The Tree Yoga Cooperative Team
The Tree Cooperative Owners
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Founder & Owner of The Tree Yoga Cooperative
Yoga Instructor (bilingual: English-Spanish), Health Equity & Partnerships Director
Jennifer Alvarez received her Master of Public Health, in the Urban Health Disparities program at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. She is a health equity advocate with an extended experience in community organizing and program development. In 2016, she undertook the role as Operations Director of The Tree South LA (the former nonprofit organization). As a certified yoga instructor, she has dedicated her energy to sharing the healing modality of yoga and mindfulness with system-impacted youth of color, Spanish-speaking communities, and beginners to the practice.
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Founder & Owner of The Tree Yoga Cooperative
Yoga Instructor (bilingual: English-Spanish), 200hr & 300hr Yoga Teacher Training Lead, Programming Director
Jana’s enthusiasm for yoga has led her to specialize in Meditation, Hatha, Yin, and Ganja Yoga styles of yoga practice in both English & Spanish. Her classes tend to have a relaxing & rejuvenating feel as she sets the tone for authentically & intentionally connecting with one’s true, inner Self. Jana is committed to bringing focus, intention, and value to every class she teaches. She has a lighthearted & friendly attitude as well as a desire to harmoniously connect with students in ways that effectively enhance their personal practice. Her intention is for her students to allow the benefits garnered in the class to extend "off the mat" for positive influence in everyday life that go well beyond the formal practice.
Jana is an E-RYT® 500, YACEP® with Yoga Alliance. She completed her 200-hr teaching training at Green Tree Yoga & Meditation (the origination of The Tree) with Raja Michelle, her 300-hr teaching training with Melanin Yoga Project with Davina Davidson, and her second 300-hr teacher training with SmartFlow Yoga with Annie Carpenter. Her current primary teachers are Jerome Mercier at Power Yoga East, her Inner Self, everyone she meets, and her Life Experiences.
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Founder & Owner of The Tree Yoga Cooperative
Yoga & Kinam Instructor (bilingual: English-Spanish), Accounting Manager, Spanish Programming Curator.
Mexican born & Raised in Los Angeles this Punk rocker found her zen thru the practice of yoga. She's a military service woman and has worked her way up the fashion industry ladder which has given her the ability to be a tough, fashionable and humble yogi.
She offers all level classes in spanish, spanglish and english. She is also certified in Kinam which is the Toltec knowledge to connect with our roots through the practice of Toltec power postures & functional exercises.
A 40+ year resident of South Central Los Angeles she embraces and loves her sometimes rough and misunderstood community.
@rita_la_yogui
Studio Class Instructors
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Yoga Instructor; 200hr Training Guest Teacher; 300hr Training Lead
Yoga found Rebecca in 2003, when she stumbled into a hot yoga studio on a cold New Year’s Day. After those first 90 minutes, she knew she needed more yoga (or whatever it was that just happened) in her life. She spent the next 3 years sampling styles and ultimately was called to share the practice of Vinyasa. What initially began as a means to heal her old athlete’s body, transformed into a healing of heart and mind as well.
Rebecca considers herself blessed to have found teachers who connect the physical and spiritual planes within their teachings. In 2006, she obtained 200-hour certification with Shiva Rea in Prana Vinyasa Yoga. Rebecca has since continued to study with numerous esteemed senior teachers. Her personal hatha practice is heavily influenced by the classical teachings of Dharma Mittra, and her beloved Kundalini Yoga mentor is Krishna Kaur Khalsa.
Yogic Education:
200 Hours, Prana Vinyasa with Shiva Rea
Rocket Yoga 50 Hours, 100 Hours
Awakening Yoga Immersion with Patrick Beach & Carling Harps
RYT 200 Get Loved Up Vinyasa with Koya Webb
Level 1 Kundalini Yoga 220 Hours with Krishna Kaur
2019 - Foundational AcroYoga with Jason Nemer
2020 - 200 Hours, JM Vinyasa with Jared McCann
2021 - 300/500 Hours with Erin Kelly, Steph Gongora, & Bianca Scalise
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Yoga Instructor
Amisha Stanley, affectionately known as “The Unicorn” laid the foundation for her yoga practice in 2014 after feeling stagnant in a stage of her many weight loss journeys. She knew that a physical change was necessary in order to balance the mental and emotional challenge she undertook to lose over 100lbs naturally. She began emulating photos she’d seen on Instagram, searching for plus size yogis and YOC (Yogis of Color), then attended her 1st community yoga class although it felt welcoming, she also felt very out of place, especially after having represented larger bodies for over 25years. It wasn’t until an old friend saw a post on Facebook and offered her a free pass to a hot yoga class, that she was able to practice with someone who looked like her, and comfortably shift.
The strength, beauty, and just effortlessness of yoga, done with ALL bodies, is what drew her in and the practice of going beyond the physical is what keeps her in. Seeing her love of dance and movement, paired with the dynamic beauty of yoga, and the fluidity of physical therapy; all ignited her desire to create a practice to feel continual appreciation for body-conscious movement. Learning how yoga is here to teach us to self-heal with self-love, self-mindfulness, and being present with self.
Amisha’s background has seamlessly led her into the arms of Yoga. As a natural educator and altruist, extending her 1st free Yoga class to the community in 2016 she fell in love again. Offering Breathing techniques, yoga asana, and strength-building moves, with a mix of the fluidity of her foundation in physical therapy, her classes are always a learning and fun experience. Students get an invitation to dig into their inner selves to find the strength to try and smile while doing it.
After being laid off in 2018 from her Executive Assistant position, she dove full swing into her Yoga teacher training with The Tree SouthLA the very next week. After the 1st week, she knew she had made a great decision and had taken on a venture that would forever transform her. Graduating in 2018 with 15+ YOC (Yogis of Color) and being the last Green Tree Yoga and Meditation Cohort felt amazing.
No longer feeling like the big girl who had something to prove, now it was just Amisha proving she was The UNICORN, a beautiful, magical creature with limitless abilities.
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Yoga Therapy Apprentice, Natural Mystic Mama, and space curator, with roots from the Bay Area, Lauren "Wolley" Ross is a Plant Based community holistic wellness weaver and certified Hatha,RYT200 (The Tree Yoga CO-OP, South LA) and Kemetic Yoga instructor KYT200(Yoga Skills, Jamaica)and Ma'Yoni'At Womb Yoga Instructor, and currently studying to be a certified yoga therapist. Residing in South Los Angeles with a background in community centered programming, mental health & rehabilitation services, she specializes in Kemetic, Soul Flow and Restorative yoga. Wolley’s yoga style is a liberatory practice centered in remembering who we are, ancestor veneration, reclaiming our sacred movement, and the attunement and transcendence of the god body consciousness. She is dedicated to creating access and weaving holistic healing modalities in her community that strengthen our mind, body and soul. In addition to teaching yoga in K-12 schools in South LA, teaching yoga and life skills in juvenile detention centers, community resource centers and non profit organizations; she cultivates wellness spaces and strategic wellness programming for community events. Lauren is the co-founder of Baba's Vegan Cafe , South LA Wellness Organization(Known now as Black Being); Co-Founder of Black Yogi Day, a Black Breastfeeding Advocate, and most passionately a mama to two Warriors in Light
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Founder & Yoga Instructor
Ja Cole is one of the Founders of The Tree Yoga Cooperative, He is a 500hr E-RYT Yoga Instructor, Lecturer, & Author.
In 2005 Ja took his first 200HR training, later in 2019 Ja began his 300-hour Training with Annie Carpenter’s SmartFlow Yoga.
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Yoga Instructor
I started my yoga journey over 20 years ago. I’m a self-described yoga nerd. You will find me in a yoga class almost every day of the week. I completed my 200-hour training at Shanti Hot Yoga with Thomas Taubman, Star Rader, and Meredith Meyer. I completed my 50-hour yin yoga training with Shanti Hot Yoga. In my classes, you can expect a welcoming atmosphere of supportive challenge, mindful sequences, affirmation, and chill beats. Follow me on Instagram @yogiprincipal. Let’s flow!
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Yoga Instructor
Sabrina Racquel (they/she) is a community educator and lifelong learner dedicated to healing as social justice. Sabrina developed their yoga practice searching for an embodied approach to healing from complex trauma and relief from the symptoms of an auto-inflammatory disorder. After spending three years as a survivor’s advocate and crisis counselor, they became curious about providing folks with healing education, outside the rigidity of the medical industrial complex. They received their 200 Hour YTT at The Tree Yoga Cooperative, with the intention of developing their yoga practice through a decolonized framework. They went on to complete an additional certification in Trauma Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault.
Their intention as a teacher is to provide QTBIPOC communities and survivors of interpersonal violence with tools to reconnect to themselves and regulate their nervous systems in community. Sabrina is most passionate about teaching restorative, hatha yoga, y yoga en español. They remind students their value is not dependent upon their ability to perform or serve. You deserve to be!
The Tree Yoga Cooperative Story
Jana, Jenni, Rita & Jonié founded The Tree Yoga Cooperative in August of 2020 after years of teaching yoga and meditation throughout South Los Angeles. Their community leadership at The Tree South LA (a nonprofit organization, formerly Green Tree Yoga & Meditation Foundation & The Tree South LA) united them to reimagine the ways we connect, heal, build, and celebrate ourselves and our community.
Jana's practice and purpose became clearer for her during her time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay where meditation and mindfulness helped her to navigate and embrace herself more fully as well as other people with different cultures, norms, languages, experiences, and backgrounds. These elements of inclusion, acceptance, and mindful facilitation are what she brings to the forefront of our yoga teacher training program. Our yoga teacher training program has allowed community members to deepen their own yoga practice, evolve their leadership in wellness, and become certified practitioners.
Our youngest of the team, Jenni, started her yoga journey with the intention of healing from sexual trauma. That healing journey has expanded into how we support collective healing from systemic oppression and co-conspire through our partnerships to address the health inequities among marginalized communities. Each brings full circle to the importance of sharing our stories, building healthy relationships, and creatively collaborating in this healing justice movement, so we are reminded to live in Liberation now.
Rita and Jonié, both raised in South Central, never saw yoga in their neighborhood growing up. They saw yoga in the mainstream media practiced by thin, European American (White) women and didn't see anyone who looked like them practicing yoga. It wasn’t till later in their adulthood that they found Yoga as a tool for mental health and physical wellness. Rita has played an important role over the years in creating access to yoga with our Spanish-speaking communities and mentoring other Spanish-speaking yoga practitioners.