Now's probably the best time to dust off that foam yoga mat and lay it out for a yoga sesh.
Wednesday, June 21, is International Yoga Day — a United Nations-recognized day to promote awareness about the benefits of the practice that originated in India about 5,000 years ago.
Studies suggest that yoga can help reduce anxiety symptoms, ease chronic low back pain, improve cognitive function, and even treat migraines.
For those who have been wanting to include yoga in their routine but have no idea where to begin — New West has a roster of options to help them take their first low lunge.
Here's a list of six New West-based yoga studios/instructors that/who have been teaching the community how to use their breath and posture to relax. Scroll down to find out where to deep stretch.
Yoga at the Quay
If you thought yoga was all about perfecting your warrior pose, then this studio will shake up your beliefs.
At Yoga at the Quay, the recently opened yoga studio at the River Market, yoga is not just about moving right and breathing well, but, in fact, has four branches to it.
These include: karma yoga that’s about supporting communities; jnana yoga that focuses on scripture studies; bhakti yoga, which is about devotion; raja yoga that includes movement and breath work, Laura O’Reilly, founder of the studio, told the Record in an interview.
The sessions offered at the studio — be it a breathe-and-stretch, relaxed yoga spa, or an hour of mantra with music — cover these four paths.
And the best part? Those with no prior experience of sitting on a mat or with limitations to doing movement-based yoga due to an injury or who are working with a budget, are all welcome.
Yoga at the Quay is located at 810 Quayside Dr. Register for a free aromatherapy Yoga and kirtan at the studio as part of the International Yoga Day on Wednesday, June 21, 2023.
Sea2Sky Wellness Club
The newest wellness studio in town, Sea2Sky Wellness Club, is on a mission to make yoga fun for all.
Oxana Kirsanova, the studio’s founder, envisions the swanky downtown studio space — with separate rooms for aerial yoga, meditation, hot yoga, biking, TRX (a suspension training) and more — as a wellness hub that people visit because they “want to” and not necessarily because they "have to."
“We just want people to feel better when they leave than when they come in,” Kirsanova said in an interview with the Record.
And to make that possible, the studio offers puppy yoga sessions, spa nights at the club and even a space to host bachelorette parties themed on self love.
Sea2Sky Wellness Club is located at 428 Columbia St.
Nancy Zrymiak
Yoga instructor Nancy Zrymiak’s Instagram grid is filled with blocks of information on different asanas (a Sanskrit work for posture) and their benefits.
“Salamba Sarvangasana (supported shoulder stand) and variations,” she writes, “are cooling, and calm the nervous system.”
Trikonasana (extended triangle pose), she writes in yet another post, improves balance, strength, flexibility and digestion, strengthens legs, spine and ankles.
Zrymiak, who teaches at the Centennial Community Centre, follows the Iyengar style of yoga — a style that focuses on "precision and alignment" in all postures as per the official BKS Iyengar Yoga website.
Zrymiak first discovered the style in Bangalore, India, back in 2010, and decided to pursue it — flying back to India to attend multiple classes in the following years. Today, Zrymiak serves on the board of directors of the B.K.S Iyengar Yoga Association, Vancouver, as per the association's website, and offers regular classes in New West.
To learn more about Iyengar yoga, book a class with Zrymiak through the City of New Westminster website.
Dancing Cat Yoga Studio
The oldest yoga studio in New West has stood the test of time — offering hatha yoga, meditation, vinyasa flow and kirtan in its 1,000-square-foot space on Sixth Street.
The studio was founded in 1999 — before yoga apps or hot yoga were even a thing, as founder Gail Leslie told the Record.
Leslie's sessions blend her years of training in traditional hatha, therapeutic and somatic yoga (therapeutic yoga involves breaking a traditional yoga pose into smaller and slower movements; whereas somatic involves being deeply present with the body through breath to calm the nervous system, she explained).
Through her sessions, Leslie wants people to realize what yoga helped her realize: that we all have a choice around what happens to us.
Yoga helps us pause and reflect, rather than go into immediate panic, Leslie said.
Dancing Cat Yoga Centre is located at 704 Sixth St.
Move Studio
Here’s a yoga studio where you can go for a yoga session with your entire family.
Move Yoga, which has been offering Pilates, Zumba, yogalates and more for adults since 2014, recently expanded its focus on kids.
As part of its newly launched Move Family and Wellness program, the studio has started offering yoga classes focused on teens and pre-teens besides baby-and-mom bonding sessions such as baby barre fitness and baby-and-me yoga.
By taking fitness to kids, the studio is, in a way, coming full circle.
Founder Jenny Hart taught dance to kids almost all her adult life, before pivoting to teaching adults with Move New West, she told the Record. This year, Hart decided to get back to her first love: working with the little ones.
But this time, instead of just teaching them the right way to pirouette, Hart decided to also offer a range of wellness tools to manage their stress and anxiety.
Move New West is located at 239 Sixth St.
Oxygen Yoga & Fitness
The studio offers a range of classes from a slow candlelight deep stretch and relaxation to a high-intensity box fusion that’s a mashup of shadow boxing, kickboxing, core and cardio. Here’s where you can follow up an “absolutely burning butts” class with one focused on getting “amazing arms and shoulders,” as per the studio’s website.
The studio boasts the use of FAR Infrared heat in its sessions to raise the body temperature in a natural way. The benefits of using this technology, as explained on the website, include detoxification, weight loss, pain relief and skin purification.
Whether it’s to experience this infrared sauna or to shed calories through a tone and sculpt, you might want to check out this local yoga and fitness spot.
Oxygen Yoga and Fitness is located at 1065 Columbia St.
