Yogi and cancer survivor Patsy Garcia manages a recovery room in Henderson. It hosts about 30 meetings a week for all types of support groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous. For years, Garcia would move chairs out of the way and teach yoga and meditation to the attendees between meetings.
“I decided I was just getting too old to push all the tables and chairs around,” Garcia says, laughing. So the 67-year-old did what we’d all do in that situation: She rented a space in the same strip mall and turned it into a dedicated yoga and meditation studio. Open to everyone, Yoga Energy LV offers traditional yoga classes, as well as sessions that help those in recovery.
“This is not a cardio-workout, hot-yoga type place at all,” she says. “We look at it as a safe haven where people can come in, relax and detox. We do a lot of restorative classes.”
The emphasis on healing and gentleness entices many people who might feel intimidated by the perfect bodies streaming in and out of many Valley studios. “A lot of people think they can’t do yoga because they’re too stiff,” Garcia says. “That’s why you do yoga, so that you can become flexible.”
Classes such as Chair Yoga offer an entry point for seniors, people with injuries or simply the very stiff. Additionally, Garcia teaches one class called Success Over Addiction and Relapse (S.O.A.R), which integrates the ideas behind 12-step programs with the Eightfold Path of Yoga. She also teaches iRest Yoga Nidra. Short for “integrative restoration,” iRest has been used by the military to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder.
For Garcia, yoga has been a way to stay healthy and centered in the face of adversity. She battled cancer and then contracted Hepatitis C from a life-saving blood transfusion. When the new medication for Hepatitis C was developed, it nearly killed her before it cured her. “If it wasn’t for yoga, I would have been a lot sicker,” Garcia says. “It kept my metabolism up and my immune system stronger.”
At age 58, she trained to become a yoga instructor alongside students half her age. She wasn’t fazed. “I saw an article about a 90-year-old yoga teacher, and I’m hoping that will be me,” Garcia says. “Twenty to 30 years from now, I’ll still be teaching yoga.”
Yoga Energy LV 55 S. Gibson, Suite 119, Henderson; yogaenergylv.com; $15-$20 per class, $100 for eight classes (some classes donation-based; times vary)
