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Keri Kuntz ~ Nicole Rainey ~ Kollette Plummer
Julia Vinciguerra ~ Jennings Waterhouse

An athlete and outdoor enthusiast all her life, Kerri found herself working a desk job for the first time in her life, commuting 2 hours a day and feeling terrible at the end of the day.

“You either have to feel good about what you do at the end of the day or at least have fun doing it.

I was trapped in a really bad episode of The Office!” Kerri attempted to combat the stress by increasing the physical stress on her body training for a marathon.

The combination of the beginnings of an anxiety disorder and physical breakdown in her body, most notably degenerative disc disease in her lower back, led her to her first yoga class in 2003 in Truckee, CA.

After experimenting with various yoga classes, Kerri found the intensity of the hot room and demanding physical series life changing and began to feel more stable emotionally, mentally & physically, healing from the inside out. “I could run up the side of a mountain but I couldn’t stand till for 60 seconds with my arms over my head without breaking out in tears from the pain. Now it’s the other way around but I feel so much better this way.”

A deployment overseas with the Air National Guard in 2004 led her to take a second look at what she was doing with her life and she decided she wanted share her enthusiasm of the yoga by bringing this gift to others. She attended Bikram Teacher Training in the Spring 2005 and taught Bikram yoga and kids yoga in the Tahoe area before moving to Sandpoint in 2006. She says, "look at me now…I can almost touch my toes!"

She went anyway and after one class, she was in love and knew she was going to teach this yoga someday. She commuted 2 hours everyday in the heavy Tahoe snow to attend class on the North shore before attending Bikram teacher training in the fall of 2003.

After earning her degree in biology, she decided she needed a break from her studies and focused on dancing.

Kollette spent 3 years dancing for the Denver Broncos Cheerleaders while working at a local animal shelter. During this time, a friend invited her to attend a core power yoga class and she fell in love with it.

She completed teacher training for core power yoga in the spring of 2006.

Kollette & her husband moved to Sandpoint in 2007 for a change of pace and to be closer to family and nature. When not teaching or practicing yoga, Kollette remains loyal to her first love of animals and is a board member of the Panhandle Animal Shelter as well as teaches the middle school dance team.

Her class is a fun and playful flow set to music in low lighting. It is also performed in a hot room to get a great workout and all the detoxifying benefits of the heat. We recommend an intermediate yoga practice or the recommendation of an instructor to attend the flow class.

A native of Toledo, OH, Julia grew up with sports & art being a large part of her childhood. She earned a degree in Zoology from Michigan State before moving to Alaksa to do 3 years of fisheries conservation research with the USGS.

From there, Julia took quite a different path and took a position working for a pharmaceutical company.

During this time, she learned a ton about how prescription products affect the human body and ironically her time in pharmaceutical work played a large role in Julia’s current belief in holistic healthcare and nutritional education. After dabbling in yoga in high school and college, Julia developed a devoted Vinyasa practice while living in Anchorage. She began to truly experience the flow of energy within and the effect it has on the mind and body. “It was an amazing discovery to see how I softened to a chaotic world outside of the yoga room with a more flexible, patient approach,” she says. Julia has practiced various forms of yoga including Vibrant Living yoga, Jivamukti, Bikram, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Tripsichore, Anusara, and Forrest.

She decided to take her practice to the next level because of the transformation in her own life due to yoga and the special teacher/student relationship she has experienced over the years. She became certified from Radiantly Alive in Bali, Indonesia in the Spring of 2009 as well as continuing her yoga education with Alanna Kaivalya and Jivamukti yoga.

Julia has recently made Sandpoint her home base with her husband Dan and special dog buddy Orso. Her future goals are to earn a holistic nutrition counseling certification and develop her skills as a raw foods chef. Julia currently teaches flow yoga at Sandpoint Hot Yoga and her classes are extremely heartfelt and compassionate… yet challenging and helping students reach their maximum potential.

Growing up in Jackson, Wyoming gave Jennings ample opportunity to participate in a variety of outdoor pursuits. Her passions involved horses and three-day eventing, soccer, and snowboarding. She accumulated a variety of sports-related injuries, but had little interest in yoga.

It was not until later, while attending college in southern California that Jennings discovered the therapeutic effects of hot yoga. Hot yoga classes became the “perfect antidote” for the stresses of studying and deadlines. Seemingly miraculously, old injuries were healing at the same time.

She was hooked. Following graduation, Jennings decided to move to Sandpoint.

Working as a chef and innkeeper for her family business and pursuing design projects on the side created a busy lifestyle. She was thrilled when Sandpoint Hot Yoga opened its doors and enthusiastically renewed her practice. Once again, she became convinced of the profound emotional and physical benefits that this practice provided. In the spring of 2009, she attended the nine week teacher training in Palm Desert, California and became a Bikram certified instructor.

Sandpoint Hot Yoga 1237 Michigan St. Sandpoint Idaho ~ (208) 263-7666 ~  www.sandpointhotyoga.com

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