Instructors

Rubi Rymenmy

Restorative Flying Yoga/Aerial Hammock

Rubi has been practicing and teaching yoga since 2005 and aerial arts since 2012. She is the founder of Art Flying Yoga. She created and developed the unique Restorative Flying Yoga program for injury recovery. She was raised in Veracruz and exposed to healing arts at an early age by her grandmother. She has studied Brain Education, Qi Gong, Tai chi, Vinyasa Yoga, Pilates, Aerial Yoga, & Aerial Arts. She is a certified yoga instructor through the White Lotus Foundation, and has an advanced certification in Aerial Yoga, Reiki and Qi Gong. She has had the privilege of studying with Ganga White, Tracy Rich, Ken Bond, Sven Holcomb, Ilchi Lee, Dr. Todd Gibson, Christopher Harrison, and Terry Beeman. She strives to challenge students to quiet the mind, explore the strength that lies within and most importantly find the strength in their spirit. Her classes are fun with easy to follow instructions that encourage all levels to work deeply while honoring and working within their own limitations. She is sensitive to her students' individual needs and accommodates the class according to them.

Nick Reyes

Full Body ABS/Open Gym

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Yolanda Reyes

Beginner Aerial Arts/Aerial Hammock

Yolanda is the Founder of Art Flying Yoga. Yolanda has been teaching Zumba® since 2010. She loves dancing and is passionate about teaching any fitness classes while having fun and being safe! She has been practicing Yoga since 2008 and Aerial Yoga since 2012. She is currently training, practicing and teaching on a daily basis at Art Flying Aerial. In 2009 Yolanda received her B.S. in Business Administration with a minor in Marketing and International Business from California State University of Long Beach. As a business student she associated with her sister, Rubi Rymenmy, to open Art Flying Yoga Studio and make their dream come true! When Yolanda is not teaching AFY® classes or Zumba® classes, she enjoys salsa dancing, reading, running, and of course spending quality time with her family and puppies. CECs/CEUs: Zumba® Fitness, Zumba® Exhilarate, Zumba® Sentao, Zumba® Mexican Fiesta. CECs/CEUs: AFY® Basics Teacher Training, AFY® Restorative Basics, Aerial Silks Basics, Acro Yoga.

Candie Crespo

Flying Yoga

Candie is an avid Kundalini practitioner who acknowledges the core technique of the Krishnamacharya lineage (asana, bandha, pranayama, meditation) while being true to other streams of influence that have deepened her experience of yoga. Trained at the Yoga Vidya Gurukul Ashram in Nasik, India, she specializes in Hatha, Kundalini and was also trained in Yoga Nidra, Vinyasa Flow, Swara, Nada and Kriya yoga. In the United States she furthered her training in aerial yoga and received her Aerial yoga teacher training certification through Art of Flying Yoga in 2013. She has deepened her practice through her extensive travels in India, South America, Europe, and Australia. She now leads retreats all over the world. Her goal is to integrate alignment & intuition, strength & fluidity, and meditation & wisdom through Karma yoga, action and community development.

Sara Kwack

Aerial Hammock

Sara is an aerial arts student and instructor from Southern California. Her style of teaching is a balance between mental focus, and stable physical foundation. She is encouraging to others, and believes that everyone has the capacity to learn great skills. Sara has been inspired to use aerial arts as a self expressive therapy for several years. Her main apparatuses of choice are aerial hammock and static/dance trapeze. She currently continues to learn circus arts from various established instructors in Los Angeles, So Cal.

Mina Takeda

Aerial Hammock/Aerial Silks

When Mina first started Aerial Arts at Art Flying Yoga, all she wanted was to lose the extra 50 pounds she gained after giving birth to her third child. Mina was shocked to see the amazing benefits Aerial Arts had to offer, including physical, mental, and emotional improvement, not to mention her extra weight was lost within a short period of time. Ever since then, she has been captivated and is now completely immersed in the practice of Aerial Arts on a daily basis. As an AFA instructor, Mina now wishes to share the positive benefits of Aerial Art to other potential students who want to learn from her, in the hopes that they find Aerial Art as beneficial as she does.

Amean Hameed

Intro to Aerial Arts

Amean felt at home with the art and science of flying the first time he tried aerial yoga. His journey in healing self and others started over twenty five years ago with Qigong & Taichi practices. Later, he added Yoga, and Kung-Fu practices to further integrate the various spiritual modalities to a more integrated “heal yourself” trend. This trend keeps us most charged up to overcome our daily physical, emotional, and mental challenges. Amean’s self-realization and self-awareness journey enables him to flow in a state of love, joy, peace, and compassion throughout the day, and overcome any challenge in the most effective way.
He has produced over 200 podcasts, has been teaching for over seven years in the art and science of healing self, others, and the living earth, and has performed distance healing via phone globally, free of charge for the benefit of humanity. Amean integrates western body physiology with acupuncture energy pathway and chakra system. This integrated technique helps us to flow in love, to be at peace, to experience joy at the cellular level and practice compassion during the class as we learn aerial yoga.

Angela Chang

Aerial Hammock

Angela Chang is a young, experienced, talented aerialist and aerial hammock instructor. She has been practicing aerial arts with a focus on Hammock and Lyra since 2013. Angela was certified as an Hammock Instructor in 2016. She currently attends her senior year at Palos Verdes High School. She will be transferring to university next year to achieve her business degree. Angela is also a contortionist in training. Her greatest strength is her flexibility, her courage, and perseverance. Among her many passions is Acro yoga.

Melissa Hellewell

Lyra/Aerial Silks

Not being a traditional gym goer, aerial arts gave Melissa a challenging way to stay fit while having fun! She fell in love with all things aerial early in 2011 when she happened upon a studio while making her daily commute to work. Melissa has performed in showcases, for private parties, television shows, and a commercial, has made appearances at the Orange County Fair, and produced and directed her own show at the LA County Fair. As an instructor she loves to encourage students to notice the progress they are making no matter how big or small. Melissa feels the same sense of accomplishment she felt as a beginner each time a student completes a new challenge.

Kennedy Kabasares

Static Trapeze/Aerial Silks/Aerial Conditioning

Kennedy Kabasares is an aerial artist and actor. He has worked with a diversity of theater companies, including: East West Players; Singapore Rep; Center Theater Group; performance trio, zero3; and Kinetic Theory Circus Arts. He has also has over 10 years experience as a static trapeze artist. He was invited to compete in the 2011 Aerial Acrobatic Arts Festival in Denver, where he took first place for static trapeze, and went on to perform in the finals. His current project, PULL, is a narrative theater circus collaboration with performance artist Traci Kato-Kiriyama, which has been presented in the US and Canada.

Unni de Preso

Restorative Flying Yoga

Unni de Presno, RYT/CYT500 and two-times cancer survivor, is committed to living and teaching a life in harmony and balance. She fell in love with the powerful healing effects of yoga in 2004 and started teaching in 2009. Her specialty is Hatha yoga in the form of flying yin/restorative yoga, gentle yoga, meditation and sound yoga. Unni has received teacher-training certification from acclaimed yoga masters Saul David Raye, Max Strom, Leslie Kazadi and Annie Carpenter. She appreciates the holistic approach to Hatha yoga that the School of Ritam Healing Arts©/Atma Yoga provides.

Ana Ba

Gentle Flying Yoga

Ana is a trained cosmetologist from Hong Kong's prestigious Monita Beauty Academy. She also lived in Honduras for almost 20 years and made a name for herself with her own beauty and fitness center. Her aerobics classes were always packed with women who were motivated by her strength and positive energy. She also got the opportunity to have her own morning fitness program in Tegucigalpa's television network. Today, Ana is a California licensed aesthetician and practices electrolysis. In 2016, Ana became certified as an Art Flying Yoga Instructor. She enjoys learning this art form and sharing it with others.

Yazzmin Lizarraga

Lyra/Flying Yoga

Yazzmin has been studying aerial arts for a few years, and immediately gravitated to aerial hoop and aerial yoga after discovering the rejuvenating and strengthening potential it has for the mind, body, and soul. Her love and discipline for the movement arts blossomed at a young age during 6 years of recreational and competitive figure skating. Over the years, she has explored different forms of movement arts including jazz, ballet, burlesque, belly dancing, (Egyptian, Tribal Fusion, Cabaret) hula hoop dance, and West African dance. After receiving her Flying Yoga Teacher Training at AFA, as well as her CirqFit Lyra Teacher Training certification, she decided to spread the healing and empowering potential of aerial arts. When Yazzmin is not immersing herself in the movement arts, she advocates for people in recovery. She currently works as a Rehabilitation Counselor in a psychiatric facility under the supervision of a Dance Movement Therapist.

Cleo Young

Aerial Hammock

Cleo Young discovered aerial and joined the AFA family in July 2015, and since, the AFA culture became an integral part of her life. Cleo enjoys being in a state of high concentration and freedom while flying. Perceiving teaching as spreading and sharing the healthful information for the brain and body, Cleo finds excitement in teaching. Aside from aerial fun, Cleo loves meditation and body movement; dancing and bouldering in particular. She has a profound interest in the gut-brain axis and nutritional psychiatry in relation to the mind, body and spirit integration. Cleo’s mantra: Action Trumps Motivation!

Kanna Jones

Gentle/Hatha Yoga

Kanna Kai Jones danced on stages in Japan for 10 years. Currently, she regularly practices somatic movement and meditation. Her goal is to give people the mind-body connection through movement and stillness. Kanna became a certified Art Flying Yoga instructor in 2013. She is excited to tell you how she has been experiencing the benefits of Flying Yoga to help her arthritis. She is also a Sound Healer, a Reiki Master and a Dog swimming trainer.

James Zavala

Aerial Arts with Strength Conditioning

James began practicing Aerial Silks 7 years ago at the Power Plant Center and Hollywood Aerial Arts. Since then, he has also gained mastery at Lyra, Silks, Hammock, Rope, Trapeze and Cube. He taught at Believe Fitness Studio for two years where his students ranged from children to adults, 1st time flyers to advanced students, from performance based classes to strictly strength conditioning, and from group classes to privates. His aerial classes consist of a warm up, a stretch, strength conditioning, tricks and then performance and transitions. He has performed professionally in burlesque shows, weddings, grand openings, charity events and promotional work. He has also modeled, although he really just enjoys being up in the air.