Yoga in North Vancouver

The instructors at Bikram Yoga North Vancouver focus on Bikram yoga, which was founded by Bikram Choudhury, who started his practice at age 4 and won the National India Yoga Championship at age 13. He later injured his knee in a weightlifting accident, and despite a grim prognosis from doctors who said he would never walk again, Bikram continued his yoga practice and made a full recovery. Each 90-minute Bikram-yoga class takes place in a studio heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit and consists of one series of 26 poses. This discipline can move oxygenated blood throughout the body, increase muscle tone, improve overall health, and steam unsuspecting vegetables.

The Yoga Practice’s staff is dedicated to helping students of all abilities attain a balanced mind and body while developing an understanding of the art of yoga. Certified instructors impart their knowledge and passion for yoga upon pupils during a variety of drop-in classes, each dedicated to a different yogic modality and style. The studio’s staffers promote experiential learning through their warm and encouraging instructional methods, and the studio features cork flooring and an open layout, enabling the staff to lavish individualized attention upon each bending body and to referee end-of-class Twister championships. Classes are held throughout the week and ample free parking is available on site.

It only took one yoga class for Farhad Khan to realize that the ancient practice would become his life’s passion. That passion led him on travels to Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, where he fully immersed himself in the spirituality of yoga before opening Maa Yoga as a place to share his discoveries with other students. The studio borrows its name from the Hindi word for mother, reflecting Khan’s philosophy that yoga should be a nurturing practice that helps others to love themselves and extend that love outward to others.

Inside the welcoming, nonjudgmental confines, Khan and his staff create a blend of different yoga styles including Hatha, Vinyasa, and Yin, during which students hold poses for up to five minutes or until someone says “green light.” The 2,500-square-foot facility curates its peaceful atmosphere with help from eco-solar hot water and heating systems, sustainable bamboo flooring, and an air-purifying HEPA filtration system, and it also houses a tea lounge where practitioners can unwind postpose.

Easily accessible from the Columbia Street Skytrain station, both of the classrooms at Bikram Yoga New Westminster are heated to 40-degrees Celsius. Each day, students shuffle inside these warm studios to learn yoga postures from owner and head instructor Herminder Gossal or one of the instructors from her trained staff. During class, they teach 26 yoga postures total, one for each step of the Electric Slide. The postures’ collective benefit of improved flexibility, increased strength, and reduced stress is amplified by the heat. Also amplifying matters is the studio’s facilities, which include showers, an infrared sauna, and a Body Vibe platform that vibrates to contract muscles and spur blood circulation.

With a focus on giving its clients an intimate, small-studio experience, Sanga Yoga Studio's cozy Dunbar Street location accepts no more than 18 students per class. Studio owner and Vancouver Yoga Conference faculty member Shannon Cluff harnesses her experience from mentoring more than 40 yoga teachers to inspire and guide Sanga's team of instructors. Together, they lead a comprehensive roster of daytime and evening classes that includes Hatha yoga, Flow Foundation, and meditation suitable for both beginning and advanced yogis.

Shannon's ongoing commitment to the development and growth of yoga instructors manifests itself in her Teacher's Integration Program, where she counsels certified teachers, showing them how to refine their instructional approaches and encouraging their progress along the way with downward-facing fist-bumps.

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.