Quentin Vennie is a celebrated wellness expert, motivational speaker, and author of the bestselling memoir, Strong In The Broken Places. His work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Entrepreneur, Fox News, MindBodyGreen, and others. Quentin has been recognized as one of Black Enterprise magazine’s 100 Modern Men of Distinction and by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for his contribution in raising awareness for mental health and suicide prevention, as well as appearing as the wellness keynote speaker for Colin Kaepernick’s “Know My Rights” Camp. Quentin works with youth in under-resourced communities, helping them understand their traumas and turn them into triumphs, and spearheads initiatives that make yoga and mindfulness accessible among communities and populations that don’t ordinarily have access to them.
Justin Blazejewski (E-RYT 500, YACEP) was first introduced to yoga in 2007 while he was searching for different exercises that would help with a back injury he sustained while serving in the Marine Corps. Soon after his first class, he dove into a daily yoga practice, quickly realizing the physical benefits of yoga when his back pain began to disappear after only a couple of weeks. Justin was in his 4th year of monthly travel to Afghanistan and Iraq as a government contractor when he devoted himself to a daily yoga practice. Over the last 10 years, he served as a communication engineer with 40+ temporary duty assignments. After years of constant travel, Justin realized the effects of the war zone were taking their toll, but he also noticed how the benefits of yoga were offsetting these effects. In 2008 he attended his first yoga/kirtan retreat in Bali, Indonesia, which proved to be the turning point in his spiritual practice. Soon after, Justin began to find clarity, calmness and intuition in his life. This led him to find his Guru, Sri Dharma Mittra, at a small humble yoga studio in the heart of NYC. He immediately enrolled in the "DMY Life of a Yogi" teacher training to solely deepen his practice of yoga and self-healing. Since 2008, he has completed his 200, 500, and 800-hour Dharma Mittra Yoga, Amrit Method of Yoga Nidra, and Acro Yoga teacher training. In 2015 Justin Created VETOGA—a nonprofit whose mission is to provide yoga, meditation, and healing arts to military, veterans, law enforcement and first responders.