Gigi (Gopa) Vincentine
Description
About Gigi
My Sanskrit name is Gopa, which means “close friend to God.” That meaning feels deeply personal to me, and I hope to live it in a way that offers the same sense of closeness, care, and devotion to others.
Early Life and Yoga
I first encountered yoga during a cleansing retreat in Thailand in the 1990s, in a beautiful shala overlooking the ocean. I remember knowing, almost immediately, that I would one day complete yoga teacher training, because I loved it so much. At the time, I was living in Taiwan and teaching English, and there I found a yoga teacher who was a disciple and nun of Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, founder of Ananda Marga Yoga in 1955. Its motto, “Self-Realisation and Service to the Universe,” resonated deeply with me. Through daily meditation and yoga, I began to uncover my passion for Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and Taoism. For several years, I received treatments and herbal formulas from Dr. Lu, who became my mentor.
Education and Career
After four and a half years in Taiwan, I moved to Victoria in 2002 to formally study Chinese medicine at the International College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. As I continued my yoga practice, I immersed myself in the Doctor of Chinese program and in Taoist study. I have always blended these two philosophies, and during my yoga teacher training I had a real epiphany: they were essentially the same, with different countries and different practices, yet roots that ran so deeply they met near the bottom.
For more than 18 years, I have practiced and run my own Chinese medicine clinic in downtown Victoria.
My connection to the Centre began in 2003, when a classmate invited me to Shivaratri, the overnight ceremony of chanting and devotion to Shiva. A few years later, a friend living on the land invited me to the Annual Community Yoga Retreat. I believe that may have been the last time Babaji came up from Mount Madonna. It was an honor to be in his presence, though I did not yet understand how powerful his teachings would become.
Yoga Getaway weekends became a yearly gift for me and a few close friends, until the day yoga teacher training became a possibility.
Here I am after graduating from the Salt Spring Centre of Yoga Yoga Teacher Training in 2017. I am the woman in white, holding Babaji’s framed picture.
I have taught weekly yoga and meditation classes for school teachers, assisted with yoga teacher training at the Centre, and regularly teach during the Yoga Wellness weekends. “Teach to Learn” has always felt true for me. In Taoism, there is also the idea that we learn until we know nothing. Ha! I’m still trying.
Before moving to Taiwan with my husband, I studied at Concordia University in Montreal and earned a Commerce Degree with a focus on personnel management and leadership.