Bamboo Yoga

For many, yoga is simply a great workout and stress reliever. Not for Svetlana Balysheva. For her, yoga is a gift—the ancient Indian practice helped free her from the suffocating grip of some serious diseases, allowing her to continue to raise a family of five girls. To share the restorative benefits of yoga with the world, she decided to become a certified teacher in both Canada and India.

She—along with a stalwart team of nine other certified instructors—teaches class seven days a week, separating the art into 13 different variations, including flow and power yoga. The staff also leads targeted sessions to assist the injured, overweight, or elderly with helpfully modified positions. Certain instructors introduce meditative elements throughout their classes to give students an extra opportunity to calm their minds and train their un-housebroken spirit animals.