Kinndli McCollum
Co-Founder/Director of Power Yoga
There is a saying in the yoga world that you are only as old as the number of years since you started practicing yoga....so that would make me about 7 years old. Fitting really, as yoga keeps me feeling young. One of my most favorite things about owning a yoga studio and being a yoga teacher is that I get to be in the fullest expression of myself each and every day.... it's my job! I am truly living my dream!
I first was introduced to yoga while living in NYC on the Upper East Side at a studio called "Some Like it Hot Yoga" and Paige Elenson (now my dear friend and founder of the Africa Yoga Project) was my first Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga Teacher. I would leave class feeling rinsed and more awake and alive than I did going in. Paige had a light about her and I wanted to shine like that too. She sent me to Baron Baptiste for a Level 1 Journey into Power Teacher Training Bootcamp.
Well..... after that my life pretty much snow balled into a ball of yoga insanity! Everything seemed to open up for me, it was like life was waiting for me to arrive and I was finally ready to participate and co-create in a fantastic life together! So I moved back to Canada to set some roots after traveling abroad for many years and living in NYC for 6 years. I completed the highest level of training with Baron Baptiste and I am Canada’s only Certified Master Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga Teacher. Since 2005 I have been apprenticing with Baron Baptiste around the world on over 40 Journey Into Power Teacher Training's and Personal Revolution Bootcamps.
I am passionate about transformation and I see yoga as an opportunity to connect with my spirit and to challenge myself to look inside and delve deep into the fire within. As I become more authentic with myself and begin to live from my truth, then I can hold a powerful space for others to shine light on their inauthenticities and ultimately shine too.
I am an ambassador for Lululemon Oakville and an ambassador of the Africa Yoga Project, both organizations and communities that are dear to my heart.
Pauline Caballero
Co-Founder/Director of Power Living
As a former member of the Canadian National Synchronized skating team, Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Professional Skating Coach I have been on the wellness journey all my life. I stumbled upon yoga five years ago after the birth of my son. Suffering from low back pain, a result of child birth, running and stress, I found yoga helped me work through my discomfort and allowed me to become more active, energized and improved my overall health.
After a couple of years of attending Kinndli’s classes, who was my teacher, my inspiration and now business partner and dear friend, I wanted to know where she got her shine and decided to go straight to the source. So I headed off to one of Baron Baptiste’s bootcamps, and have attended three in the last two years. Well that was the beginning of me shaking my life up. I have been empowered to wake up from the script I was playing out, I have been able to improve my relationships with my loved ones and let go of things that do not add any value to my life. Most importantly, after a full corporate career, years of schooling and wondering if I would ever find my place, my seat, my perfect job.....I have finally found what I want to do when I grow up. It’s quite simple, I want to help others through the practice, through the meditation, through the lifestyle step to their personal edge.
"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing". - Helen Keller
Rocco
I am a yoga Jedi Master and I have taught Kinndli how to be a Warrior of the Light. I can be seen chillin' at Power Yoga Canada or chasing squirrels.
Susan Hlibchuk-Gregory
I began teaching fitness classes almost by accident when my first son was born 13 years ago. It was a nice way for me to stay active and explore a healthy lifestyle and nutrition while raising my two sons. I started to take a yoga teacher training 7 years ago. Although I knew that I loved yoga and had a huge desire to train and learn more, I discontinued my study. Something with that particular yoga training didn't inspire me and didn't give me the tools to make a shift in my being. I was still stuck in the patterns that were eroding my life. However at that time I made a secret pact with myself to teach yoga before I reached forty.
I began my teacher training with Kinndli while in the midst of a very difficult, toxic separation. When I took her classes I was either crying in frog or finding myself ever so grateful in corspe pose. I knew that I found what I was so longing for, real tools to become authentic and powerful in my own life. I did not try anymore! I started doing!
So off I went to my level 1 Baptiste training. (something out a character for me and my lifestyle). I loved it. I stopped looking for the answers outside of myself, I started to look inside, I just needed to crack myself open and here within me was everything that I I needed to be happy and content.
I am moving into the future fully responsible for where I am, thereby giving me the power to create my dream life. Baptiste Yoga has transformed my life which is the best gift that I can give myself, give my two beautiful boys and the others I love in my life.
With forty around the corner I am teaching yoga at PYC and so excited to see the community growing.
Pino Rizzi
“Be the Change you wish to see in the world” This is one of my favorite quotes from Mahatma Gandhi that has enlightened me and inspired my yoga practice and my life.
Before I began teaching Yoga I was a professional dancer. I was living a dream! I loved the intensity of the work and the freedom of performing. Dance training taught me self expression, discipline, focus and a sense of honor and gratitude for my body. During my time as a dancer Yoga was a part of my physical work. I was blessed to have teachers who were so fired up when they lead a class and I left feeling like I can achieve anything. I thought that if I can pass that feeling on to one other person – then I would be up to something great in my life.
I began teaching Dance, Pilates, Yoga, other fitness classes, and became a Personal Trainer. That was 14 years ago and my life has completely opened up since then, I created a company: D C F – (decide, commit, follow through) and a workout DVD: Xtreme Power Strength Endurance. Also I work with people struggling with body image and eating disorders. This is an issue that has touched me personally. Yoga has been a big part of my recovery and I hope to empower others to create positive changes in their lives as well.
I was taking Kinndli’s classes for about a year when she mentioned a Bootcamp with Baron Baptiste that was coming up. It’s funny because I remember that on my way to class that night I was going to ask Kinndli about any trainings with Baron because I was in love with this practice and there it happened - she announced it in her class – I didn’t even have to ask her! This was clearly a sign for me to take action and DO IT! I took my first Baron Baptiste Bootcamp in October 2009 and will be doing two more in 2010 to complete my full certification. My life has been transformed by this practice.
I have been awakened to the potential that lies within me and the power that can shine. As Marianne Williamson says: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
My intention in every class is to challenge my students and allow their spirits to shine. It is an opportunity for us to respect our bodies, find joy in our hearts and cultivate peace in our souls. I am a better instructor, and a better human being because of the many students who come time and time again to join in my class and the many teachers who have made an imprint on my life. We work, laugh, sweat, and become transformed.
See you on your mat. Namaste
Denise Desrochers
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I would have to say that I really didn’t ‘find’ yoga but rather it found me. I started doing Power Yoga because a friend had suggested that it would really help my back. I had been struggling with this injury for quite some time, going to physiotherapy three times a week, countless massages, you name it. My days as a gymnast, a professional dancer and teacher were taking its toll and nothing seemed to be working. So I took the class and came out saying “What just happened?!” Little did I know how life altering that class would be. This class shook me up. I loved it but I wasn’t sure what do to next. All I knew is that I wanted and needed more. I soon discovered that my practice was not only about the physicality and how amazing my body felt but rather the total rinsing and clearing of my mind and spirit. I was learning to deal with difficult circumstances with peace and acceptance and letting go of relationships that were not beneficial in my life. That was the care that I truly needed.
Power Yoga has given me so much more than just a ‘healed’ back. It has placed a mirror in front of my face and has led me to make positive changes in every aspect of my life. I got a small taste of this while attending Baron Baptiste’s Level 1 Bootcamp. I realised that I have been ignoring my gut, my intuition for years and that my fear has led me to play it safe. I came back with a sense of urgency and commitment greater than before. I immediately started assisting and am now teaching and it is completely unreal to me….I don’t know how I got here!! What I do know is that I want to share this passion, this love, this fire with as many people as I can so that they too can awake from their sleep. I am thrilled to be teaching at PYC and am so grateful to be a part of this positive community.
“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.”
Marianne Williamson
Monica Mallo
My spiritual journey started many years before I started the physical practice of yoga, until then I knew there was always something missing. There was a shift I needed to create and I wasn’t doing anything to change. On May 10th 2006, that first shift happened; I gave birth to my two beautiful daughters. Becoming a mother changed my life, more then I could have imagined. And it wasn’t the sleepless nights or the handing over of my body and my time to these two babies, it was my necessity to be the best person I could be, to love them the purest I could and I could only do this by loving myself authentically. That same year, new challenges forced me to look outside of what I knew, in order to heal and most importantly to find self love.
As soon as I took my first yoga class, it felt like I had made it home. That last piece of the puzzle had been found. After only one class I knew that my practice of yoga was that piece that I needed to align my mind, body and spirit. Soon after I knew that I wanted to share this joy, this peace.
In 2008, I began a teacher training with Kinndli and I could honestly say that is the moment I started to transform my mind, my body and my life. Things I have always depended on have started to dissolve and I am finding my real ‘self’, I am beginning to heal and I look forward to do the same for others through my teaching.
The huge transformations in my life have been as a result of coming on my mat day in and out and being around Kinndli and the Power Yoga community. I am challenged every time I am at the studio and I am challenged everyday as a mother but most importantly I am inspired to find my inner power and strength and inspired to do the same for others by teaching.
