INSTRUCTORS

Gabriela Vokic

Yoga is a workout, but not in that routine-like, boot camp-ish, monotonous kind of way.

Gabriela found yoga, or rather yoga found Gabriela, in the last (i.e. the most intense and most hectic) year of her doctoral studies. Gabriela likes to say jokingly that if it hadn’t been for yoga, she probably would’ve ended up in a loony bin. And as amusing as the comment may seem, it’s not too far from the truth.

I remember being asked on the first day of my APY teacher training what yoga was for me. Without hesitation I wrote down: "It's a magic pill. It makes everything better instantaneously." And although today, after having completed the training, I would be able to offer you a much more encompassing and thorough definition of what it is, I still maintain firmly that yoga is like a magic pill.

After every single yoga class, I feel lighter, cleaner, purer, younger, calmer, more focused, more aware, more grounded, a nicer and better person, sharper, more centered, more flexible– both mentally and physically. Or dare I say, first mentally and then physically. And if after reading this you came to a conclusion that I am some enlightened saint, let me disappoint you right here and right now. Do I feel this marvelous way all day every day? No. Do I still battle the same demons we all do? Most certainly, I do. But at least I know that the afore-mentioned natural high is guaranteed in the hours immediately following my practice, that the tools I get in class are available to me outside of the studio, and I also know that there's a refuge where I'm protected from the demons, and that's my yoga mat.

Additionally, even though I have a few years of synchronized swimming training behind me, I was never the one to enjoy physical activity. No, I was the solitary kid who liked to lie in green grass and bury her nose in the books. I dislike aerobics because I can't breathe; I'm not too much into weight lifting because it hurts, and I was told I don’t know how to run. Yoga is an exception in this respect too, because it's the one and only physical discipline that I keep coming back to consistently and that I thoroughly enjoy. It's a workout alright, but not in that routine-like, boot camp-ish, monotonous kind of way.

Moreover, I always had a theoretical desire to live a healthy lifestyle, but I would consistently gloriously fail at applying that theory. However, after a few years of yoga, I became more in tune with my body and its needs and I started feeling the desire for a healthy lifestyle coming from within, from inside my own body - for the first time. Consequently, leading a healthy lifestyle was all of a sudden easier because it consisted of just carrying out my body's wishes, rather than it feeling like a healthy lifestyle was being imposed on my body by some external sources (i.e. media, people…).

People tease me and ask why it is that I would want to succumb my body to those funky upside down postures. "Human beings are not supposed to hang/stand upside down," they say. My response is always the same - When I stand the right side up, the world most of the times doesn't make sense to me. I've been waiting for the longest time for the world to stand the right side up and start making more sense and it wasn't happening. But you know what they say: If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain… And sure enough, when I invert myself, all of a sudden the world starts making a bit more sense. In my classes I will challenge you to try this approach to the world that surrounds you.

Gabriela is an avid learner, a traveler, a tango dancer wanna-be, a linguist and a researcher, as well as a professor. And thanks to her yoga practice she is able to enjoy all of the things she does a million times more.

Gabriela's Class Schedule