Wellness center owner offers yoga-swing classes to get a healthy lifestyle

Yoga can be a relaxing activity, but it can be fun if it's practiced on a swing.

By Val Mandujano, Sept. 21, 2023

Emilia Leiva’s student couldn’t walk.  

Nicole Sobey arrived at her yoga class at Vital Kinetics with a walking stick, as she does every week. 

    After some exercises, Leiva helped Sobey get up. 

    “‘I´m just glad I found this place; it changed my life,’” Sobey told Leiva. 

    After a few months of classes, Sobey stopped using her walking stick. Today, Sobey enjoys going on walks in the snow when wintertime comes. 

Emilia Leiva and two of her students in the middle of their Tuesday’s Swing Workout class at the wellness center Vital Kinetics. The center is near downtown Charlottetown and is open all week.   VALERIA MANDUJANO PHOTO. 

    After studying Kinesiology in Argentina, Leiva came to P.E.I to spread her passion for yoga and kinetic activities. 

    While studying Sports and Leisure management at Holland College, Leiva took yoga, spinning, pole dance and aerial dance classes in different centers around the city, but she couldn’t find a place that offered activities with the artistic and dance element that she was looking for. 

    “I felt it was all very mechanical. A lot of exercise repetitions. I like it to be something fun and creative,” Leiva said. “Other people I talked to told me the same thing, so I just thought, why not make something different here?” 

    "Vital Kinetics" is orientated to wellness and health and offers different massage services and kinetic activities with the aim of preventing any type of sickness. 

Emilia Leiva opened Vital Kinetics in Charlottetown to encourage islanders to try new things. She wants to expand and people to be able to enjoy the cultures of others through dancing and artistic activities. VALERIA MANDUJANO PHOTO. 

    Leiva wanted to combine yoga, pilates, dancing and kinesiology to create unique activities. 

    After searching for different types of equipment, she devised different types of classes that can help improve the mobility of her students. 

    “I’ve seen here, in P.E.I, health is always treated from the emergency or treating the sickness, but not on preventing it, so that´s the objective of the center,” she said.  

    The center opened in October 2022. 

    Leiva already had experience within the business. When she was in Argentina, she opened two different centers that offered varied activities, from pilates and yoga, to kinesiology therapy and group classes of health-prevention. 

    Nadine Hopper, one of Leiva’s students, enjoys the strength she has got from her lessons with the yoga swings. 

Nadine Hopper, a student of Vital Kinetics, likes the yoga swing classes because they are very personalized and different every time. The yoga swings are a new experience for her since she hasn’t seen them before in other places of the city.  VALERIA MANDUJANO PHOTO. 

    “I like the combination, there’s great strength and flexibility … It’s not always the same class which is nice,” she said.  

    She found Vital Kinetics on the recommendation of a friend and had come ever since. She practices two different classes with yoga swings. 

    The classes have paid off. She has improved her flexibility and is now able to hang upside down on the swing. 

    “It takes you out of your comfort level a little but it’s a good feeling when you accomplish the moves,” Hooper said.  

    Leiva is looking to incorporate new activities. 

    In April, the center hosted a salsa class for Latins and Islanders to try. 

The Swing Workout is a yoga class taught at Vital Kinetics and always starts with stretching and slow movements to warm up the body. VALERIA MANDUJANO PHOTO. 

    After that, Leiva has being receiving requests to bring back more salsa lessons. 

    “I would love to have that again,” she said. 

    But Leiva is having a hard time finding a salsa dancing professor who knows how to teach well. 

    “If I got a teacher who knows the language and has practice teaching, I would open those classes without hesitating.”