, circuit training, etc.). Most recently, I am working on building a consistent daily meditation practice. I also have chronic pain and tightness in my shoulders so an at-home yoga practice with lots of heart openers is very needed!

Q. What is your favorite beautiful spot in Milwaukee?
A. Three Bridges Park. I performed there once and it has a special place in my heart.

Q. What is your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?
A. Too many places to choose! – EE Sane, Maharaja, Thai Kitchen

Q. What are your top three favorite things to do/hobbies?
A. Aside from yoga, I love to dance, travel and spend time with my family, friends and hateful cat 🙂

Q. What do you do to de-stress?
A. Practice yoga, mindfulness/meditation, take long walks or enjoy a glass of wine with cheese

An experienced group exercise fitness instructor, Maryann will challenge you every bit of the way. Her positive attitude will get you to your fitness goals giving you the right tools to move better and feel better. She is holds multiple instructor certifications including in AFAA Group Exercise, TRX, Kettlebell, Spinning as well as Les Mills Bodypump and Les Mills Bodytone. She is also an ACE-certified Personal Trainer.

As a former professional chef, Maryann understands the fundamentals in leading a healthy lifestyle inside and outside the gym. She believes fitness is not just aesthetics and athleticism, it comes with mindful eating and feeling good emotionally and mentally.

Q & A
How long have you been an instructor?
I’ve been an instructor since 2011.

What areas do you specialize in?
I specialize in balance, functional movement, compound movement, (more bang for your buck, getting stronger while torching calories.

What brought you to your current style of practice?
I love making people feel good from the inside out.

What can a new student expect?
New group exercise students can expect to get a good workout, feel good about themselves, and feel accomplished.

What recent industry trends have you found noteworthy?
Many noteworthy tips from highly renowned physical therapists including injury prevention techniques, and physical conditioning for each and every body type.

What are your current wellness goals and how are you addressing them?
My personal goals are to balance a healthy diet, a healthy workout routine, and set realistic goals.

What is your favorite beautiful spot in Milwaukee?
I’m attracted by the water wherever I go. Seeing the endless horizon over the lakefront reminds me that possibilities are endless and to just keep on striving for success.

What is your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?
Buckley’s is my favorite restaurant by far. As a professional chef, I appreciate the welcoming atmosphere the restaurant provides. It is family-owned, the mother is the pastry chef and the sons manage the front of the house. I feel like I’m at home every time I’ve gone there. That’s how a gym should feel. Where you feel comfortable to make yourself at home with no judgment only open arms.

What are your top three favorite things to do/hobbies?
I love to try our new restaurants in the city, explore a new hiking trail, or turn on some good jazz and try out a new recipe of my own.

What do you do to de-stress?
I have always loved rock climbing. I try to make it to the climbing gym at least 3 times a week. I enjoy puzzles and problem-solving. Climbing is a way of solving a puzzle moving one arm and leg at a time.

Misa found yoga in 2013 while searching for something gentler than running and to help deal with everyday stress. She found far more than she ever expected beyond the physical practice and immediately dove deeper into yogic studies.

After losing many loved ones including her father, she enrolled in yoga teacher training, and in 2017 completed her 200-hour at Asheville Yoga Center in part to honor her father who taught his entire life and it ended up being a form of therapy.

The gift of yoga transformed her outlook on life, allowed her to heal and to make a deeper spiritual connection which she had been missing her entire life. In giving back, she always holds a safe space for practice and advocates that yoga is for everyone to find and connect to what they need in this moment.

Teaching vinyasa flow in Atlanta, she found the style very meditative while connecting breath and movement, and currently as a new mama she is passionate about and teaches pre/postnatal yoga.

Q&A with Misa Schillaci

Q. How long have you been a teacher?
A. I have been teaching yoga since 2017 and practicing since 2013.

Q. What areas do you specialize in?
A. I’ve trained in alignment based yoga, or Iyengar and flow-based yoga, or Vinyasa. I am currently furthering my studies in accessible and pre/postnatal yoga practices so I can share yoga with everyone, especially current and future mamas.

Q. What brought you to your current style of practice?
A. I came to yoga to destress and find a less physically demanding exercise than running. I found a lot more than I was looking for and connected to the mental and spiritual aspects as well.

My day-to-day living has dictated what type of practice I follow. When I had a long commute and worked many hours, vinyasa flow took me to a meditative state and made me physically stronger.

After I became pregnant I took on a gentler, more restorative and yin style practice, but also continued a slow power flow to maintain strength. I now find a balance between all of these styles.

Q. What can a new student expect?
A. A new student can expect to destress via connection to their breath and meditation, to lengthen and strengthen their body with focus on proper alignment, and to be given lots of options to practice what is comfortable for them that day utilizing a variety of props.

Q. What recent industry trends have you found most noteworthy?
A. There seems to be a focus on quick fixes and results seen through practices such as CrossFit and Orangetheory. These are great options for those who thrive in a competitive, fast-paced workout environment but may not be sustainable depending on one’s health history, age, nutritional intake, etc. I more so appreciate the rise in popularity of yoga, meditation and gentler, meditative more sustainable practices such as tai chi and qigong.

When it comes to yoga, I am thankful to see that there is currently a larger focus on making yoga work for you and not making you work for yoga. I also appreciate seeing yoga used as a tool in the hospital setting especially relating to pregnancy, labor and delivery, in the prison system and as an overall therapy for a myriad of ailments and situations.

Q. What are your current personal wellness goals and how are you addressing them?
A. I practice moderation across all aspects of my life and hope to re-establish a regular routine of yoga, meditation, cardio and healthy nutrition, which I lost a connection to due to postpartum complications at the end of last year.

Q. What is your favorite beautiful spot in Milwaukee?
A. I love the peaceful calm of Lake Michigan from Veteran’s Park as well as the view of the Milwaukee River from Invivo’s yoga and fitness studios.

Q. What is your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?
A. There are so many great places, many that I haven’t yet tried, but I’ve always enjoyed vegetarian delights at Beerline, lobster at Lakefront Brewery and the inventive southern inspired food at The Original.

Q. What are your top three favorite things to do/hobbies?
A. Besides yoga, I enjoy running and hiking outdoors, playing volleyball, scrapbooking memories and beading/making malas. My real passion is travel and I am working on visiting all fifty U.S. states and all seven continents.

Q. What do you do to de-stress?
A. Anything outside to inhale fresh air and reconnect with my breath.

Paula has a great curiosity for movement mechanics and the art of moving. She has pursued this interest on many levels. A childhood of dancing, swimming and competitive power tumbling led to lifelong curiosity and love for movement.

Paula earned a BA in Dance and Holistic Health, an MFA in Dance and went on to dance professionally in Milwaukee and NYC. Her interest continued as she became a certified yoga teacher at Kanyakumari and then a certified Pilates teacher. She has spent many years teaching dance, yoga and pilates at the studio, community and university level.

Her interest in anatomy, kinesiology and movement mechanics led her to pursue a degree as a Physical Therapist Assistant with a specialty outpatient orthopedics and manual therapy.

Through her teaching, she hopes to help others to have a better and more mindful human experience through movement. She is especially interested in efficient movement mechanics to reduce pain and increase the longevity that we have in our daily lives, activities and sports.

Q&A with Paula Biasi Trusky

Q. What brought you to your current style of practice?
A. As a Physical Therapist Assistant, Pilates teacher and Yoga teacher, I like to combine my deep background in movement and my knowledge of anatomy with an interest in injury prevention and rehabilitation. My treatments emphasize manual therapy, teaching self-care techniques, efficient mechanics, and functional movement patterns.

Q. What are your current personal wellness goals and how are you addressing them?
A. I am focusing on eating and moving for wellbeing. For me that means eating a diet based around real whole foods, with room for chocolate of course!  I’m moving my body with the aim of being strong, mobile and as agile and pain free as I can be. There are high standards for women in our society to look a certain way. My wellness goals revolve around letting my body find its natural stasis point when I move and eat to feel good and healthy.

Q. What are your top three favorite things to do/hobbies?
A. Only three?! Move my body (yes that’s vague, but I love to move in all sorts of ways), hang with my pooch Roxy and cook delicious food.

Q. What is your favorite beautiful spot in Milwaukee?
A. The east and west river trails just north of Invivo.

Q. What is your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?
A. For pizza I like Tranfer Pizzeria (best crust ever) and for Thai food I love EE-sane, they do spice right!

Q. What do you do to de-stress?
A. My hobbies help me to relax. Taking my dog for a nice long walk, practicing yoga, and enjoying a glass of wine.

Robert’s fascination with fitness started in the summer before freshman year in high school. That year Robert experienced a rapid growth spurt of six inches. The coaches wanted him to play sports because he was tall but because of his growth spurt he was very uncoordinated. His training started with weight-lifting, running cross country and training with the wrestling team. These activities helped him build movement awareness and increase his size, speed and strength. His training was so successful he went on to be a walk-on player for the University of Illinois football team!

With his degree in Industrial Design, Robert worked for a company designing fitness equipment. He was there for 11 years and came to appreciate that our bodies are the best designed pieces of fitness equipment. He left to attend the National Personal Training Institute. While there, he developed his philosophy, ‘Choose to move well, move often and challenge your body everyday’. His primary training approach uses full body, primal movements with resistance as well as other other unique methods, to help his clients move and feel better.

Q&A with Robert McDonial

Q. How long have you been a personal trainer?
A. I have been a personal trainer/fitness coach for five years. Before becoming a personal trainer, I designed fitness equipment.

Q. What areas do you specialize in?
A. I specialize in body weight and non-machine based training. You can accomplish strength, endurance and hypertrophy goals with your own body weight. I prefer to use kettlebells, sandbags, superbands, the TRX Suspension Trainer and the Rip Trainer when I do use equipment.

Q. What brought you to your current style of practice?
A. Having designed fitness equipment for 10+ years, I saw how people routinely discarded the equipment shortly after buying it. I also so how people became frustrated waiting for occupied gym equipment and being unable to take the equipment with them while traveling. I quickly realized that there was one piece of equipment, that everyone had: their own body. They just did not know how to use it. I began to learn and teach myself various types of body weight training, so I could show others how to use the ultimate training machine, their own body.

Q. What can a new client expect?
A. A new client can expect to receive a full assessment with an explanation of the findings and a road map for the fulfillment of their needs and goals. Clients will also be challenged to safely step out of there comfort zone.

Q.What recent industry trends have you found most noteworthy?
A. I like that primal/natural movement is catching on. If you can control your body, then you can control external loads and reduce your chance of injury. I also like that tools such a as kettlebells and sand bags, are starting to get programmed into training regimens.

Q. What are your current personal wellness goals and how are you addressing them?
A. My current personal wellness goals are to bulletproof my body from injury and to improve my handstands. I practice primal movement patterns to activate my entire body so I can move well and with intention. I also practice my inversions a little bit everyday.

Q. What is your favorite beautiful spot in Milwaukee?
A. I love being in and around water, so any place along the lakefront is perfect for me. If I had to choose one place, then it would be Atwater park in Shorewood. Not only is it a beautiful view of Lake Michigan and the beach below, but the stairs and the walkway are ideal for training.

Q. What is your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?
A. Having lived in Florida, I love seafood, so I like Screaming Tuna for their sushi. I have heard that the Harbor House has excellent seafood, so I’m going to have to try them out sometime. Occasionally, I will go to Kopps for a burger and custard. You can’t eat perfectly all the time, haha!

Q. What are your top three favorite things to do/hobbies?
A. My three favorite things to do are going to auto shows, visiting unique architecture-both residential and commercial, and watching movies at the theater.

Q. What do you do to de-stress?
To de-stress, I love to listen to music while taking long walks with my dog.

Venezuelan-born Yumelia joined the National Ballet of Caracas at age 15, before coming to the U.S. to dance first for Ohio Ballet, then served as a principal at Milwaukee Ballet for 10 years. She retired as a principal dancer from the Joffrey Ballet in 2014. Yumelia loves to share her dance knowledge and experience. She inspires students teaching and coaching in ballet schools across the country. Certified in Barre Workout Fitness, she is excited to share the passion, poise, and power of dance as fitness at INVIVO.

Q&A with Yumelia Garcia

Q. How long have you been a teacher?
A. I became a Barre Fitness instructor in 2017. I have been a professional ballerina for the last 25 years and teaching ballet for the last 15 years.

Q. What areas do you specialize in?
A. Naturally, my specialty is ballet, with that I emphasize posture, lengthening muscles and flexibility.

Q. What brought you to your current style of practice?
A. I discovered “barre workouts” while performing as a company dancer. As a guest artist it was within my own responsibility to maintain top shape. While searching for cross training activities I became hooked on barre workouts, the method worked and toned every muscle in my body as I am accustomed. It was a natural step to become certified to teach a form of workout I which I strongly believe.

Q. What can a new student expect?
A. Expect a challenge in the beginning as with anything we do for first time. However, it’s accomplished in a friendly, non-judgmental environment in which you will feel free to work within your own range. Students should expect to feel taller and leaner after classes. The class will strengthen muscles while elongating your body, keeping a dancer’s posture throughout the class. Expect to be sore after a few classes as your body adjusts to the new workout.

Q. What recent industry trends have you found noteworthy?
A. I believe Barre Workout is a recent trend that has grown in popularity because of the way you work your entire body (arms, abs, legs and back), feeling like a dancer in the way an amateur athlete can feel playing sports.

Q. What are your current wellness goals and how are you addressing them?
A. One of my personal wellness goals is finding a balance between physical activity and mental and emotional repose. I’ve had sensitivity and hyper-mobility in my joints for several years now and it’s been a daily process staying on top of it. It’s easy for me to do too much, physically, but I’ve found that when I have a good balance of activity and rest, it’s possible to keep my joints happy!

Q. What is your favorite beautiful spot in Milwaukee?
A. Definitely, the lake front. I am fortunate to live by South Shore park and able to walk by the lake every day.

Q. What is your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?
A. Home!! My husband is an excellent cook and makes the most amazing meals. Milwaukee has tons of new restaurants, we are still discovering our favorite.

Q. What are your top three favorite things to do/hobbies?
A. Walk my doggy, bake, and hanging out enjoying quality time with my husband and dog.

Q. What do you do to de-stress?
A. Actually, exercising de-stresses me. I am accustomed to the adrenaline, sweat and energy experienced during my dance career, I crave it!! I enjoy hot baths, playing with my dog, walking on the lakefront or savoring a glass of wine.