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Who We Are

Tonya and Ella

Tonya Zaloumis

Tonya B. Zaloumis MA, E-RYT500, is the founder and director of the Soma Yoga center, the teacher training program and the author of the program's curriculum.  Blending 20 years of teaching experience, a decade of teaching teachers, a Masters degree in Holistic Counseling and extensive study in energetic healing; Tonya guides her students through a practice that heals and awakens the 'light-force' within.
She believes that each one of us has been put on Earth to experience the pranic manifestation of LOVE, at least once.  As this is all it takes to see and then accept ourselves as channels of divinely inspired kindness.  Her teaching is dedicated to this experience.



Meredith LeBlanc

Meredith

Meredith began her yoga practice in 1996 while living in Las Vegas, NV.  The moment she stepped on the mat she felt transformed.  Over the years her practice on the mat has spread to her everyday practice of life.  She always felt that someday she would teach yoga and that goal was fulfilled in 2007 by taking the 200 hr Teacher Training with Tonya at Soma. 
Taking a class with Meredith is insight into her own personal practice.  She strongly believes in taking classes with a variety of teachers combined home practice and meditation.  She feels breath and inner alignment is the key to opening and discovering the body, mind, and spirit.  By communication with ourselves and creating awareness we make space to acknowledge our connection with all beings.  Reading different viewpoints on yoga and spiritual growth enhances her practice as well; her favorite books thus far have been the Bagavad Gita, Ethics for the New Millenium, The Alchemist, and Autobiography of a Yogi.
Meredith enjoys gardening with husband Mike, making beaded jewelry, watching romantic comedies, and reading.  She and Mike live in Newport with their yellow lab Nicki. 

Patti

Patti Confort

Patti came to yoga in 2001.  It was a time when she needed to remember the lessons that life is a journey, not a destination, and that love and compassion are the gifts that you give to yourself, as well as to those around you.
She has been a math teacher for over 30 years but has been teaching yoga for a relatively short time.  Her yoga classes are designed to provide her students with a full physical and energetic experience using the Vinyasa style.  She also tries to create an atmosphere that enables her students to let the yoga help them on their own journeys.
Patti has studied Astanga and Vinyasa yoga with Tonya and the other Soma instructors for five years. She has taken workshops with Iyengar-inspired teachers and hopes to continue her studies of varied yogic styles. She plans on getting her IYA teaching certificate by the end of 2007. 

 


Anne Richards
Anne Richards
Anne is in the process of completing her 200-hour teacher training certification at Soma Yoga Newport
 and will be a registered teacher with the National Yoga Alliance in the upcoming months. Anne guides her students through Vinyasa and Ashtanga style "> sequences, encouraging students to find and push their own personal and physical envelopes, while offering a variety of modifications for more difficult postures. Anne's teaching and personal practice is focused on the enrichment of mental and physicalwell being, restoring and grounding through vigorous but tranquil sequences. As a fourth grade teacher, wife and mother of three she deeply understands the need for centeredness in our increasingly busy world.





Mary Leonti

Mary L

Mary has been practicing and teaching the healing and creative arts for over a decade.  Her background is in figurative/anatomy-based painting, martial arts, massage therapy, and yoga.  She loves life, movement, people and dynamic energy.  This is apparent the moment you meet her, and even more so in her classes.
When she first discovered her core and potential (in relation to chi or prana), she was like a little kid in a candy store.  Mary's goal as a teacher is to share the inspiration of yoga.
Her classes are creative, strong, core burning vinyasa.  She encompasses and infuses guided meditation, breath and energy awareness, and focuses on alignment and anatomy with energizing sequencing, while exploring mind, body and spirit through asanas.  Her classes are scripted from her own practice and teachings from all the amazing people she has studied with.  Most notably, she has studied with Tonya Zaloumis, received her certification from Larry Schultz, and is an Ana Forrest yoga instructor.  The resulting blend is a powerful experience in yoga.
She has a 200-hour Yoga Alliance certification and over thousands of hours of self study.
KristenKristen Laccinole
Kristen Laccinole is the newest addition to Soma Yoga.    She is a certified Pilates Instructor and has completed a 275 hour intensive course in Pilates Matwork and Reformer Exercises.   She has had so many wonderful opportunities to teach in Washington D.C., Colorado, Ohio, and Texas in all realms of physical fitness from personal training, to kickboxing, to Pilates.  Her most recent experience includes several years in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she started a Pilates business that included Matwork, Reformer classes, and core-conditioning for rehabilitation.  She is very excited to share her energy and knowledge with students at Soma Yoga.  Her classes will focus on Pilates Fusion, marrying the concepts of fundamental Matwork with a fluid and energizing core workout. 
Kristen lives in Narragansett with her husband Chris and their three year old son Chase (who is also a Yoga and Pilates enthusiast).  She holds certifications from the Body College, Miami University, and the PHYSICALMIND Institute.  She is pursuing a yoga certification this spring.  She has a Bachelors of Science Degree in Psychology from Regis University (Denver, CO).

ReinetteReinette Fournier 

 
Reinette has been a student of various schools of yoga for almost 30 years. Five years ago, she walked into her first Kundalini Yoga class. “I really had no knowledge of what Kundalini Yoga was,” Reinette said. “It turned out to be quite different from anything I had done before. What I remember most is leaving that class with an incredible and unforgettable sense of well being and peace. I felt lighter and brighter with a calm beautiful energy. I couldn’t wait for my next class. I can honestly say that my experience with Kundalini Yoga has changed my life in ways I never could have imagined.”  
In 2004, Reinette entered the 200-hour teacher training program at Baba Siri Chand Ashram in Millis, Mass. where she became KRI certified. Her teachers have included Gurucharan Singh Khalsa (Director of Training at the Kundalini Research Institute), Hari Kaur Khalsa (Director of Golden Bridge/NYC) and Gurmukh (Director of Golden Bridge/LA).  
In addition to her teaching, Reinette is a certified Reflexologist and Reiki Master at Newport Acupuncture and holds an MFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts/Dartmouth. She resides in Newport with her husband, Thomas Speare, who is also a certified Kundalini Yoga teacher. They share their home with two Boston Terriers, Django and Pearl, and two Siamese cats, Mingus and Indigo. 


Alison Bologna

Alison completed her 200-hour teacher training certification at Soma Yoga in 2006, and she is a registered teacher with the National Yoga Alliance.  Alison's classes are all about flow and balance.  In each class, Alison guides  her students through traditional vinyasa and ashtanga sequences, with a deliberate emphasis on the breath.  Alison always provides personal modifications for more difficult postures, and she encourages her students to  find and push their own personal and physical edges.  Each of Alison's classes includes meditation, pranayama and an ever-changing series of asanas, with assists, when necessary.  And each of Alison's classes builds on the next, so  her students are consistently learning something new on both physical and energetic levels.   Alison has been training with Tonya for the past three years in Newport.  Before that she practiced in New York City, primarily at Jivamutki.  When time permits,  Alison attends different workshops and seminars – most recently she completed an ashtanga workshop with David Swenson at Kripalu.  Alison lives in Rhode Island, but she works full time in Boston as a television  reporter with Fox.

Crystal Pilon

Crystal is Yoga Alliance, R.Y.T . certified by the Nosara Yoga Institute, Guntacaste, Costa Rica, following completion of 200 hour Interdisciplinary Yoga Teacher Training and 100 hour Pranassage TM Practitioner Training in February 2004.  She discovered Soma Yoga immediately upon her return from Costa Rica and has been a student and teacher with Tonya ever since. 
Crystal's classes strengthen and purify the body and emphasize breath in a "meditation in motion" framework as a pathway to our innate intelligence and natural relaxation response.  Using Ujjayi, the "Ocean Sounding Breath" and awareness of gravity, and Prana, students access a natural state of energetic protection of the body and experience a challenging and healing practice.   
In addition to her continuing education with Tonya and Nosara Yoga Institute, Crystal has been devoted to Bikram, Kripalu, and Barbara Brennan, certified instruction.    Crystal lives in Wickford, Rhode Island with her husband Bill.