I have always been interested in living a healthy and active life. This started at a young age. As I child I took dance and ski lessons. As I became a youth I started playing volleyball, basketball, rugby, karate and snowboarding. I stopped playing team sports after high school and still wanted to maintain an active lifestyle. This included going to the gym, running, snowboarding and yoga. I quickly found my passion in weight training and yoga. I finished the Sport Event Management diploma in 2013 and moved to Edmonton. This is where I started to realize that health and wellness meant so much more than physical health.
In university my interest in health and wellness increased. I researched different ways to train at the gym using programs I found on bodybuilding.com. I started tracking my nutrition using the MyFitnessPal app and learned about macro nutrients. I followed bloggers such as Cassey Ho (Blogilates) and Kayla Itines (Sweat with Kayla). I also started listening to podcasts such as “The Fitness Devil” and “Diet Starts Tomorrow”.
I worked at lululemon during some of my time in Edmonton. Lululemon encourages its employees to be active in the community. This introduced me to many new ways to stay active. This included HIIT style workouts, barre, spin, aerial gymnastics, rowing and various kinds of yoga. I had the privilege of being trained by the Edmonton Oiler’s team trainer. Exposure to these activities combined with lululemon’s value of setting goals inspired me to learn more and complete the Alberta Fitness Leadership Certification Associations’ exercise theory and spin certifications. I learned about anatomy, functional movement, technique and about body systems. I gained confidence from these courses and started not only to create my own weight lifting programs (6.1) but also programs for my friends (3.2). I learned that what works for one person may not work for the next and that the best program is an enjoyable one. The program I created for one of my friends, above, has a variety of options that allow for flexibility. During my time at lululemon I started seeing yoga as more than just a physical practice. I loosely set a goal to complete a yoga teacher training.
I started working for The Centre for Learning@HOME after I left lululemon. This is where I learned about Dr. Bill Hettler’s wellness model. The model includes 6 areas of health and wellness. The areas are occupational, physical, social, intellectual, spiritual and emotional health. I started to become curious about if all of these areas were being fulfilled in my own life. I started to become increasingly interested in yoga and stumbled upon an Ashtanga Vinyasa class one day after work. This class was different than any other class I had been to. Class begins and finishes with a prayer and the teacher just led the count to each pose instead of telling us each pose and demonstrating what it looked like. What was even more interesting was the fact that every student knew exactly what to do. I moved back to Kamloops soon after this experience.
I met my yoga teacher who coincidentally practices Ashtanga one day at spin class. We began discussing yoga and after that I was invited to practice at his studio. Ashtanga can be practiced “Mysore” style. This means it is practiced on a one on one basis with the teacher passing their knowledge to the student. I began to learn more about yoga than I had ever imagined I would. I started attending workshops and in July 2019 completed a 300 hour yoga teacher training certification (3.3). I learned about Patanjali’s “eight limbed” practice which are to be practiced. These include Yama (ethical discipline), NiYama (internal conduct), Asana (physical practice- posture), Pranayama (breathe), Pratchyahara (sense control/withdrawl), Dharna (seated practice), Dhynana (meditation), and Samadhi (enlightenment). Through this experience I have learned about eastern philosophies and history as it relates to yoga.