About SoulFlow Oakland
Satya's Bio
Offering 13 years of experience teaching yoga, Satya de la Paz (she/her) inspires students to fall in love with their bodies and their practice. Deeply inspired by her years as an educator in West Oakland, she infuses dynamic alignment, chanting, storytelling, and community-building into her classes.
Satya offers Yoga as a means of collective and personal liberation and decolonization: accessing our innate healing capacity through therapeutics and compassion, meeting media-driven body shame through mindfulness and affirmation, freeing the heart of resentment and blame, and healing the mind of ableist and hierarchical ways of moving and acting. Multiple expressions of poses are offered as students are encouraged to listen to their own body wisdom and access needs.
Satya is deeply grateful for her mentor, Abby Tucker, as well as all of her dharma and movement teachers, Sally Kempton, Rob Preece, and Sianna Sherman. Honoring the traditions of Hatha Yoga, Tantra Yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism, she empowers multiracial, multi-gender, and multigenerational groups to awaken their true nature of awareness and bliss.
Off the mat, Satya is active in social justice movements, dances, gardens, and cooks.
Creativity & Communications Director
Sabrina Davidson is a visual artist and organizer with an interest in mental and environmental health, she often collaborates with designers on projects meant to advocate for sustainability and environmental justice. She is a consummate meditator with an enthusiasm for movement, awareness, and healing.
Raj Escondo - Instructor
Raj Escondo (pronouns: she/they) is a Filipinx and South-Asian/Indian personal development facilitator and yoga instructor. She infuses a sense of groundedness, refection, and connection with her background as a yoga teacher and in her professional work within leadership development, social justice, and community partnerships. Born in the Philippines, rooted in Chicago, and transplanted to the Bay, Raj supports folks in finding a compassionate and cozy home within themselves to move towards interconnection with others, the land, and ancestors. Her movement practice strengthens one's interoception skills supporting folks with histories of trauma, overwork, and stress to decompress and look within. Raj believes in a life of interdependent abundance, compassion, and ease as the path towards liberatory justice. Her class will bring you back to the breath, body, and present moment.
Kimber Simpkins - Instructor
Kimber is Kimber (she/her/hers) is a white-identified, cis, queer mom who has taught yoga and mindfulness in the San Francisco Bay area for almost twenty years, bringing a body acceptance and social justice perspective to her teaching and learning. As a long time yoga and dharma practitioner, Kimber values how our compassion, self-knowledge, and decreased reactivity help us increase our skillfulness in the face of injustice. Knowing that yoga and dharma can be used to bypass uncomfortable conversations and exclude people from the practice, she is constantly working on her ability to work mindfully with discomfort as a student, a teacher, and a facilitator. She has witnessed first hand how mindful embodiment has brought more connection, sensitivity, and joy to relationships and life. She became an Anusara Certified Yoga Teacher in 2008, completed the Dedicated Practitioner's Program at Spirit Rock in 2016, teacher training at the Mindfulness Training Institute in 2017, racial justice facilitator training with Holistic Resistance in 2020, and is currently a member of the Spiritual Teacher Leadership Program at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland. She’s honored to be part of the growing Yoga Jubilee community.
Matthew August - Instructor
Matthew August discovered martial arts and meditation in his early twenties and the course of his life changed forever. Martial arts instilled confidence and taught him how to generate power while meditation re-enlivened his childhood bliss, cured his speech impediment, and gave him hope. It has been his life’s purpose and passion to share these tools with people in order to enrich their lives and steward a journey of uncovering one's full potential. He has taught thousands of people meditation from all walks of life. Matthew is a certified instructor in the Transcendental Meditation tradition founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and an instructor in the Fut Sao Buddha Hand Wing Chun Kung Fu system under the tutelage of Sifu James Cama.
"Matthew's infinite patience at TM events was what first impressed me-and, in general, the guy definitely knows what he's talking about and he loves to teach. What else do ya want?"
-Dr. J.J. Kelly
The Punk Rock Doc
CEO & Founder of UnorthoDocs, Inc.
& Bestselling author of The Holy Shit Series
SoulFlow Vision & Mission
SoulFlow Oakland is co-creating a world where everyone can thrive, healthcare--including Yoga & Meditation--is a human right, and we are in rhythm with nature. We are part of a global movement that honors and respects the roots of Yoga, centers Black, Indigenous, and POC (People of Color) needs, and lifts the voices of the South Asian community.
During these difficult, pivotal times we are committed to offering healing, trainings, retreats, gatherings, and resources that access the whole self, ignite joy, and inspire our most courageous heart toward wise, compassionate action in the world.