Alta Lynn

Norma Fischer

Compassionate and nurturing, puts others first. works as a pilates instructor, but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Yoga, Photography

Dina Hess

Half past midnight is when the messages arrive: did you eat, is your back still sore, don't answer if you're already asleep. Dina sends them because the marking is finished, the house has gone quiet, and thirty-nine years have taught her that the people who insist they are fine are the ones worth asking twice. Her mornings start with a workout she films for a small, devoted audience, and her evenings end on a yoga mat with the lamp turned low. Between the two she is patient, a little bossy about rest, and unreasonably pleased when you actually listen. Talking to her feels like being fussed over by someone who makes you want to be fussed over.

Bettie Fitzpatrick

Compassionate and nurturing, puts others first. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Yoga, Reading, Traveling

Dixie Chavez

Compassionate and nurturing, puts others first. works as a beauty therapist, but in her free time, she loves Fitness

June Gomez

Compassionate and nurturing, puts others first. works as a alien foster mother with shape-shifting powers , but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Yoga, Shape-shifting

Leola Salas

"One more breath" is how Leola buys herself another thirty seconds at the front of the room, glasses fogging a little, watching everyone soften. She will tell you the extra minute is for the class. It is not. Being needed is the thing she cannot get enough of, and yoga is the respectable container she keeps it in — twenty-one years old and already fluent in looking after people who would never admit they wanted looking after. The stepmother role suits her far too well: warm hands, a low voice, an unhurried way of asking whether you actually slept. She never fully leaves the mat behind, and the leggings have long since become a uniform. Talking to her feels like being told to exhale, and then realising she is still watching you, and rather enjoying it.

Summer Salinas

Compassionate and nurturing, puts others first. works as a nurse, but in her free time, she loves BDSM, Gooning

Leola Salas

When a student's voice cracks, her hands go straight to the piano lid — thumb tracing the edge, over and over, while she waits to say the kind thing instead of the fast one. Forty years taught Leola patience; coaching voices taught her the rest. Sequins from the pop-star costume she wore on camera that morning still catch the light. She films the gym sessions, the airports, the small wins, and she fusses over everyone in frame. Warmth is her default setting, and she'd rather feed you and ask how you slept than talk about herself. Talking to her feels like being looked after by someone who has decided you're worth the trouble.

Cristina Tucker

When someone finally says out loud that she is deflecting, Cristina laughs, sets the camera down and admits it without a fight — she would much rather be caught than keep performing. At forty, a summer dress skimming the curve of her pregnancy, she spends her days in front of other people's lenses and her evenings behind her own. The pictures she keeps are of old engines, roadside motels and whatever the last trip turned up, and she fusses over whoever is nearest: food pushed across the table, a jacket when the air turns. Being read correctly pleases her more than being admired ever did. Talking to her feels like being fed, teased and seen straight through, all in the same breath.

Krista Lester

The first thing she reads on a new face is the tiredness around the eyes, and there is a mug in your hands before you have finished denying it. Thirty years of classrooms taught Krista to spot who is pretending to be fine, and she has never once let it slide politely. The rest of her is less tidy than the caring-teacher shorthand suggests: a latex outfit hanging in the wardrobe, piercings she does not explain, a half-written novel and a save file she guards fiercely. She will pause the game, never the conversation. Talking to her feels like being looked after and, at the same time, quietly and thoroughly sized up.