After a trip to my mother’s village, Santiago de María, I found myself thinking about the people around me. Different, yet familiar faces who were holding onto different, yet familiar traumas in their bodies.
It made me wonder who really gets access to practices like yoga in the first place. In my ideal world, people everywhere, even in small villages like Santiago, have access to the practice.
That’s why I started Santi. It’s my piece of home for teaching, studying and experimenting with yoga. Inspired by alchemy, the idea is that, through time and consistent practice, anybody can turn what they’ve been through into inner peace.
Fátima Alvarenga, CYT
vasudhaiva kutumbakam
‘The world is one family’
— Maha Upanishad 6:71-73
I offer yoga classes via local Ottawa studios; pop-up events; private sessions; and retreats; as well as a small collection of thoughtfully sourced Palo Santo. Everything is centred around creating a little more inner peace.
My passion for yoga stems from my own experience and the inner transformation it has brought into my life for over more than a decade.
I discovered yoga in high school when my mom took me to classes at a local gym to help with my anxiety. Over the years, my practice came and went, but after I moved in 2021, a friend invited me to a yin yoga class. I arrived late and missed it, but kept feeling called to try again.
Eventually, I fell in love with yin yoga and my relationship with the practice deepened. I started to want to share the inner peace it was bringing me, with others, but couldn’t even put together a sequence.
After one thing led to another, I eventually sought out my first yoga teacher training and here we are today…
Since becoming certified in 2024, I’ve taught in Canada, the U.S. and El Salvador, and somewhere along the way passed hundreds of hours of teaching.
People tell me they enjoy my calming voice, the way I sequence, and my references to yoga philosophy.
Before all else, I am a student first. My teaching is informed by my personal practice, continued studies, and training in:
25-hr Yoga Sutras of Patañjali with Ben Kalra (Live Virtual, 2027)
60-hr Yin Yoga, Acupressure and Tui Na Training with Grounded Movement (Canada, 2025)
50-hr Plant-Infused Yoga Training with Dee Dussault (Live Virtual, 2024)
200-hr Yoga Teacher Training with SoulSpeak Yoga (Costa Rica, 2024)
Mentorship under Erin Harris
It takes a village
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Fátima Alvarenga
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Cecilia Alvarenga
The Real MVP
“Did they like my sandwiches?”
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Paige Palmer
Photographer & Content Creator
“Trust your intuition and trust what is meant for you will come to you with ease”.
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Bolu Adegbembo
Photographer
“Don’t take things too personally, we are all on our own complicated life journeys.”
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Charles Blackman
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