Making Every Moment Count

Gloria Latham

Co-owner and director of teacher training, Semperviva semperviva.com

Gloria opened Vancouver’s Semperviva to make yoga accessible to as many people as possible. An ardent advocate of doing yoga in nature, Gloria also leads retreats on the Gulf Islands as well as the Greek Island of Kythira. “Gloria is revolutionizing yoga in Vancouver,” enthuses one of her students, “and bringing it to those who would otherwise avoid it. She’ll change the world!” What first brought you to the mat, Gloria? The stress of my 24/7 schedule. What’s your necessary yogini indulgence? I love to go on yoga binges. I’ll fly into a big city like L.A. or New York and take as many classes as physically possible in 24 hours, and then fly back home to my kids. How can we get our partners to go to yoga with us? Don’t force your partner to do yoga. Do your practice, and as your partner sees the shifts in you, he will get curious and will most likely begin his own journey. So. How has yoga changed in the past 5,000 years? Not sure about that—I wasn’t around 5,000 years ago. What we do know is that when we practise, we feel amazing. Yoga has such a long tradition because clearly it has worked for that amount of time. A word from the wise, to aspiring yoga students everywhere? There is no excuse good enough to not do yoga. If you don’t think you have time, think again. Yoga creates time. It changes your perception of time because it takes the pressure off. You start to experience time in a different way. You start to value every moment, and make every moment count.