Who We Are

Peace In Practice’s mission is to create and support communities and conditions for healing and empowerment through body-centered practice and professional certification. 

Our Mission

Our career pathways include Yoga Teacher Training Certification, Yoga Teaching Mentorship & Apprenticeship, and Job Placement.

We are nurturing a homegrown, sustainable collective of healing yoga practitioners and programs in the Black and brown communities of the Twin Cities and beyond. We are creating more access to services and certifications in integrative health and wellness, yoga and mindfulness education. 

Meet the team

  • Jaina Two Rivers (E-RYT 500, YACEP) is the co-founder and lead trainer of our YTT programs. With over 25 years of teaching experience, Jaina is a respected leader in yoga education, known for integrating ancient wisdom with modern insight in a trauma-informed, inclusive approach.

    From 2022 to 2024, Jaina served as a college professor at Minneapolis College, where she developed and taught YTT curriculum focused on mindfulness, somatic wellness, and holistic education. Her academic background, paired with decades of embodied practice, gives her a unique ability to translate deep concepts into practical, transformative learning experiences.

    Jaina has also led educational international retreats in over 18 countries across five continents. These retreats serve as immersive, community-centered modules for both her 200-hour and 300-hour Yoga Alliance–registered school, Beloved Retreats. Through this work, she’s created a truly global learning environment rooted in spiritual practice, cultural respect, and experiential education. She takes retreat groups to India every year to explore yoga's roots.


    Earlier in her career, Jaina facilitated 200-hour Yoga Teacher Trainings for CorePower Yoga (2003–2010) and 200 & 300-hour trainings for the school she founded: Radiant Life Yoga (2006–2017). She has also opened and operated yoga studios in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Costa Rica, each reflecting her commitment to conscious community and embodied liberation.

    Jaina’s teaching draws from the lineages of Raja Yoga, Tantra, Hatha, Ayurveda, and Buddhist mindfulness, enriched by her studies in somatics, trauma-informed yoga, and nervous system regulation. She balances rigorous study with soulful reflection, inviting students to explore yoga not only as a physical practice, but as a lifelong path of healing, awakening, and beautiful, ethical living.

    As a teacher trainer, Jaina is known for her depth, clarity, and compassion. Her approach is intended to cultivate confident, ethical, and visionary yoga leaders who are prepared to hold space for growth, beauty, and spiritual inquiry in diverse communities.


  • Yoga and Mindfulness Instructor — RYT-500

    A Yoga teacher and educator that began working in North Minneapolis schools in 2008. York currently teaches mindfulness at the University of Minnesota’s Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing, and is studying at Brown University in the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teaching program. Teaching yoga and mindfulness specifically since 2016, York has reached a vast audience, diverse in age, culture, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

  • “My role as an instructor isn’t to heal, but to open the space for others to heal themselves. To help guide them towards the realization of their full potential. All through the freedom that comes from movement.”

  • Obiajulu’s vision-mission is lead, facilitate and empower processes that inspire and enhance human performance for phenomenal personal growth. An empowerment practitioner, Obiajulu uses the empowerment model to guide movement from pain to creativity, from a still life to a whole and dynamic growth, and integration of self-awareness with results. She has yoga teacher training 200 level and masters in education, enabling her creative, inspirational, compassionate and intuitive spirit which she blends to guide a deep and meaningful transformation. Breath is prayer. Breath is life. Let's breath together. 

  • Alex David Hearn (Lex) is a father, husband, holistic educator, and trauma-informed yoga guide. His teaching centers on embodiment as a tool for self-care, creating inclusive spaces where somatic awareness, authentic expression, and non-competitive practice support deep personal wellness

  • Stumbled into yoga in 2008 as a method of rehabilitation after a sports injury and quickly realized how beneficial the breath, postures and sequences would be in recovery and overall well being. The first ever home exercise equipment purchased was a yoga mat, strap, and a block. Nearly 15 years into the practice as a student, Bruce committed to multiple Yoga Teacher Training Programs; Hatha, Vinyasa, Kemetic and Rocket Ashtanga. These training experiences offered a holistic understanding of Yoga that motivated him to personalize by contribution to the practice. Bruce's ultimate goal is to provide unique spaces and experiences that meet people where they are in their life journey.

  • Yoga and Mindfulness Instructor —200 RYT Rochelle Younan-Montgomery (she/her) is the Founder and CEO of the Reset, and is also a published author, certified yoga teacher, and facilitator. Her mission is to guide teams and individuals back to what matters most: alignment with their values and purpose. She has practiced yoga for 15 years, and time and again it has proven to be a balm in her life: connecting mind and body in ways nothing else could. The more she learns to breathe through the discomfort on her mat, the greater capacity she has to face the challenges in her day to day life (one imperfect, messy moment at a time).

  • Andrés is a Venezuelan-American, 200hr YTT trained yoga instructor.  

    Andrés strives to share his love for yoga by creating a safe space for growth in his class.  He blends a deep breathing and meditative practice, typically found in Hatha, with the flow and gentle movement of Vinyasa.  To Andrés, yoga is a practice of self-awareness, healing, and unity with divinity.  

    Andrés Yuya Bio (Spanish):

    Andrés es un Venezolano-Americano instructor de yoga entrenado en 200hr YTT.  Se esfuerza por comparti r su amor por el yoga creando un espacio sano de crecimiento en su clase.  El combina la respiración profunda y la meditación, que se ve en Hatha, con el flow y movimiento tierno de Vinyasa.  Para Andrés, yoga es una practica de conciencia de si mismo, sanacion, y la union con divinidad.

  • Sophanna is a Cambodian American yoga teacher with her RYT 200 certification and is currently working toward her RYT 300. She enjoys creating classes that help people feel balanced, strong, and connected. Her teaching is trauma-informed and focused on making yoga welcoming for everyone. In her classes, students move with the breath, build strength, and find calm. She believes yoga is for everyone and creates a space where students feel supported and at ease.

    When she’s not teaching, Sophanna loves spending time with her family, trying new foods, traveling, and continuing her own practice through reading and meditation.

  • Zola is a mama, writer, and PIP Graduate. She’s learning to live at the pace of her body, to raise a free Black child, and to hold space for grief, belly laughs, and all the things in between. Her life on the mat, at home, and in community, is shaped by the knowing that healing is collective, and that liberation lives in how we show up for each other.

  • Alexia (Lex) Martin

    Reiki Healing Practitioner & RYT 200 Yoga Instructor


    Alexia (she/they) invites communities to re-indigenize, reconnect, and reclaim holistic wellness practices.  In a world that often seeks to silence marginalized folks, she envisions a present and future where redownloading ancestral healing practices cultivates self and communal transformations. This calls us to embrace the fortune of using spiritual tools like yoga, mindfulness, and meditation.


    Gratitude for a colleague that invited Alexia out for her first yoga class a month before COVID-19 in 2020, which introduced her to this practice. Whether navigating the uncertainty of the pandemic, work or personal trials and tribulations, it has brought a soothing comfort. This revolutionary act of returning home—to Self, to the breath, to the body— is ongoing. 

    With over five years as an educator nationally and abroad, she values exploration, growth, and breaking down barriers for a more accessible and welcoming world. She invites you to show up on your mat- wherever you are, however you choose to show up. Outside of yoga, she finds peace in skating, DIY projects (she's currently taking sewing classes), and being near water & warmth.

How To Support The Work

Donate

Donate

Every contribution, no matter the size will help us cast wider nets of inclusivity and representation within the yoga community, especially for those who have yet to find their place in the realm of integrative wellness.

Volunteer

We are in build mode and looking for teachers, fundraisers, capacity builders, and board members who can help us advance this work. Please reach out if you have gifts to share and a passion for BIPOC youth and community development.

Spread the Word

Follow our social channels @peaceinpractice - Your likes, shares, posts, phone calls, and emails go a long way to shine a light on our work.