Namasté Friend,
Welcome!
I’ve been actively teaching in Vancouver, BC,
for over 25 years.
Here’s a link for
Spring 2026 sessions
with me, Sandra Leigh.
UPDATE:
Over the past few years, I’ve been productive in new ways, both writing and recording music and writing to tell the stories of my relative experiences and life’s adventures. Writing helps me navigate the currents of an ever changing world of sound. I‘m pleased to share sound & vibrational practices that use music, rhythm and mantra meditation. If you’re interested in subtle energy and sound, I’m here to share my harmonic music and sound healing practices with you.
Read my article about the role sound plays in subtle energy body awareness and the interesting effects sound healing practices have on trauma, brain health and the body.
My Wellness Story
Chapter 1: Before it was a journey, exercise played a vital role in my life. As a young adult, I remember participating with exercise programs on TV in the 70’s.
Back then, it was nearly all Canadian content on only 2 channels, resulting in many iconic 70’s shows – Canadian TV programming included a CTV exercise program called ‘Kareen’s Yoga’, hosted by ever-fabulous Kareen Zebroff.
I was only a kid, so I mostly remember this was the era of 70’s fabrics – itchy and nylon. We’d wear a one piece nylon bodysuit paired with the equally scratchy leotards (see D and E below) for Kareen’s Yoga, as well, I remember leotards for The Ed Allen Exercise Show and later, classic ’80’s with The 20 Minute Workout.
Later, as a young adult, I found exercise programs to attend at my local community centre, so I registered in yoga, not expecting any kind of life changing experience. However I met an exceptional teacher, Lilian Bianchi who first guided me to learn about and experience subtle body awareness. I was intrigued by Lilian’s interpretations of yoga philosophy and I began attending sessions as often as possible.
At that time, I had no idea what a daily practice looked like, much less that one day, I would become a teacher, myself.
Then, in 1995, marriage rumbles left me crumbled. Divorce was a heart ache, but with Lilian’s encouragement and compassion, I dove deep, exploring healing paths.
After a few years with Lilian, I visited Yasodhara Ashram, near Kootenay Bay, BC, and participated in ‘The Hidden Language of Hatha Yoga’ as taught by Swami Sivananda Radha, the original pioneer of the ‘Divine Light Invocation’ as well as Hidden Language. These would become my first practices preparing me for the next step on my healing journey.
I ended up staying and working at the ashram for about a year after completing the yoga development certification course (YDC) and receiving a Hatha Yoga Teacher’s Certificate.
I returned to Vancouver and went back to work in the restaurants. I saved my tips and bought my first harmonium. I had already been subbing for Lilian and I was also hired to teach yoga exercises at the YMCA, both downtown and in South Vancouver.
It was around then, that Lilian introduced me to her dear friend and local teacher, Sandra Sammartino.
Sandra Sammartino offered a complete modular teacher certificate course at her Kairos Studio in White Rock, BC. I was intrigued by her very vocal approach of recognizing yoga as a therapy.
Sandra’s trainings would help us all work with subtle armoring while letting go of what holds us back. We practiced all different kinds of yoga inversions, hanging ourselves like art work off the ropes on the studio walls. Later, we extended our bodies to the floor for deep relaxation sessions, gazing to night stars through the sky lights, the sound healing exercise called TONING – a high pitch made by Sandra’s vocals and we would all join in. It would go on and on. This would help process varying degrees of traumas trapped within ourselves, and as a collective of mostly women it became a sanctuary for many of us!
Sandra Sammartino was also the original pioneer and heart behind BC’s ‘Yoga Outreach’ programs.
As an optional part of our teacher training, Sandra would mentor us for Yoga Outreach teaching positions. My first Outreach teaching experience was 1:1 therapeutic session for a home bound trauma survivor. This was well before the coined phrase “trauma informed” care was a thing.
Yoga Outreach placements allowed me to experience and explore teaching in unusual circumstances with challenging areas such as another placement with adult women at a drug and alcohol treatment facility in South Vancouver.
The Yoga Outreach program also sponsored an after school program called “The Avengers”, where I taught children and youth with Autism. This program inspired me to continue working with younger people, as well as appreciate both the gifts and challenges of neurodivergence.
Neurodivergent is a term for a brain that processes, learns or behaves differently from what is considered typical or “normal” function. What used to be considered a problem has grown to be more readily recognized for it’s societal benefit. Today, health care providers are ever more accepting that a spectrum of mental health conditions such as ASD (Autism), ADHD, traumatic brain injury, chronic illnesses and dissociative disorders can be traced back to unresolved childhood trauma. Of course, this is not always the case.
I’ve learned that a structured routine, physical exercise, attention to nutrition, connection to nature, sunlight, socialization, as well as down time, helps to restore the nervous system, bringing balance to the neurodivergent brain. Personally, I’ve anchored a twice daily meditation practice. For me, meditation practice is what makes the most notable difference, and in the long run, has allowed me a much better quality of life.
I enjoyed my kid’s yoga teaching placement with “The Avengers” so much that I would go on to earn a Kid’s Yoga Teaching Certificate. I have since developed a children’s program called Kid’s Music + Yoga that I offer at a private school on a weekly basis. I have been teaching the kid’s program for over 15 years.
Through Yoga Outreach, Sandra also mentored me to teach men’s yoga to young offenders who were being held at the youth corrections centre called Willingdon, in Burnaby. Looking back, I’m sure these incarcerated young and vulnerable men were themselves bottling up the effects of unprocessed childhood trauma. They lapped up the yoga and deep relaxation, and would return to their imprisonment a bit less on edge.
Aside from Yoga Outreach, I also led a women’s yoga program at St. Paul’s Eating Disorder Clinic. Although “trauma-informed yoga” would not become a buzz word for more than a decade, we focused on breathing techniques to balance restore the nervous system and again, deep relaxation became the favourite yoga pose.
In 1999, I met a visiting yoga group and became interested in an energy based style of yoga, called Dru Yoga, based out of the UK. Drawn to Dru’s de-traumatization techniques, we still practice Dru energy block release sequences or EBRs in our classes today. I would first complete a 3 year course of Dru Yoga Teacher Training modules in Vancouver BC, Canada. I would also travel to the Dru Yoga Centre in North Wales, UK, visiting London, Scotland, The Netherlands, and India, attending conferences and retreats. I later earned a Dru Sound Healing & Mantra Certificate and a Dru Meditation Teacher’s certificate. More recently, I’ve was certified as a Dru Breath Coach. Dru Yoga is popular in the UK, Europe, Australia and parts of India, and specializes in sound and mantra. Dru Yoga is natural, suitable movement, helpful for processing trauma, it is sensitively incorporated into all of my classes.
In 2001, after an entire summer in North Wales, UK, I took a job at Banyen Books, a local independent “metaphysical” bookstore where I trained as a cashier & eventually became a part-time floor manager. It was an excellent job and I loved being there. In the early 2000’s, yoga (as an industry) began to really expand, too. In the bookstore we’d get a new yoga book, yoga video, or DVD arriving on a near daily basis. The section for yoga books eventually outgrew itself, from one small shelf of the classics, to into an entire room, dedicated to both traditional and western influenced yoga media. Banyen then moved locations to bigger, permanent premises. The yoga section expanded, yet again. I worked part-time, scheduling at the bookstore and then, I’d teach a few weekly yoga classes. The yoga industry (books, studios, and all) continued to grow full to capacity with no signs of slowing down.
Chapter 2: a life long fascination with music, I’ve also always had the courage to sing, although strictly speaking, I’m not “a good singer”,
a great big LOVE led me to begin producing my own music now available for your listening pleasure! (coming soon)
We are grateful to live and work on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.