Photo of Angela Yong . Photo by Kathryn Van Aernum
Angela Yong
biodynamic bodywork I Yoga I Personal Training
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Owner of Fit Columbia 5/2011
2022 #realcolumbiasc experience columbia ambassador
2022 Best Massage Therapist Free Times
What do I book?
Biodynamic Bodywork by Angela Yong
First timers should book a Biodynamic bodywork and assessment - allow for 75-90 minutes
Return clients may choose from 30 or 60 minutes visits
Biodynamic bodywork maintenance - allow for 50-60 minutes (full body)
Biodynamic refresher - allow for 30 minutes ( spot problem areas like frozen shoulder, plantar fasciitis)
*assisted stretch sessions are with Shay May and Nancy Goffi
These cross trained fitness professionals have multiple certifications.
trainings & professional roles
Leadership Columbia Class, Chamber of Commerce (2023-24)
Queen Geraldine, Kudzu Queen (3/2023)
Restoring Ojas with Judy Moulton, Himalayan Institute (9/2022)
Experience Columbia Ambassador (2022)
Athleta Brand Rep (2018)
The Body Aquarium: Lymphatic Mojo with Dr. Perry Nickelston (1/2022)
Member of 100 Women Who Care Midlands SC of Columbia (currently active)
Ayurveda Weekend Training with Dallas Yoga Center (2020)
Behavioral Treatment of Chronic Pain: Evidence-Based Techniques to Move People from Hurt to Hope (March 1, 2019)
Non-Surgical Management of Shoulder Pain: Mechanism of Injury, Regenerative Medicine Alternatives & New Rehab Technologies (10/2018)
Iyengar Yoga & Wall Yoga with Marj Rash (2018)
National Strength and Conditioning Association Coaching Conference (1/2017)
The Art of Coaching Volleyball (4/2014)
Certifications
Touch of Presence Biodynamic Cranial Approach (BCA) (7/2022) with Giorgia Milne
AAMC: Active Aging Movement Coach (1/2021) and SCW Certified Meditation Teacher (1/2021)
Integrating Stretching into Massage (12/2021)
Yoga Alliance Certified Education Provider, 200 E-RYT and Sakhi Yoga School Faculty Member with Pam Meriwether
Certified Kinesio Taping Practitioner (CKTP) (10/2018), Certified IASTM Practitioner (5/2019), Certified Myofascial Cupping Practitioner (5/2019)
50 HR Yoga for Cancer Certified with Tari Prinster
45 HR Pre/Post Natal Yoga Certified with Amani Jackson Murray
Thai Yoga Bodywork Certified with Michael Sitzer and 60 additional hours in Thailand with Pichet Aon Phawat Boonthumme (2/2020)
Restorative Yoga with Ursel Sarala Harmon
Beachbody Insanity, AFAA Spin & Pilates, Lexington Medical Center Group Fitness, ACE Personal Trainer, AFAA Personal Trainer
Aerial Yoga level 1&2, Wall Yoga, Restorative Yoga, Bungee Flow & Fit
American Red Cross First Aid, CPR, AED (on going)
ACE Functional Movement, SCW Fascia Stretch Specialist
ISSA Sports Nutrition, Certified Level One Raw Food Chef
speaking engagements
International Womens Day Speaker (3/2023)
Table for Six Honoree- Columbia Opportunity Resource (Feb 2023)
Choose Well Summit (April 2022)
SCW Fitness Education Conference (February 2020)
MTC Artworks Conference (Oct 2019)
Athleta, Be Bold Speaking Panel (Oct 2019)
Southern Mutual Church Insurance Company Health Week (Oct 2019)
SCW Fitness Education Conference (July 2019)
One Million Cups (May 2016 & April 2019)
Columbia Women’s Business Center “On Location” highlight (November 2018)
Table for Six Honoree - Columbia Opportunity Resource (August 2018)
MAGAZINES, NEWSPAPER, ONLINE & TELEVISION
Fig Magazine - Spring 2023 Get and Go Issue *Authentic Woman Feature
South Carolina Educational Television (Documentary episode on Goat Yoga)
WISTV, WOLO, ABC COLUMBIA (Multiple appearances for aerial yoga, fitness morning tips and benefits of massage)
Palmetto Parent (How to workout with your kids)
The Ultimate Guide to Summer Fun in Columbia- 2019 Edition
The State Paper
The Columbia Star (Front page photos and article written by Sellers on adventure racing)
Skirt Magazine (Monthly feature about Sellers in the fitness industry)
Career Highlights
A Career in Fitness
Angie, an athlete who’d been recruited to play college volleyball, found herself in the place many young women do—out of shape, stressed and not sure what to do about it. She was recently divorced with two young daughters, working successfully in fundraising for a national charity. She was also struggling to get her confidence back. The personal trainer she hired felt intimidating to her. So she became a certified trainer to help herself and in the process found a new career.
Angie started a new job at the Columbia YMCA as health enhancement director over all the group exercise and fitness programming. From there, she was recruited to be director of operations for the University of South Carolina volleyball team, then to be assistant athletic director for Hammond School, where she coached volleyball and oversaw the female strength and conditioning program.
Creating FITColumbia
At the same time, Angie returned to competitive sports and experienced the first serious injury of her life during an obstacle course race. Traditional medical treatment wasn’t doing enough, so she turned to a former colleague, a Division I college athletic trainer. “Stephanie Rosehart, had one goal with me and all athletes: Get back out on the field,“ Angie says. “She taught me what to strengthen and what to rest. No prescriptions, no generic handouts. I did my homework and had full mobility. I became fascinated by the work she did.”
Angie studied various methods used typically by physical therapists, cupping, Guasha blading and nontraditional forms of yoga, expanding on the decadesof knowledge and experience she already had. She opened Fit Columbia in 2011, creating a space for nontraditional yoga and a way to approach exercise she felt was lacking in the community. At Fit Columbia, she offers innovative fitness classes, provides training and certification for other instructors, and meets people where they are, one-on-one, to provide the kind of training that has benefitted her. “I believe in holding space. I hold space for you, when you walk in, I ask, ‘How’s your body?’ Based on the response, that’s what we do.”
Speaker and yoga retreat host
Always learning, Angie has found that yoga and stretching have more to offer than she once believed. As an athlete, she’d been discouraged from stretching. Yoga classes had always seemed too cookie cutter. “Iyengar yoga, aerial yoga and wall yoga opened my eyes to the multiple forms of nontraditional yoga,” she says. Already certified in Thai yoga bodywork, Angie is traveling to Thailand in 2020 for master level training.
Now she provides yoga training for four sports teams at the University of South Carolina and teaches a course there on nontraditional yoga. She’s also in demand as a conference speaker and yoga retreat host. “Everything I’ve been studying, bodies I’ve been observing, it all comes together. I make it accessible, and I make it fun. People walk away with new ways to practice self-care. Knowing I can do that makes my skin tingle with excitement every time I speak.”
More opportunities for others
Even as demand for her work is growing, Angie continues to make supporting her community a priority. She hosts benefits for local non-profit organizations and has organized a campaign to promote body-positive fitness with free workshops.
Winner of the Better Business Bureau’s Small Business of the Year award, she also mentors other women in businessand promotes diversity in the fitness field. In 2019, she created a fund to provide scholarships for minority women to attend yoga retreats. “Until you walk away from your routines,” Angie says, “you have no idea the new routines you can create.” For Angela Sellers, physical fitness has been a lifetime commitment built on an understanding of movement and an active lifestyle. Once a child who climbed trees and loved fishing, then a record-breaking high school athlete who won international tournaments, Sellers grew into a young professional focused on mentoring others about strength training, the evolution of stretching, exercise physiology, and injury prevention. She served as the Health Enhancement Director at a Columbia-based YMCA before joining the University of South Carolina as their Volleyball Director of Operations; she also currently teaches PE at USC. Later in her career, Sellers worked as a strength and conditioning coach with Hammond School and capped off almost twenty years of coaching volleyball with local club volleyball teams and Hammond School. When she wasn’t coaching or teaching, Sellers stayed busy by competing in obstacle course races, playing tennis, mountain biking, and whitewater kayaking.
Sellers may have won multiple awards and championed almost two decades of athletics coaching, but she has dug even deeper roots in Columbia, SC, by opening her own business. In 2011, Sellers opened Fit Columbia, fueled by her sincere passion for teaching and her unwavering independent spirit as a pioneer in minority-led fitness studios. She has consistently utilized her studio to educate Columbia-area residents about the relationship between physical and mental health via mentorship in yoga and stretching. Through Fit Columbia, Sellers draws on years of proven history and experience with training and conditioning with hundreds of athletes, including equestrians, cheerleaders, football players, and volleyball players.
As a minority business owner, Sellers has provided training and employment opportunities for other minority fitness professionals, including offering both mat and aerial yoga classes taught in American Sign Language by a Deaf/Hard of Hearing instructor. Fit Columbia also serves as a vehicle for Sellers’ health-centered philanthropic endeavors. Sellers has led fundraising and partnership efforts with dynamic nonprofit organizations, like Epworth Children’s Home, the Palmetto Conservation Foundation, and Lexington/Richland Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, to create accessible curriculum that will be educational, confidence-building, fun, and relaxing for participants. In recent years, Fit Columbia has donated thousands of dollars to regional causes in the Columbia area, solidifying its inspirational leader’s impact on the community at large.
in her own words…
“I believe when you teach one person, they share it with their whole village. The ripple effect of ‘I got this’ happens every time I work with a client, teach a workshop, or lead a retreat.”
I am a motivational speaker, fitness trainer, master yogi, and entrepreneur who teaches self-care and encourage badass-ery. I was a sixteen year strength and conditioning coach turned yogi. Hyper competitive to thriving on an unhurried life. I am a certified Thai yoga bodyworker with over 500 hours of formal yoga training. I have traveled the world studying physical therapy modalities and healing methods to expand my ability to help people increase mobility, recover from injuries and prevent them. I am a former athlete and coach, I work with Olympians, Grammy winning musicians, ultra runners and professional athletes as well as with people of every age and fitness level who want to be more active and enjoy life.
My most cherished belief is in holding space. Each session is unique, clients come in with different needs and they each need to be accommodated. I offer private sessions for individuals, couples and small groups. Private sessions range from personal training, yoga, stretching.