Your Guides

Jenna Forte

I have this electrifying passion for the yogic lifestyle and the ever-so fleeting moments of enlightenment. I found yoga through a demon I battled for years before finding absolute liberation, and I now know this is exactly how it was meant to happen. At first, I used yoga as an outlet to escape the present; my demon. I used yoga as a regression tool instead of acceptance. I used yoga in all the ways that made me a coward of truth, fear, and forgiveness. The key word here is “used.” I USED yoga. I did not practice yoga, I did not live authentically through yoga, I did not listen to my intuition, I did not speak my truth. I used the physical practice to disappear from reality and I used the mental practice to justify my demon. Even after all of that “using” and “abusing,” I still knew the truth, and I still continued to neglect it. I’ve always known what I had to do, it just took years of finding my voice and utilizing yoga to its purest potential. It took years to build courage. It took years to trust the universe.

Each class and each moment through my journey has taught me the quintessential necessities in order for me to allow the light to surface. I cultivated an intention and I manifested it. I finally listened, I trusted, I cried, I doubted, I feared, I lost confidence, and I struggled, but I regained my strength, and so much more, through breath, movement, and love. I started living my truth through the enlightenment of yoga, I trusted the destination of the road I was on, I followed the light, and I came out illuminated. I was rejuvenated in a state of eternal bliss, I was emancipated. You know that quote… “When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky,”… that’s exactly how I felt... trust the process.

Through my teachings, I strive to guide others to live lightly through a deep connection between the soul, emotions, awareness, senses, the body, and the universe. My intention is to inspire and to make a difference. I want to help those see through the thickness, to explore their comfort zones, to be brave, vulnerable, aware and to feel alive. I want my students to truly discover who they are. I want them to know what it feels like to live authentically, I want them to know that they matter, even when they feel like they don’t, I want them to see what they are fully capable of, I want them to feel through every emotion they experience, and I want them to be honest with themselves and others. I want them to move through the heart with love, intention, and energy, and I want them to love themselves exactly for who they are. I want them to see the world as a better place, and I want them to love others the way they would want to be loved. I want to help eliminate any sense of self-loathing, judgment, fear, regret, guilt, etc. I want to show each student a lighter way of living through the practice of yoga. I want my students to be healthy and to break through any barriers they've built. I am here to share my story to inspire others, and if I can impact one person out of a million, then I have done my job. Yoga…exploring the unknown depths of who you really are.

Amanda Hinkle

Mandy Hinkle completed her yoga teacher training in Los Angeles, California at the internationally accredited Yogaworks Center for Yoga. She has Ashtanga Yoga and Iyengar-based training and has done in-depth study of asana, pranayama, yogic philosophy, Ayurveda and anatomy with teachers Joan Hyman (trained by  Maty Ezraty and Pattabhi Jois,) James Brown and Amy LaFond. While in LA, Mandy taught Vinyasa Flow Yoga on the Malibu and Santa Monica piers. She also taught Yoga For Actors and Movement For Actors in Hollywood. She taught meditation with SWAP LA, an outreach program to assist sex workers battling drug addiction on Skid Row.  Mandy also helped mount two donation-based yoga studios in the heart of Hollywood. In addition, Mandy was a professional theatre director, actress and print model. The LA Times called Mandy “a strong (theatrical) director with choreographic whimsy.” 

After moving back home to Youngstown, Mandy began collaborating with Dr. Jamie Marich teaching trauma-informed yoga. Mandy and Dr. Marich co-facilItated several workshops on uniting trauma recovery with yoga. This trauma- yoga work became Mandy’s passion and purpose.  All of Mandy’s classes are trauma-informed and she aims to bring students back home to themselves. With a strong focus on mental health, Mandy’s classes can aid in alleviating anxiety, depression and PTSD symptoms while exploring Ashtanga-inspired vinyasa flow yoga. 

We store the past in our bodies… trauma, abuse, heartache, regret and a myriad of emotional and physical pain. Through yoga, our emotions can open up like a shooting star. As we move energy in our bodies, we are letting go and finally moving forward. It’s the combination of the deep breathing and the deep stretching that makes yoga so therapeutic. 

Our yoga practice gives us the gift of the present moment. The past does not exist on the mat. The future has not yet happened. We breathe in this beautiful, wild moment and we are free. We are healing. 

Yoga is medicine. It's therapy. It's church. It's art. It's philosophy. It's self love. It’s self care.  It’s poetry in motion. Yoga changed my life and it continues to ground me every day. Yoga is a path to bliss, joy, peace of mind and enlightenment. Yoga can change your life too. All you have to do is practice. A beginner’s mind is always welcome. An advanced practitioner can always learn more. Yoga is a lifelong journey of healing the body and the mind. Keep practicing.

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Melissa Delsignore

Hi I’m Melissa! I started at Yoga Element as a student in 2019 and immediately felt deeply connected to the studio, and soon I found a connection to myself that I never had. I knew about yoga and loved it for years before finding YE. I did at-home yoga videos for a workout, I thought it looked cool but was weirded out by chants or ohms or Sanskrit.
I only cared about the Asana, and this shallow perspective also mirrored the depths that I allowed my healing. I have always ran from my problems, ran from facing myself, and instead buried all my emotions deep within.

Something started happening to me in Jenna’s classes. And what I would soon find is Yoga Element being a key component to my recovery from alcohol.

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In class, all of these feelings, memories, emotions, self-talk would come up. Some days I would find myself bawling my eyes out uncontrollably in her class. Other days I left with my throat choked up and would spend the entire evening delving into the inner feelings that came up. Oftentimes allowing myself space to grieve and feel through the night and even into the next day. Crying my eyes out in the bathroom at work. Finding acceptance or who I was, and learning that everything in my life lead me to where I am now. Some days during Jenna’s classes - especially Fire Flow - I would catch myself meditating. Completely immersed in the moment, union of breath mind and body. In that moment, None of the past mattered, and the negative self talk wasn’t there. It took me a few times of convincing to go to someone else’s class other than Jenna’s. I NEEDED her Monday night class to start my week and I needed her words and wisdom. Then I went to Mandy’s class. On a Saturday; Sun Flow. The first class was about coming home to yourself, listening to your heart. Again, the choked up feeling came in my throat and tears filled my eyes, and I allowed myself to feel. I allowed myself to be with all of the discomfort and I allowed years of buried emotion to surface. It was through these classes that I, instead of numbing emotions and spiraling down the familiar path of self-harm, began to accept and let go. I was immediately attracted to inversions. You can’t dwell on your past when you are standing on your head! Honestly inversions look sweet but for me inversions are more about not running when I fail, committing to something and finishing it. Where if I can do this on the mat, I can bring this commitment and drive to other aspects of my life. Eventually, my breath in class became audible. Now I can’t live without my ujaji pranayama and don’t need to be in a studio space to breath deeply.

The more I practiced the more I learned, I learned names of poses like wild thing, extended side angle, skandasana. And I committed to finishing a teacher training! The third one in my life that I signed up for, I completed. I wanted to be able to help others the way Jenna and Mandy have been able to help me. Jenna knew about my teacher training and told me SHE would tell me when I was ready to teach, because if it was up to me, I would never say I was ready. Just a year ago , Jenna asked if I wanted to sub for her and I said yes without hesitation - it was time.

Here we are today. My goal as an instructor is to create a safe space for you to feel. To allow a space for breaking habits and patterns that stand in the way of your own peace. To find that voice inside that tells you , you are enough, exactly as you are. And all the guilt, shame you carry does not define you as a person and everything will be okay. I invite you to come home to yourself. My class Flow + Restore can be powerful, but for me, I need to burn off all that excess energy/ heat held in the body to allow for the buried emotions to surface, for the mind to stop racing. Then cool down, when the real work happens. For me, this is what separates yoga from the gym or working out - the time for inner work.
Surrendering into poses teaches us acceptance of our current situation and acceptance of ourselves. We slow down. Allow ourselves to ground, connect, feel, relax. To listen to our inner light. It’s an honor for me to write this to openly share how much element means to me and how much of my own growth happened because of the space Jenna and Mandy hold for us. Because here in these walls was where I found my own self love. I'm here to help you do the same. I look forward to seeing you. Namaste.

Jeanette Cole

Jeanette's yoga training all started during her first pregnancy when she realized that her pregnant body craved a practice that would prepare her for birth. This led her to seek out birth doula training both with DONA and IDI, where she studied the pregnant body and learned how to properly support prenatal and birthing bodies through labor with positions and breathwork. Through her birth doula certification, Jeanette gained intensive knowledge of the mind-body-breath connection. This connected her to further her certification by training as a registered yoga teacher, where she  fully supports both the prenatal and postnatal body with movement. Once Jeanette had another child, she saw the need again for her yoga to expand. This is how her baby, preschool, kids, and adolescent yoga classes were born. With her background in education for 15 years, teaching these creative and mindful classes fused together parts of her heart where it all made sense: her yoga journey came full circle for both the mother and baby unit. Jeanette's skills in understanding the pregnant body, the newly postnatal period, and motherhood life deeply inspire her class offerings. Her yoga for children draws on the mind-body-breath connection and supports mindfulness for both the parents and children. 

Jeanette is also a certified lactation counselor, and feeding babies during yoga classes is normal, accepted, and welcomed. In addition to her maternal wellness business, Jeanette also specializes in herbalism, ayurveda, and chair yoga. 

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Her teaching led her to Yoga Element and its family through a series of serendipitous events: she knew Mandy from childhood and was a previous student under Jenna. It all made sense, and she is blessed to be connected to such a wonderful community. 

Emily Fecek

I came to yoga as a teenager thinking I found a cool hobby. For years I practiced yoga at home not fully understanding what I was doing. I knew my body was making shapes. I had a vague knowledge of it being a spiritual practice. But I came to yoga seeking a fitness regimen that would also impress other people.  I would never tell someone they can't practice yoga just for the physical benefits, but for me it wasn't enough and it served as a roadblock to my growth. In 2020 I earned a 200 hr certification in Baptiste power yoga. That decision was the best choice I could have made for myself and my practice as it opened up my eyes to yoga as a way of approaching life and not just a way to impress others or get a fit body. I fell in love with the eight limbs and how they help practitioners seek peace in themselves and their surroundings. More specifically I was enamored with the yamas and niyamas and how applying them can help a person remain in a state of peacefulness. I spent approximately two years teaching power yoga which slowly helped me realize that such a strenuous approach to asana is not for me. I found myself seeking kindness and gentleness on my mat rather than the forced strength that power yoga evoked from me. I found myself wanting to help guide others into that head space of being open to the present moment through breath, movement, and stillness.

I acquired a certification in yin yoga in 2021 which helped facilitate this more peaceful and open approach to asana that I had grown to love. I use the combination of my past training in power yoga and yin yoga to build strength mindfully and surrender to a place of allowing the poses rather than forcing the poses. I also have an affinity for playing around with balance postures and interesting transitions between them, which, while having the capacity to be impressive, is more a fun way to test how kind I'm being to myself in my practice. Do I get frustrated and mad when I can't balance well that day, or do I let it go and give myself a break?

I am currently seeking another 200 hr in hatha yoga as well and hope to apply this further to my own practice and to my offerings to those who join me in asana practice.  I cannot imagine my life without yoga and want to help others find this for themselves as well. My approach to asana also seeks to allow students the space to feel things out and the freedom to say no if something doesn't feel right in that moment. I am more than excited to share my love for yoga with anyone who wants to roll out their mat with me. Namaste friends.