Choosing a teacher is the first step on your yoga journey, and we want it to be a gentle one. STRETCH is dedicated to creating an inclusive, non-judgmental, and safe space for every student.
Whether you are an absolute beginner who has never been on a mat or a seasoned practitioner, our instructors are here to guide you with patience, clear alignment cues, and endless encouragement.
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Robert Wilson-Smith
Robert‘s yoga journey began with brief dalliances in the 1980s and 1990s, but he became committed to a regular practice in 2003 when he began studying the Ashtanga Vinyasa method. Everything changed: his career, his body, his diet… in the last dozen years he completed numerous workshops and retreats in various countries with teachers from
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Suze Mercado
Suze Mercado is a movement instructor and artist whose classes focus on creative flow and sequencing. She began her training at Bambu Hot Yoga in Nelson, BC in 2018 and has since devoted herself to taking classes around the world. She weaves together influences from yoga, fitness, and dance to create a multidimensional and expressive
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Boyd Thomson
STRETCH co-founder, entrepreneur, engineer, yogi, nerd. Boyd came to yoga to improve his flexibility as an athlete and decades later, is constantly impressed with yoga’s ability to help him find inspiration and to manage every-day life stresses. He feels that yoga has made him a better cyclist, and a better person. In his spare time
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Emmanuelle Rousseau
STRETCH co-founder, Emmanuelle came to yoga over twenty years ago on a hunch it might help her anxiety and improve her ability to focus and relax. She found amazing tools to improve her well-being along with a lifetime desire to push her edge as a way not only to get strong but to find balance.
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Ryan Stevenson
Ryan’s transformational yoga journey began in 2005, and he’s been teaching yoga in one capacity or another since 2011. Yoga has been a catalyst for self-study, connecting with community, meaningful travel, and staying healthy emotionally, spiritually, and physically. He is deeply grateful to have served a grassroots non-profit yoga community from 2012 to 2020 as
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Kristi Albernaz
Kristi found yoga as a teen, but truly discovered it in her twenties while living in Dubai asa flight attendant. A remarkable studio and international teachers nurtured her, and,thanks to Dina Ghandour and Fátima García de Andrés, she fell in love with Jivamuktiand Ashtanga Vinyasa. Kristi later completed her 200-hour training in Goa, India, thenspent
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Nour Maurice
Nour is an enthusiastic yoga teacher and fitness instructor who embraces a holistic health perspective. With a degree in Performance Nutrition Nour is passionate about promoting healthy lifestyles. Nour emphasises the importance of striking a balance between dynamic workouts and the serenity of stillness, conscious movement and meditation. With a strong understanding of mind-body connection
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Mariah Mennie
A sound sculptor in a coat of many colors, Vancouver based artist Mariah Mennie is a composer, pianist, vocalist, percussionist, fire dancer and music educator. Her eclectic sound world is effervescent, evoking programmatic vistas of mystical lands, wild natural places, fantastical words and psychological intricacies of the mind. Her compositions have been performed most notably,
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Slava
Slava has always been passionate about discovering what the human body is capable of. He has trained in Capoeira with Brazilian masters, practiced Acrobatics in Europe, performed in the Circus, studied with Shaolin monks in China, and even dove 120 feet deep in Mexico to explore the limits of human physiology. He takes the best
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Tonya Kay
Tonya Kay is a career dancer and vegan of 30 years. She’s danced on Broadway, in Hollywood blockbusters and on international tour and brings her love of movement, shapes and clean living to the hot room. She is a 600 hr CYT with certifications in Hot Hatha, Vinyasa, Hand Balancing, Yin, Prenatal and Mat Pilates whom
Check out our schedule, or start with our New Student Intro Offer to try classes with different teachers!