Leala attended her first yoga class in New York City when she was nineteen.  It was a gentle, meditative class that opened a tiny doorway into her heart, and catalyzed great changes in her life. Within a year, she had moved to the remote side of Maui where she met David Williams and began a three month intensive study of Ashtanga Yoga. She went on to develop a steady home practice.  Living in community on Maui and traveling, she taught whoever wanted to learn, including Sequoia Indians in the Amazon tributaries of Ecuador.

Her exploration of yoga led naturally into an interest in meditation, and in 1994, she attended her first silent ten day Vipassana meditation retreat, which deeply rekindled her sense of connection to the source. She continued to travel, attending meditation courses and at times living and working at retreat centers, practicing yoga all the while.

In 1997 she met her husband at a meditation center, and a few months later they had the grace of meeting their spiritual teacher, John DeRuiter of the College of Integrated Philosophy in Edmonton.

In 2000, Leala attended an Ashtanga Yoga teachers training course with renowned instructor David Swenson and in 2003 completed her level three training through Trinity Yoga. With Trinity she has explored many styles of yoga, branching out from her traditional Ashtanga training.  Most recently, she hosted and attended an additional 200 hour teacher training course with her beloved yoga teacher Yogi Vishvketu of Northern India at Prana Yoga Studio, further exploring the diverse and traditional aspects of yoga, including pranayama (breathwork), chanting, mantra and yoga philosophy.

Leala’s passions include practicing yoga outdoors, hiking in the Rockies, ocean swimming and quality time with her husband and their two vivacious daughters.