The world of yoga can appear to be an exclusive society, but one Vancouver group is proving that the practice, which dates back thousands years, is for everybody.
Formed in 1996, Yoga Outreach provides free yoga programs for a range of places such as youth detention centres, women's centres, mental health facilities and addiction recovery centres.
"Our mission is to connect volunteer yoga teachers with communities, facilities and people who want the classes but don't have any access," the program's executive director, Kyria Korrigan, said.
The program was started 12 years ago by instructor Sandra Sammartino, who has taught yoga in the Lower Mainland for decades and currently runs about 35 classes a week.
Korrigan says yoga has a strong stereotype around it and that can sometimes scare people off.
"Sometimes clients have assumptions about what yoga is because it's marketed with pictures of very fit young people doing very extreme poses and it's associated with famous people like Madonna so sometimes people who could be taking our classes may be a little bit cautious or shy."
But once people join classes they see significant improvements.
"What I've heard from staff members (where we have classes) is that people seem to be much less anxious, much more able to focus and stay calm and they sleep better," Korrigan said.
"In some situations like in detox facilities or situations where people are coming down from drugs or something it can really help the transition out of crisis if you can just relax and sleep and feel a little better."
The program also holds an annual yoga retreat. This year's event will be in Squamish and runs May 22-24. For more information on the retreat or the programs got to yogaoutreach.com.
