Angela Zawada

Angela Zawada is the founder of Metta Yoga Edmonton and the super fun mom of two young boys. 

After growing up on a tobacco farm in Ontario, Angela moved to Edmonton to play volleyball with the University of Alberta Pandas.  

After a degree and four national volleyball championships, she turned to yoga to keep her body and mind in shape.  

She’s turned her passion for sport, sweat, and fun into a successful community of yoga studios in Edmonton and Calgary.

Prior to launching Metta Yoga, Angela was a leader in Canada’s Moksha / Modo Yoga community.  During her time with Moksha / Modo, Angela co-created the flow sequence with Dina Tsouluhas.  Angela and Dina also teamed up with Canadian yoga legends Ted Grand and Jessica Robertson to lead Moksha / Modo flow teacher training.

Angela has taken numerous trainings with leading instructors, including:

• Moksha / Modo Level 1 in Thailand;
• Moksha / Modo Level 2 & Yin in Toronto;
• Baptiste Level 1 & 2 with Baron Baptiste;
• Art of Assisting with Paige Ellison,
• Rocket Training with David Kyle (x 2); and
• Kula Training with Schylar Grant

Brandi Wilson, Yoga Alliance (YA ID 303873) E-RYT® 500, YACEP®

Brandi Wilson (owner/director of Metta Hot Yoga Calgary) does more than teach yoga and run the show at Metta Yoga YYC. She has been practicing yoga for 20 years, teaching for over 10 of those years, and is obsessed with creating community and developing yoga teachers and students.

Her journey started in early 2000 with a strong dislike of gyms and workouts and was searching for an outlet to get healthy (and happy). Enter yoga! She stumbled across a yoga DVD, began practicing in her living room, and fell in love with the strength, mindfulness and results she experienced. Brandi’s natural desire and need to connect with people brought her out of her living room and into the yoga studios, where she serendipitously came across Moksha Yoga Edmonton and met the owner Angela (now business partner and best friend). There was no looking back – she was hooked and found her true calling.

Brandi took her first teacher training in Kerala, India in 2009. She continued to attend trainings and receive certificates in Vinyasa and Yin yoga throughout the years. From the beginning, Angela of Moksha Yoga Edmonton (now Metta Yoga YEG) worked with her through practice teaching classes and community classes, patiently guiding her to find her voice and confidence in teaching. Fast Forward to 2010/2011, Brandi quit her corporate job to teach yoga full time and in addition took on the manager role of Angela’s Edmonton west studio.

Over a glass (or maybe it was a bottle) of wine, Brandi and Angela decided to open a studio together! Long story and long journey short, Brandi moved to Calgary and opened up Moksha Yoga Calgary North in May 2013. Starting out with only 2 teachers plus herself has mentored and developed dozens of teachers to date. In November 2018 Brandi and Angela created a new brand for their studios to Metta Yoga Calgary to continue to thrive and grow their student and teacher community.

Brandi attributes her work ethic to her very hard working parents who raised her and her siblings on a farm in Southwest Saskatchewan. She wears many hats in the studio, from janitor and manager to teacher and friend, and no matter what hat she is wearing her values and goals are simple – she is driven to impact people’s lives through community and yoga. Brandi has completed over 1000hrs of certified yoga trainings throughout her yoga career, and continues her passion to learn all things yoga and develop her own teaching and mentoring skills.

Nicki Doane

Nicki Doane is an internationally recognized yoga teacher, known for her ability to make the practice of yoga accessible to every body. She began her study of yoga at the age of 18 while attending the University of Massachusetts. From her first class, she knew she had found something special and deeply familiar. While she began to practice yoga on a purely physical plane and because it felt good, it became apparent some years later that there was more to Yoga than she originally thought. In 1991, Nicki traveled to Mysore, India to study with Sri K Pattabhi Jois, the master of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. She fell in love with the practice and continued her studies with Pattabhi Jois until his death in 2009. What she experienced on that first trip was a radical realization that yoga is much more than a physical practice. The yoga affected her deeply on an emotional and spiritual level. After that she was hooked! As she delved deeper into the Ashtanga practice she became curious about her teacher’s teacher and his lineage. She learned that Tirumalai Krishnamacharya had been Pattabhi Jois’ teacher and also the teacher of BKS Iyengar. This led her to study Iyengar Yoga with Mr. Iyengar, his children and with many of his senior teachers as well including Gabriella Giubilaro and Patricia Walden, at his institute in Pune, India. Nicki has always believed that her practice continued to grow and evolve due to her study and practice of both of these systems of Yoga. Nicki continues to study to study yoga with senior teachers and believes that a great teacher must always remain a dedicated student.

Nicki’s teaching has grown out of her practice and her deep faith in yoga and she chooses to honor her students as individuals first and foremost. Nicki’s style combines asana, pranayama, philosophy, and poetry and her classes are strong and accessible to everyone. Nicki uses humor in her teaching to set her students at ease and she is considered to be very relatable and down to earth. She is known as a Teacher’s teacher and loves igniting the spark of yoga in her students.

Nicki lives on the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii, where she owns and directs the Maya Yoga Studio on the North Shore of Maui. She has been featured in numerous articles and has graced the cover of Yoga Journal magazine. She is featured in 2 Ashtanga Yoga videos available through Gaiam and in 9 videos entitled Maya Yoga Vinyasa on her youtube channel. She is currently finishing a book on Yoga for beginners.

Nicki teaches workshops and teacher training courses at her studio on Maui and travels all over the world conducting workshops, teacher trainings, and retreats.

Mallorie Buoy

Mallorie (Prem) has been a yoga teacher, an educator, a spiritual teacher and guide, a compassionate inquiry practitioner, a foster parent, and entrepreneur for over 10 years, initially exploring each of these paths for personal guidance and purpose. As her connection to self expanded, all of these roles merged into offerings that are clear, authentic and of the most service to humanity. Utilizing daily self-inquiry and analyzing the ways in which Spiritual Laws meet and co-create with current social structures, Mallorie is passionate about amalgamating the alchemical and the pragmatic, the metaphysical with social justice, and spiritual awakening with genuine support and uplifting of those living in vulnerable and marginalized circumstances.  

Mallorie is committed to providing the deepest experience in this training as possible, as spiritual truths and social justice must merge in every moment; indeed, it is our work and responsibility as leaders in our changing world. 

Katie Joliceur

Katie Jolicoeur has been teaching yoga in various community spaces for almost a decade. She is passionate about learning how to ensure the practice of yoga is most accessible, so that the practice might support all members of the community, not just the select few.  

Katie has leaned heavily on the healing benefits of yoga and meditation to support her on her own journey through various experiences with mental health challenges and mental illness. In her teachings, Katie presents the practice from a place of authenticity and gives each student room to explore and allow the tools to guide each individual in their healing.  

Katie is dedicated to sharing this work with fellow teachers and members of the community.