Teaching yoga wasn’t supposed to be in the cards for Nigel. With a background in communications and linguistics and a career in the public service, his feet seemed set on a different path. But when he suffered a debilitating injury getting out of an office chair, Nigel knew he had to make a change.

He began practicing yoga and while it took some time for him to truly appreciate the benefits of yoga beyond the physical, once he did, he fell in love. Nigel quit his almost decade-long public service position to pursue yoga instruction and entrepreneurship full time.

Nigel’s favourite thing about teaching is the ability to help his students go deeper into their practice and discover gifts they never knew they had, and his mission is to share the gift of yoga with as many people as possible. Realizing this, it felt only natural to Nigel to extend his career into creating his own yoga teacher training.

As a teacher, Nigel was drawn to the “family feeling” of Elevate—its strong sense of community and the freedom it offered him to teach what he loved. It resonated strongly with his personal philosophy of openness and commitment to being your truest self.

In addition to teaching yoga, Nigel leads yoga retreats and founded Glow Yoga, a blacklight yoga class having its third annual event in Ottawa on June 16th.

Nigel also has a passion for travel. Proving that life really does come full circle, he recently moved back to the city of his birth, Toronto, after growing up in Aylmer and spending most of his adult life in Ottawa. Ottawa will never be too far from his heart though, and he plans to be back again soon.