Namasté Friend,
Welcome!
My name is Sandra Leigh.
I’m delighted to meet you here!
I’ve been actively teaching
wellness programs in Vancouver, B.C.
for over 25 years.
Here’s a link for Winter 2026 programs
I’m looking forward to getting back on the mat with you, soon.
UPDATE 2025
Over the past few years, I’ve been writing about my wellness related experiences, trainings, classes and life’s journey. I’m navigating our current, ever changing world, too. I deeply appreciate each day and the subtle but astounding cumulative benefits of balancing practices such as meditation, energy work and breathing exercise. I am happy to share sound & vibrational healing practices using mantra meditation, music and chanting, if you’re interested. I’m here to share these practices with you.
Read my article about the importance of healing our subtle energy body from the effects of trauma on brain health and the body.
My Wellness Story
Chapter 1: A Healing Journey
Exercise played a vital role on my wellness journey since I was a young adult. Before that, I remember exercise programs as TV shows . I grew up in Alberta when cable television was still new, so we watched mostly Canadian content on only 2 channels., resulting in many iconic 70’s – Canadian TV programs, including a CTV exercise program called ‘Kareen’s Yoga’, hosted by ever-fabulous Kareen Zebroff.
I mostly remember the itchy, nylon one piece body suits we’d pair with the equally scratchy leotards, gathered in front of the old Quasar console TV to watch Kareen’s Yoga, Ed Allen and later, The 20 minute workout.
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 was blessed with an exceptional teacher, Lilian Bianchi who guided me to learn about subtle body awareness. I was intrigued by this philosophy and I began attending sessions as often as possible.
At that time, I really had no idea what a daily yoga or meditation practice looked like, much less that one day, I would become a teacher, myself.
In 1995, my fairy tale marriage crumbled. It was a heart ache, but with Lilian’s encouragement and compassion, I dove deep into healing which became my saving grace. With her blessing, I later took a leap of faith and began to develop and deepen my understanding of yoga.
I chose to visit Yasodhara Ashram, near Kootenay Bay, BC, participating in a retreat called ‘The Hidden Language of Hatha Yoga’ as taught by Swami Sivananda Radha, the original pioneer of the ‘Divine Light Invocation’ that would become my first spiritual practice and an important step on my healing journey.
I ended up staying and working at the ashram for one year after completing the yoga development certification course (YDC) and receiving a Hatha Yoga Teacher’s Certificate.
When I returned to Vancouver, I went back to work in restaurants. I saved my tips and bought my first harmonium. I knew I wanted to keep healthy and share what I had learned at the ashram. I had started subbing for Lilian and was also hired to teach yoga exercises at the YMCA, both downtown and in South Vancouver.
Yoga is a Sanskrit word: योग, meaning ‘union’ or to ‘yoke’ the physical, mental, and spiritual bodies, and to still the mind.
It was around then, that Lilian introduced me to her dear friend and local teacher, Sandra Sammartino. Sandra offered a complete modular yoga teacher certificate course at her Kairos Studio in White Rock, BC. I was intrigued by Sandra’s approach of recognizing yoga as a therapy.
Sandra’s yoga trainings would help us all work with the subtle armoring that we hold on to. We also had a lot of fun, practicing yoga inversions, hanging ourselves like art work off the ropes on the studio walls. I adored our extended deep relaxation sessions, gazing at the night stars through the sky lights, then the focus inward for breath work and emotional energy release in a final cosmic sound healing exercise called toning. The group consciousness became womb like and this level of support was vital for many of us to safely reach the “issues in the tissues.” The truth is, we all have had varying degrees of traumas trapped within ourselves.
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 Yoga Outreach teaching experience was 1:1 therapeutic yoga for a home bound trauma survivor. We’d share mostly breathing practices while she was immobilized in her bed, lost in a major depression. I remember her sitting up and putting all her effort into the simple exercises. We both appreciated our visits, so much.
Yoga Outreach placements allowed me to experience and explore teaching yoga in many unusual circumstances and challenging areas.
Through the Yoga Outreach program I brought the yoga to adult women at a drug and alcohol treatment facility in South Vancouver. Sharing yoga with women in recovery helped me as much as it helped the participants.
The Yoga Outreach program also sponsored an after school program called “The Avengers”, where I taught yoga for children and youth with Autism. This program inspired me to continue working with younger people, as well as appreciate the gift of neurodivergence, although we did not call it that back then.
Neurodivergence is a term we now use 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, ADHD, traumatic brain injury, chronic dissociation, to name only a few, can be traced back to unresolved childhood trauma. Of course, this is not always the case.
I believe 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 applied for a position to lead a women’s yoga program at St. Paul’s Eating Disorder Clinic. Having experienced an eating disorder in my teens, even more of me was required to show up for a trauma-informed approach to yoga. Although “trauma-informed yoga” would not become a buzz word for more than a decade. The women in care were often extremely fragile. We would mostly focus on breathing techniques and again, deep relaxation became the favourite yoga pose.
These early days of sharing and teaching were certainly helping me, too.
Then one day, Lilian moved to Vancouver Island. Our entire community was devastated to see her go as the end of our Monday night yoga group loomed. After some attachment issues on my part, it was decided that I would “inherit” Lilian’s Monday night yoga classes. I signed my first City of Vancouver instructor’s contract and began teaching the long time participants. Of course, no one could ever fill Lilian’s shoes and a few of the participants left the group, but I gave what I could, and I have been teaching for the West End Community Centre Association ever since. We are blessed to have a core group of original participants still attending the yoga classes, some 30 years later, we are still practicing yoga together.
In 1999, I met a visiting yoga group and became interested in an energy based style of yoga, called Dru Yoga. The group was based out of the UK, and Lilian agreed to have them come to the community centre class to give a short presentation. I was drawn to Dru’s hallmark de-traumatization techniques, energy block release sequences, affirmation, and meditation. The guests spoke of an upcoming World Peace Flame project, which came together in July, 1999. The group of teachers would later return and offer a complete a 3 year course of Dru Yoga Teacher Training modules in BC, Canada. I would also travel to the main Dru Yoga Centre in North Wales, UK, visiting Dru in London, Scotland, The Netherlands, and India, attending yoga conferences and retreats. I’ve earned a Dru Sound Healing & Mantra Certificate, and a Dru Meditation Teacher’s certificate. More recently, I have been certified as a Dru Breath Coach. Dru Yoga is popular in the UK, Europe, Australia and parts of India, and specializes in trauma sensitive yoga. Dru Yoga is naturally incorporated into all of my yoga classes.
In 2001, after an entire wonderful summer in North Wales, UK, I took a job at Banyen Books, a local independent “metaphysical” bookstore where I trained as a cashier & eventual floor manager. It was an excellent job and I loved being there. At that time, yoga (as an industry) began to really boom, too. We would see a new yoga book, yoga video, or DVD arrive on a near daily basis. The yoga book section eventually out grew 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 would work part-time at the bookstore and teach a few weekly yoga classes. The yoga industry continued to grow and my classes were full to capacity. There were no signs of slowing down.
Part 2: The Courage to Sing! (coming soon)
We are grateful to live and work on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.