Yoga Teacher Training · Pilsen, Chicago

Graduation 2026

In honor of the YTT Class of 2025 + 2026

Friday, August 7, 2026 · 6:00 PM
LSP Studio · Pilsen, Chicago

One candlelit Friday: a sound bath, guided breathwork with a hand over every heart, and two cohorts of new yoga teachers.

Casi 100 maestras y contando.

Teachers certified through LSP
Nearly 100
Cohorts honored
2
Photos from the night
307
The full 2025 and 2026 cohorts pose in two rows across the studio, nearly every person holding a framed certificate.
The class of 2025 and 2026, certificates in hand, at LSP Studio.

La noche, en fotos

The story of the night

Two cohorts of teachers, many already leading classes of their own, were formally celebrated at last. Here is how it went, in order.

6:00 PM Llegada

The room filled before the ceremony did

Bouquets still in their paper, diploma folders already in hand, and the studio kitchen full of hugs and introductions before anyone sat down.

A guest laughs with his eyes shut while holding a wrapped bouquet of yellow and lavender flowers, surrounded by friends and family in the studio kitchen.
A graduate holds her black and gold LSP diploma folder against her chest, talking with two friends beside a counter of sunflowers, a disco ball hanging overhead.
Two people talk across a table of iced coffees, a laptop covered in stickers open between them.

The opening Respiración guiada · Guided breathwork

Guided breathwork, hands over hearts

A sound bath opened the ceremony. Then the whole room, graduates, familias and friends together, breathed through a guided practice with a hand resting over the heart.

An older woman in a black and silver brocade dress sits with her hand over her heart, eyes forward, a younger woman doing the same behind her, both lit in warm pink light.
A row of guests seated in front of a gold fringe curtain with their hands over their hearts and eyes closed, one man standing behind them doing the same.
Guests standing along the studio wall with hands pressed over their hearts, kettlebells stacked on the floor behind them.

The Latina Sweat Project was never these walls. It was never an address. It has always been the people standing in this room.

Margarita Quiñones-Peña Founder

The ceremony Diplomas

Names called, one at a time

Diplomas were presented at the front of the studio, and almost nobody made it back to their spot without being pulled into a hug first.

Two graduates hold each other in a long hug while a classmate waits alongside them holding diploma folders, candles glowing at the base of the mirror.
A graduate is lifted into a hug, her diploma folder still in her hand, while a guest films the moment on his phone from across the room.
The room applauds as two graduates embrace, one in a gold dress holding her diploma folder behind her friend's back, rows of candles lining the floor.

The mic Speeches

Then the microphone went around the room

Our founders spoke. So did our Junior Board and our graduates, several of them reading from notes on their phones, with the rest of the room sitting on the floor around them.

Vanessa Tirado speaks into a handheld microphone while reading from her phone, wearing a Chicago basketball jersey, the seated room reflected in the mirror behind her.
Vanessa Tirado Co-Founder & Director
Margarita Quiñones-Peña speaks mid-sentence with a microphone, in a white top and long strand of pearls, graduates seated on the floor around her.
Margarita Quiñones-Peña Founder
Yesi Peyret smiles as she speaks into a microphone, holding her phone in her other hand, wearing a cream rebozo printed with monarch butterflies.
Yesi Peyret Vice President, 2025 Junior Board
Margarita Quiñones-Peña laughs mid-speech with the microphone in one hand and a bouquet of blue hydrangeas and roses held against her chest.
Margarita Quiñones-Peña Founder

After Flores y celebración

Flowers, one very crowded selfie, and the class photo

Bouquets went around, everyone piled into a group selfie, and the night closed with the whole graduating group together, certificates in the frame.

A crowd of graduates and guests packs into a group selfie, one arm stretched out holding the phone, everyone leaning in and laughing.
The full graduating group poses together in warm pink light, some kneeling in front, gold and white balloons on the studio floor around them.
The full 2025 and 2026 cohorts pose in two rows across the studio, nearly every person holding a framed certificate, papel picado and a gold fringe curtain visible in the room behind them.
The 2025 and 2026 cohorts with their certificates.

Una formación como ninguna

A teacher training that exists nowhere else

Community rooted and Latina led, taught in Pilsen, and built so that the people who grew up in these neighborhoods are the ones leading the room.

We were never trying to create simply more yoga teachers. We were always building leaders and a pipeline of teachers.

Margarita Quiñones-Peña Founder

Where these teachers go on to teach

  • Studios
  • Schools
  • Parks
  • Hospitals
  • Shelters

“In our neighborhoods, where we belong.” Margarita Quiñones-Peña, Founder

The lineage

  1. 2025 + 2026

    The cohorts honored this August

  2. Nearly 100

    Teachers certified through LSP so far

  3. Hundreds more

    Still to come, taught by the ones in this room

Someday hundreds of teachers will trace their lineage back to the people who stood in this room.

Voces de la noche

What was said

You are not simply graduating from the Latina Sweat Project. You are building its future.

Margarita Quiñones-Peña Founder

Continue to lead with courage, service, and compassion.

Vanessa Tirado Co-Founder & Director

And please, dream bigger.

Margarita Quiñones-Peña Founder

Comparte la galería

Share the graduation gallery

Post it to your story and add a link sticker, or share straight from here.

Gracias, maestras

To everyone who walked across that floor

Thank you to the 2025 and 2026 graduates for the hours, the work, and the trust. Thank you to the families and friends who filled the room, and to everyone who came to stand with them. Nearly 100 people have now been certified through this program, and every one of them started exactly where this cohort is standing.

  • Margarita Quiñones-Peña Founder
  • Vanessa Tirado Co-Founder & Director
  • Veronica Quiñones Co-Founder, Director & Studio Manager

Our next home

Help us build the room this happens in next

Our lease at 949 W 16th St ends in December 2026, so this graduation was one of the last big nights in this space. We are raising the funds for our next studio, and the speeches said it plainly that night: the program travels with the people, not the address.

Ayúdanos a construir nuestra próxima casa.

That is what makes what we have built together impossible to displace.

Margarita Quiñones-Peña Founder

Te esperamos

Come stand in the next room

If this page made you want to be in the photos next time, there are two open doors between now and the fall. Consider this your invitation.

LSP's first-ever all-day festival

Sweat Fest

Movement Is Ours

  • Aug 22
  • 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM
  • 18th & Peoria

Start with a sunrise 5K, move through classes and wellbeing experiences, then close the night at the Pachanga. It is exactly the kind of day these new teachers get to lead.

The Latina Sweat Project presents

Annual Gala

September 25, 2026 · 6:00 PM CT

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

A black-tie evening for art, movement, and community. It is the night that funds the scholarships, the trainings, and the next studio, so the room you just scrolled through keeps growing.

Tickets and sponsorships are on sale now