Alastair built Yoga Santosha with his own two hands! He has poured his heart and soul into the building of Santosha in every way possible, but you won’t find him teaching yoga (even though he has done a teacher training). He runs Santosha from behind the scenes.

Alastair met Candace while backpacking and working in Australia in 1994. They travelled around Central and Southeast Asia for the next eight years in between working in Australia, New Zealand, England and Canada. While waiting for his Canadian residency in 1999, Alastair set up a corporation (Teakany Enterprises Inc.), which initially designed and manufactured custom furniture in Indonesia for retail in Calgary. After that, in an effort to work and travel simultaneously, Alastair and Candace purchased smaller items around Southeast Asia for sale in the London (U.K.) markets.

Pregnancy with their first child prompted an effort to “settle” down. They moved to Canmore and opened the Yoga Lounge – Canmore’s first yoga studio – in 2002, one month before the birth of Joshua.

Alastair’s yoga practice began when Candace started teaching. He used to go along and support her classes. It wasn’t until the birth of the Yoga Lounge that he realized the importance of the yoga practice and the people it brought together.

Not quite able to quell their restlessness, Alastair and Candace decided to sell the Yoga Lounge in 2004 to pursue other endeavours, but circumstances, including the illness and passing of Candace’s mother and then the birth, illness and passing of their second son Kaidan (2005-2007), gave them two years of deep reflection and discovery, which culminated in the founding of Yoga Santosha.

Despite being on the front end initially, the growth of Santosha, with two expansions along the way, Alastair now works behind the scenes full time on the business and loves his job! He also tries to get in some travelling every year with his family. You can still find him at a class or fixing things around the studio.