Early History of the Victoria Yoga Centre
(now called the Iyengar Yoga Centre of Victoria)

By Leslie Hogya and Carole Miller (2025)

In the last years of the 1960s and early ‘70s there were a few yoga classes in various Victoria locations. Gordon Limbrick was one teacher; at the YM-YWCA, Jessica Tucker, was another who had been trained by yoga teacher, Bina Nelson in Vancouver. Jessica taught what was then just called Hatha Yoga and used BKS Iyengar’s book Light on Yoga. Her approach was very slow and gentle. There was no lifting of knee caps!

Shirley Daventry French, Carole Miller, Donna Fornelli, Leslie Hogya and Amanda Mills were a few  of the students in Jessica’s classes and some of us were eventually asked to teach.

Jessica had a great interest in the philosophical aspects of yoga and invited Swami Radha from the Yasodhara Ashram to present some lectures and then lead a workshop on the mind. Shirley attended the first talk and then signed up for the rest. As she likes to say, she had “never heard such common sense.” Swami Radha planted a seed so Shirley, together with her husband Dr. Derek French, began to travel to the Ashram in the Kootenays to continue to study with her.

While Shirley and Derek were spending time at  the  Ashram,  they encountered Norma Hodge who had recently been to study with B.K.S. Iyengar. They were incredibly impressed by his method so they decided to travel to India to study directly with Mr. Iyengar in India – a pivotal moment not only for them, but certainly for us.

This was a vibrant time in the community and other teachers were invited to Victoria to teach such as Swami Radha and her disciples, Maureen Carruthers,  Ingelise Nherlan, Liz Mcleod, Ramanand Patel, Felicity Hall Green, Donald Moyer, Judith Lassiter, Adil Palkivala and Angela Farmer among others.

At a certain point, it became necessary to separate personal finances from the income from these events, in order to pay the guest teacher and their expenses. Wisely, Shirley and Derek decided to form a nonprofit society under the rules of British Columbia’s society act in 1978 and they opened a bank account.  To do so, they had to recruit a board of directors. Shirley became the first President, and Derek, Vice President. Early on Jim and Jennifer Rischmiller became part of the board.

Meanwhile classes were carrying on at the Y, and more  people joined the growing teacher’s group. In about 1978, a training course taught by Bina Nelson, was offered, and some of the teachers became certified Hatha yoga teachers.  Almost at the same time, Shirley introduced us to Iyengar’s method. This resulted in a split with some teachers embracing the Iyengar method, others staying in the hatha yoga stream.

To further our understanding of Iyengar’s method, Shirley invited Norma Hodge from Vancouver to give monthly teacher sessions. Eventually all the classes in the Y program transitioned to Iyengar yoga.  Shirley planned and organized the scheduling of classes. Later, Donna Fornelli and then Linda Benn took on that role.

In the early ‘80s the yoga program was flourishing and more people such as Nance Thacker,  Marlene Miller, Norman Mckenzie, Gay Dill, Celia Ward, Denis Fafard, Linda and Michael Shevloff, Sue Ingimundson, Linda Benn, Trish and Bill Graham joined the group and were active in the organization of the centre and the publication of our newsletter.  The Yoga centre held workshops, meetings, potlucks, parties and picnics. Often these events were held at the French’s large home in Metchosin, overlooking the Pacific and adjacent to several parks. We began holding  various kinds of retreats on Salt Spring Island.

Although we were called the Yoga Centre, in fact we had no home. We had a library in one person’s home, had prop sales from another, sold books out of someone’s kitchen. Talk began about opening a dedicated yoga studio. We initiated fund raising and formed committees. Then  in 1984, we heard that Mr. Iyengar would be coming to the U.S.A. for the first International Yoga Convention. Shirley, Derek, along with Maureen and Bruce Carruthers in Vancouver  plus Liz McLeod from Edmonton immediately decided to invite Iyengar to visit Canada after the convention.

The energy of the group went into action to plan a gala event. More people were recruited, more funds raised, and more committees struck. Swami Radha was invited and she hosted a lunch for him at her satellite home here. A catered dinner was planned at the then Crystal Gardens, where both Swami Radha and Iyengar would speak. Musicians were arranged and we invited the Mayor of Victoria. Mr. Iyengar was travelling with an entourage, so billets, and transport had to be organized. It was a spectacular event. In addition to the gala, there were classes at the Y where Mr. Iyengar could observe the teachers.

(See the 1984 newsletter archives where you can read articles and see photos.)

https://iyengaryogacentre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Newsletters-1984.pdf

After all the focused  momentum that went into the event, the idea of opening our own centre went on the back burner. We carried on building the yoga program at the YM-YWCA.  In 1982, Ingelise Nherlan from Vancouver organized a Canadian intensive to study in Pune at the Ramamani Iyengar Yoga Institute and quite a few local teachers attended.

Mr. Iyengar visited Canada again in 1987, 1990 and 1993. In ‘93 at his last Canadian visit he insisted that Canada have a teacher certification process that was being instituted around the world. At the last Canadian intensive held in Pune in 1997, he granted teacher certification to the ten of the  first wave of Canadian teachers to be able to hold assessments and grant certificates. Shirley Daventry French, Marlene Miller and Leslie Hogya were all part of this group and were involved when in 1998, the first Canadian assessment was held in Vancouver.

At one point, the energy for the centre flagged. Shirley, Derek, Jim and Jennifer Rischmiller were losing faith that the yoga centre could continue. They met at a local pub and decided that they would try for one more year to see if things would improve. During that time, we decided to change our meetings. We thought, what do we like to do? We like to practice; we like to eat and socialize. So, our meetings became what were called ‘Friday night gatherings’. Teachers would take turns leading a practice, people brought food, and then we would discuss whatever business there was that needed attention. This attracted new interested members and the centre, once again, began to thrive.

One of the biggest challenges was ahead. Our long-time association with the Y was becoming fraught with problems. Shirely announced in the winter of 2001,  that as of September, she would no longer teach there.

Yikes!

It so happened that at that time, Leslie had just returned from an extended study trip with her husband to the university of Chulalongkorn in Bangkok. A group of us on the board, Rosemary Barrit, acting President in Leslie’s  absence, and Amanda Mills who worked in the real estate industry along with others began a search. The rental spaces we found were either not appropriate, too far from downtown, or in need of too many  upgrades. One day, Leslie was able to view a suite in our current building at 919 Fort Street and it just seemed to fit the bill. The city of Victoria didn’t know what type of permit we needed. Were we a fitness centre? A gym? A church? A social club? It was a leap of faith to sign a lease for more than a year! What is now the large studio was divided into cubicles and there was carpet on the floor. Many people and dollars came together to help us open our doors in October 2001. A few weeks before the first class was to be taught, there were still wires hanging from the ceiling, and drywall unfinished. Thank you to Debora Johnson and her husband Greg who had a construction company. He did the work at cost and at the last minute stepped up the pace to hide wires and paint the dry wall. Without that help and of many volunteers, we would have been teaching in sawdust. There was no financial plan, and not many students.  But it was another pivotal moment, as a yoga wave was building across North America.  Soon we had classes all day long in both upstairs studios.

Early on we were fortunate to hire Britta Poisson as our only part time staff, otherwise, we relied on volunteers to manage the studio. Drew Yallop, a stalwart volunteer added technical support, monitored revenues and was often at the front desk. Leslie oversaw programming.

We were teaching Iyengar Yoga, but we were called the Victoria Yoga Centre and our organization was tied to Swami Radha’s Ashram. As a board we decided on another important change; we wrote to Guruji and asked if we could use his name. In the September/October 2005 issue of our newsletter in the archives,

https://iyengaryogacentre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Newsletters-2005.pdf

Shirley Daventry French offered her perspective on what motivated her to form a Yoga Centre, that eventually led to our name change. The Iyengar Yoga Centre became official that year.

In the years that followed, we grew our program, mentored many teachers, hosted retreats on Salt Spring Island with Shirley, had film nights, potlucks, workshops of all kinds. Of course, the challenges continued. Many other studios opened in the city. We had to raise money to continue to improve our space such as covering the cold concrete floor. Feeling optimistic we even went so far as to open a third studio downstairs off the courtyard. This proved to divide our focus and resources, and we had to abandon that space after a short period.

In 2013 Lauren Cox took the lead as we faced the challenge of hosting a conference for the Iyengar Yoga Association of Canada (IYAC) at a nearby hotel. Thanks to the support of many volunteer hours from our teachers and students we were able to help support the National Iyengar community. Our students had the opportunity to study with other Canadian teachers and meet people across the country.

As the whole world shut down in 2020 in the global pandemic we faced our most demanding crisis. All classes were cancelled. We pivoted to online classes fairly early on and received Federal government support because we are a nonprofit, registered charity. But the number and scope of the variety of classes were no longer viable at that time.

We owe our very existence to the vision and dedication of Shirley Daventry French.   We thrive because of our dedication to BKS Iyengar and his family, because of our well-trained teachers, our friendly hard-working staff  led by Wendy Boyer and Britta Poisson, who face the daily nitty gritty demands of putting out a schedule every term, figuring in holidays and contracted teachers’ availability, registering students, publishing our weekly e-news bulletins, responding to fires, floods and other issues associated with running a downtown business in an older building. We are, of course, indebted to our many, many volunteers and that of our volunteer board which ably steers our centre.  We rely on and deeply appreciate all the continued support of our community and especially our students who stayed the course and have brought a renewed sense of commitment, collegiality and vibrancy back to our studio. With gratitude to you all.