Acro Umbrella
Acroyoga in Vancouver: A Living History of Community, Circus Arts and Connection
At a Glance
From first bird poses in the park to advanced Icarian games and standing acrobatics, Vancouver’s Acroyoga community has been built through thousands of hours of practice, play, and collaboration. Discover the people, places, and ideas that helped shape the evolution of acroyoga and partner acrobatics in Vancouver.
Acroyoga in Vancouver: A Living History of Trust, Partner Acrobatics, Circus Arts, and Community
If you visit a Vancouver acroyoga jam today, you’ll likely see every stage of the journey happening at once. Advanced practitioners throw front tucks and martinis while trios work on dynamic swings. Nearby, someone is balancing upside down on a partner’s hands, and a newcomer is taking their very first flight in bird pose. Fifteen years of experience and fifteen minutes of experience often share the same patch of grass.
It wasn’t always like this.
Vancouver’s acroyoga community wasn’t built by a single founder, studio, or organization. It grew through hundreds of individual stories. Everyone arrived through a different door. Some came from yoga, others from circus, climbing, dance, gymnastics, cheerleading, or hand balancing. Some simply followed a friend to a park one evening and never stopped coming.
While acroyoga as a formal practice emerged from communities in California and Montreal around 2003, Vancouver’s story unfolded differently. It grew organically through chance encounters, road trips, workshops, beach jams, circus spaces, and late-night training sessions. Over time, those separate paths intertwined to create the diverse partner acrobatics community that exists today.
This isn’t the definitive history of acroyoga in Vancouver. It’s a collection of memories from some of the people who lived it. Like the community itself, the story isn’t perfectly linear, and not everyone remembers it the same way. That’s part of what makes it worth telling
Ask ten long-time practitioners how acroyoga started in Vancouver, and you’ll likely hear ten different starting points. What they share is a common thread: people discovering something they loved and inviting others to join them.
Today, Vancouver has classes, festivals, training spaces, and a thriving Acro community. But it didn’t start that way.
As Michael Locke recalls:
“Back then there wasn’t really an Acro community. We were just a few people meeting in parks trying things.” – Michael Locke
One of the earliest chapters begins around the late 2000’s, when circus trapeze performers Michael Locke and Keely were sidelined by an injury. Looking for a way to continue training, they began experimenting with L-base acrobatics on the ground. What started as a practical solution quickly became something much bigger.
Realizing they couldn’t be the only people interested in this style of movement, they traveled to Seattle to train with Lux. Inspired by what they found, they returned to Vancouver and began teaching acroyoga and partner acrobatics classes.
Around 2012, Slava Goloubov and Devon French were helping grow Vancouver’s acroyoga community through regular classes with an unwavering commitment to bringing people together. After completing his teacher training in Montreal, Slava helped introduce a more structured acroyoga practice to Vancouver
Their focus was on consistency. They jammed daily, invited newcomers to join, and created spaces where people could learn from one another through practice. For many practitioners, the jam became just as important as the class. It was where skills were exchanged, partnerships were formed, and friendships took root.
Their early classes began at Unity Yoga on Commercial Drive before moving to Exhale Yoga and later Karma Teachers. For years, Sunday afternoons from 12 to 3 became a fixture in the community calendar. Practitioners knew they could show up, find training partners, and become part of a growing community.
Ladybase and Adi Firefly helped introduce new ideas through intermediate workshops at Dharma Lab, where Emelie had taught prior. Adi also travelled to Seattle to train, strengthening the connection between the two Pacific Northwest communities and bringing new movement vocabulary back to Vancouver.
Adi remembers that what made Vancouver unique wasn’t a specific trick or style but the way people moved together.
“The signature of acro in Vancouver was creative flow. Even today when we get together, it feels like we speak the same language through movement.” — Adi Firefly
My first introduction to acro was through a Thai massage class at Unity Yoga Shala near Commercial Drive. It was a mix of Thai massage, stretching, and partner movement, and I went with my friend Alexandra. I didn’t realize at the time that it would become such a big part of my life.
Adi Firefly was the person who really helped me grow as a base. She was constantly travelling, learning from other communities, and bringing new ideas back to Vancouver. When she invited me to train with her, it was a bit of a blessing in disguise. I had been going to jams, but as a beginner, it was hard to find people to play with. Training with her changed everything.
At the time, Unity Yoga Shala was one of the main gathering places, with teachers like Slava, Nicola, and Susan offering classes and creating opportunities for people to practice together. Eventually, I started training regularly at CircusWest using the belt, and my partnership with April became a huge part of my journey. We calibrated so well together and created so much new movement. Some of my biggest learning also came from travelling to festivals and teaching outside Vancouver, bringing those experiences back into the community.
What I loved most about acro is how it brought me back to my body. The calibration I felt with my acro partner April is something truly rare, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of connection. There’s a magic in it that’s hard to put into words, something that can only be expressed and felt through movement itself. The acro world was a huge pivotal part in shaping me into who I am today, that includes the people I’ve gotten to share the practice with, Adi, Andrea, April, Priscilla, to learn and create something that was truly memorable. – Mélanie Ladybase
A few years later, Millissa Greenwood joined the scene after moving to Vancouver and joining the team. Over time, she became one of the community’s most influential teachers, organizers, and connectors. Through FlowState Acro, the Acro Collective, workshops, retreats, mentorship, and countless community events, Millissa helped expand and strengthen the culture that Devon and Slava had helped build.
Together, they played a significant role in shaping the welcoming, creative, and community-driven acro culture that continues to thrive in Vancouver today.
“Flow to Show and Millissa was the best thing that’s happened to the Vancouver community, and Unity Festival was always the highlight of summer.”
AcroTroy remembers his own journey started in 2013 on a yoga retreat with Sue Horning from Unity Yoga.
- 2013: Yoga retreats and regular Kits Beach jams, where people practiced acroyoga, and continued bringing new people into the community.
- 2014: More practitioners began experimenting with hand-to-hand and early connected pops.
- 2016: The first Vancouver Acrofest helped bring together teachers and students from across the region.
- 2016-2017: Icarian games, whips, and more dynamic circus-style skills became increasingly common.
- Around this time, Devon and Slava began offering teacher trainings, and more practitioners started pairing up to train consistently to become instructors themselves.
- 2016-2018: Regular teaching expanded into Richmond as the community continued to grow beyond Vancouver.
“What I really loved was playing with everyone. It was so much fun.” – AcroTroy
As people trained more consistently, many friendships evolved into dedicated training partnerships. The community gradually shifted from spontaneous jams and playful exploration toward structured practice, coaching, and teaching, while still holding onto the collaborative spirit that made Vancouver’s acro scene special in the first place. Vancouver didn’t stop playing. It simply added training.
“I was rock climbing six nights a week at The Hive North Shore and kept getting injured. I figured I probably needed a little more yoga in my life. The studio upstairs happened to offer acroyoga on Mondays and Wednesdays, and I was instantly hooked. Devon and Slava taught on Mondays, while Coral and Siovhan taught Wednesdays.”
– Steve Flello
Over the following decade, teachers and community leaders would continue to shape Vancouver’s acro culture through classes with The Acro Collective, workshops and retreats hosted by Flowstate, Unity, Trout Lake gatherings, and community-centered teaching. Their emphasis on creativity, accessible learning, and flowing movement helped influence a generation of practitioners.
Over time, these shared experiences created something distinctly Vancouver.
A little bit yoga.
A little bit circus.
A little bit dance, cheer, and flow movement culture.
A community built on curiosity, creativity, experimentation, and human connection. And like the people who continue to shape it, the story is still evolving today.
Help Preserve Vancouver’s Acroyoga History
This project exists because so much of Vancouver’s acro history lives in conversations, old photos, and personal memories rather than in books or archives.
We’re continuing to collect stories, timelines, photographs, and corrections from the people who were there. If you taught classes, organized jams, hosted workshops, performed, attended festivals, or simply remember something that should be included, we’d love to hear from you.
Every contribution helps paint a more complete picture of the community we’ve built together.
The story is still being written.
The Evolution: From Yoga Poses to Circus Acrobatics
In its early years, acroyoga in Vancouver was often described as “yoga with a partner.” Our therapeutics classes were 1/3 partner stretching, 1/3 acro flows and theraflying, and 1/3 thai massage. Classes focused heavily on foundational poses, balance, trust, and communication. Practitioners would learn bird, throne, star, shoulder stand, and a handful of poses that linked together.
But as the community grew, so did its curiosity. People started asking new questions.
What happens if we connect more transitions together? What if the flow never stops? What if we release contact entirely? What if we throw the flyer?
Those questions changed everything. As practitioners traveled, attended festivals, shared ideas online, and trained with circus artists, the community began exploring:
- Foot-to-hand
- Icarian Games
- Pops and whips
- Hand-to-hand
- Standing acrobatics
- Dynamic transitions
- Trio acrobatics
- Dance lifts
- Hand balancing
By the time the pandemic arrived in 2020, many Vancouver practitioners were training skills that looked far more like circus arts than traditional yoga. Local outdoor jams featured whips, pops, front tucks, martinis, standing hand-to-hand, and creative crossovers from other disciplines. You might see Icarian mixed with fire spinning, dance lifts blended with partner acrobatics, or circus artists experimenting with entirely new ways to move together.
Social media accelerated this evolution.
A new trick would appear online. Within days, someone would bring it to Trout Lake, Circus West, Underground Circus, or a local jam. Within weeks, it would become part of the community vocabulary. What once evolved through festivals and word of mouth could now spread around the world overnight.
The result is that today’s Vancouver Acro community includes much more than Acroyoga alone. Under the umbrella of acro you’ll find yoga-inspired flows, standing acrobatics, circus partner acrobatics, Icarian Games, hand balancing, dance lifts, therapeutic flying, and countless hybrids that continue to evolve – all the while maintaining the yoga roots.
What’s the Most “Vancouver Thing” About Acroyoga in Vancouver?
The fact that nobody agrees on what Acroyoga is anymore. Ask ten practitioners, and you’ll get ten answers.
The Spaces That Built Acroyoga in Vancouver
Ask long-time practitioners about the spaces where Acroyoga in Vancouver grew, and certain places come up again and again. Before there were weekly classes across the city, there were parks, circus spaces, and community gathering spots where people shared ideas, experimented, and built the foundations of the community we know today.
Kits Beach
Long before Acroyoga in Vancouver had dedicated training spaces, Facebook groups, or multiple weekly classes, there was Kits Beach. With its grassy fields, soft sand, and relaxed beach atmosphere, Kits Beach became one of the earliest gathering places for Acroyoga in Vancouver. Curious passersby would stop to watch, ask questions, and eventually join in. Before long, what started as informal training sessions evolved into some of the earliest regular acroyoga classes in Vancouver.
Today, Kits Beach remains a popular gathering place during the summer months. There’s something uniquely Vancouver about spending an afternoon training acro on the grass, joining a game of beach volleyball, cooling off with a quick dip in the ocean, and finishing the day watching the sun set over the water.
Trout Lake: Vancouver’s Flow Arts Living Room
If Kits Beach helped spark early partner acrobatics, Trout Lake became the place where Vancouver’s broader acroyoga community came together.
For many practitioners, their first introduction to Acroyoga in Vancouver happened on the flat grass field beside the Trout Lake Community Center. This is where impromptu jams happened. As interest grew, practitioners naturally spilled over to the southwest corner of the park, where a different kind of gathering was taking shape. For more than fifteen years, the Wednesday Trout Lake Circus and Flow Arts Jam has been a meeting place for movers from across Metro Vancouver.
What started as a small gathering of flow artists gradually attracted:
- Jugglers
- Slackliners
- Flow artists
- Fire spinners
- Belly Dancers
- Musicians/DJ’s
- Hand balancers
- Partner Acro
The result was a giant outdoor playground where different movement communities collided and inspired one another.
This is where you’ll find things that probably don’t exist anywhere else. Slackacro, Icarian fire spinning, two-high juggling, and countless strange experiments that began with someone asking, “I wonder if this would work?”
On any given Wednesday summer evening, you might find someone learning their very first star beside a group training advanced standing acrobatics, while a few metres away someone is juggling from a two-high or attempting a new “circus creation” nobody has tried before.
Many Vancouver practitioners learned their first skills at Trout Lake. Many performances, teaching partnerships, friendships, and even relationships can trace their beginnings back to a Wednesday evening in the grass among the goose poop.
Yoga Studios That Helped Grow Acroyoga in Vancouver
Before dedicated Acro festivals, standing acro programs, and weekly community jams became common, many practitioners were introduced to acroyoga through Vancouver’s yoga studios.
Over the years, studios such as One Yoga for the People, STRETCH, Unity Yoga, What Lab, and others opened their doors to acroyoga workshops, partner stretching classes, and beginner-friendly introductions to partner movement. These spaces often served as a bridge between traditional yoga practitioners and the growing world of partner acrobatics. These days, you can find Vancity Acro running their teacher training courses out of What lab.
One Yoga hosted a variety of acroyoga workshops and specialty events led by local teachers, helping introduce many Vancouver practitioners to the movement. STRETCH Yoga became another important training space, offering family acroyoga classes, partner movement programs, and the Flow to Show series with Milissa Greenwood, where acroyogis spend two weeks learning choreography, building towards a creative performance, and sharing it with an audience at the end of the program. Unity Yoga was also frequently mentioned by long-time practitioners as one of the places where people could explore a more yoga-inspired approach to Acro before the community shifted toward the circus and partner acrobatics influences seen today.
The Hive North Shore later introduced acroyoga and partner stretching workshops to the climbing community, creating another pathway into the practice for people who may never have considered themselves yogis or acrobats. Many long-time practitioners also remember Dharma Movement community spaces hosting workshops, jams, and movement gatherings over the years. While some of these spaces have since closed, they played an important role in creating connections between yoga, movement culture, and Vancouver’s growing Acro community.
Together, these studios helped introduce thousands of people to acroyoga in Vancouver and provided many practitioners with their first experience balancing upside down, trusting a partner, and discovering a community they would stay connected to for years.
The Inukshuk, English Bay Acro Jams
As acroyoga in Vancouver continued to grow, summer sunsets at the Stanley Park Inukshuk became another iconic gathering place.
Tourists walking the seawall would often stop to watch flyers soaring overhead while photographers gathered to capture the golden evening light.
For practitioners, it offered something equally valuable: a beautiful outdoor training space where movement, community, and Vancouver’s scenery came together.
Vancouver Circus School Jams
Thursday night jams at the Vancouver Circus School in New Westminster had become a hub for experimentation.
The space was smaller and attracted many of the community’s more dedicated practitioners. Organized by passionate community leaders, these sessions became known as a place where new ideas were tested before spreading throughout the broader Acro community.
Many practitioners point to these jams as the place where Vancouver began pushing deeper into circus-inspired movement, including standing acrobatics, hand-to-hand, Icarian games, pops, whips, and dynamic partner skills.
Origins Sunday night Jams and workshops
CircusWest at the PNE
Since 1985, CircusWest has provided an important training space in East Vancouver for both professional performers and recreational acroyoga enthusiasts in Vancouver.
The CATS program became a weekday training environment for artists preparing professional acts, while Friday night training sessions evolved into an informal playground where acroyoga and circus practitioners could use safety lines, experiment, and occasionally discover entirely new ways of falling.
This is also where you’ll often find one of Vancouver’s OG Acro coaches, Sylvain and Michael holding the lines and offering equal parts encouragement and sarcasm. If your line tension is questionable, don’t be surprised if he compares it to a wet noodle before helping you fix it.
With access to:
- Tumbling track
- Trampolines (including trampoline walls)
- Slacklines over an air mat
- Cyr wheels
- Trapezes
- Chinese pole
- Aerial poles
- Aerial hoops
- Silks
Circus West became a natural meeting point for cross-training between circus disciplines and acroyoga. Acrobats borrowed ideas from aerialists, slackliners inspired partner acrobats, and practitioners found a rare space where they could safely experiment using lines, mats, and the support of an experienced community.
For many in Vancouver, Sylvain’s hand-to-hand class was the gateway to everything that followed. Long before they were training standing acro or Icarian, they were learning the fundamentals of balance, body awareness, and repetition. His advice was simple:
“Do the skill 1000 times.”
If you’ve trained at CircusWest, you’ve probably seen Sylvain gently poking someone’s ribs with a stick because their line wasn’t quite straight. His coaching style has become part of Vancouver acro folklore.
Friday nights at CircusWest became less about structured classes and more about exploration, creativity, and the occasional ridiculous idea that somehow worked.
Underground Circus
Today, Underground Circus remains one of Vancouver’s most creative training environments.
The atmosphere tends to focus more on skill development and technical training, with practitioners expected to learn proper lining and spotting techniques to keep one another safe.
Founder Peter is known for designing creative training tools and contraptions that help accelerate learning. From sliding balance boards that teach flyers how to stack properly to weighted hand-balancing apparatuses that help bases understand pressure and alignment, the space constantly encourages experimentation.
For practitioners interested in hand-to-hand, standing acrobatics, partner balancing, and circus-inspired movement, Underground Circus offers nearly endless possibilities to explore.
Acro Festivals, Campouts, and Community Events Around Vancouver
Festivals and weekend gatherings have played a huge role in shaping acroyoga in Vancouver. Weekly classes build technique, but festivals are where people share ideas. A single weekend can bring together L-base flow enthusiasts, standing acro coaches, hand balancers, dancers, circus artists, Icarian nerds, therapeutic flyers, slackro practitioners, and total beginners.
Vancouver Acro Festival (2016-2026)
From 2016 to 2026, Vancouver Acro Festival was one of the biggest annual gatherings for the acroyoga community in Vancouver. Founded by (Aya) Kristina Engel, Paul Gelina and Alicia, what began as a small event in a public park with around 50 participants, almost all of them local, grew into a festival of more than 200 people. Teachers and students traveled from across Canada and around the world, turning it into an international meeting place for the community.
The first festival offered classes up to intermediate L-base. Over the years, it expanded to showcase nearly every corner of partner acrobatics. For many attendees, Vancouver Acro Fest was the first place they experienced the full spectrum of the practice. L-base, standing acro, hand-to-hand, Icarian games, dance lifts, therapeutic flying, and creative partner flow all shared space under one roof.
The festival typically began with Friday intensives followed by evening classes. Saturday featured a full day of workshops and ended with a free community talent show where performers of every experience level took the stage. Some shared standing acro acts, others danced, performed theatre, or simply celebrated movement with friends. One of the most memorable traditions was Flow to Show, a creative project by Milissa Greenway that brought novice acro performers together for weeks of rehearsals before presenting a full production featuring contemporary movement, interpretive pieces, and partner acrobatics.
One of the festival’s greatest legacies was watching the community grow alongside it. Many people who attended their very first beginner classes with instructors like Milissa and Aya, or Devon and Slava, eventually returned years later as teachers at the very same festival.
More than a weekend of workshops, Vancouver Acro Festival became a yearly reunion, a training milestone, and a reflection of how far the Vancouver acroyoga community had come. It showed the journey from casual park jams to a thriving regional scene connected to the wider international acro community.
The 2026 festival marked the final chapter of a remarkable ten-year run.
Acroyoga Unity Festival
Acroyoga Unity Festival is one of the better-known Acro campout gatherings connected to the BC community. Unity brings together acrobats, movers, teachers, and playful humans for a weekend of training, camping, connection, and community.
The festival has included acroyoga classes, intensives, workshops, demo videos, and community events. It has also helped connect Vancouver practitioners with the broader BC and Pacific Northwest Acro scene.
For many people, Unity is part training camp, part reunion, and part reminder that acroyoga has always been about more than tricks. It is about trust, play, shared learning, and the strange magic that happens when a bunch of people decide to spend a weekend lifting each other up.
Flipside Acro Festival
Flipside Acro Festival is a newer addition to the BC Acro scene, bringing together practitioners for a weekend of movement, connection, and play. Hosted in a retreat-style setting, the festival combines workshops, jams, swimming, sauna sessions, and community activities in a more intimate environment than many larger conventions.
Designed to be interactive and beginner-friendly, Flipside encourages people to learn, experiment, and build new connections both on and off the mat. Whether you’re attending your first Acro festival or reconnecting with friends from around the Pacific Northwest, Flipside captures many of the things people love most about the Acro community: movement, creativity, friendship, and a healthy dose of silliness.
Acro Campouts and Retreats
Campouts have also been part of the broader Vancouver and Pacific Northwest Acro experience. These gatherings usually happen outside the city and create a different kind of training environment. Instead of dropping into a two-hour class, people spend full days together practicing, camping, eating, jamming, swimming, and building trust.
Ready to give acroyoga in Vancouver a try?
Join our welcoming community and discover what you are capable of.
Do We Even Do Acroyoga Anymore?
Spend enough time around the Vancouver acro community, and eventually you’ll hear someone joke:
“Do we really practice acroyoga anymore?”
It’s funny because there’s a little truth to it. Over the years, our community has grown far beyond partner yoga poses and L-base flows. Standing acro, Icarian games, circus arts, dance lifts, whip pops, and countless other disciplines have found a home here. The movement has changed because the people never stopped learning.
But maybe that’s the wrong question.
Instead of asking whether Vancouver still does acroyoga, it’s worth asking what made people fall in love with it in the first place.
It wasn’t just the poses.
It was trusting a stranger to catch you. Solving impossible movement puzzles together. Laughing through failed attempts. Celebrating tiny victories. Becoming part of a community that wanted everyone to succeed.
Those things haven’t changed.
Some people now call themselves circus artists. Others identify as hand balancers, flow artists, or partner acrobat. The labels have evolved, but the reason people keep coming back feels remarkably familiar.
Acroyoga may have been how Vancouver’s community found each other. What we’ve built together is something much bigger.
Researched and written by Angie Nguyen (2026)
This article was made possible through the generosity of the Vancouver acro community, who shared stories, photographs, corrections, and memories spanning nearly two decades.
Notice something we missed? History is always evolving. If you have a story, photo, or correction to contribute, we’d love to hear from you.
FAQ Acroyoga in Vancouver
Is Acroyoga in Vancouver Actually Social?
More than most people expect.
Many adults come for movement and stay because they have finally found community. It’s surprisingly difficult to feel isolated when you’re literally balancing another human being.
Why Does Everyone Seem So Friendly?
Because Acro doesn’t work without trust, you cannot learn partner acrobatics alone. The culture naturally rewards communication, patience, and cooperation.
What’s Harder: Strength or Trust in Partner Acro
Trust.
Almost always trust. The physical skills come faster than most people expect. Learning to communicate, spot safely, and rely on another person is often the real challenge.
How Long Until I Can Do Something Cool in Acroyoga?
Usually about 10 minutes.
Most beginners can learn their first bird pose during their very first class. For many people, that first moment of balancing on someone’s feet feels pretty incredible and is often what gets them hooked on Acroyoga. The great thing about Acro is that there are fun and rewarding skills at every level. Within your first few months, you might learn washing machines, standing poses, pops, or simple partner flows.
That said, Acroyoga has almost unlimited depth. Advanced skills like hand-to-hand, standing hand-to-hand, Icarian games, dynamic pops, and professional-level partner acrobatics can take years of dedicated practice to master.
The good news? You don’t need to wait years to enjoy it. Most people leave their first class having already done something they never thought was possible.
Is Acroyoga Still Popular in Vancouver?
Yes, although many practitioners now use broader terms such as “acro,” “partner acrobatics,” or “partner movement.” Acro Umbrella continues to host all levels of acroyoga classes in Vancouver, jams, festivals, and workshops.
Where Can I Practice Acroyoga in Vancouver Today?
You can practice acroyoga in Vancouver through weekly classes, community jams, workshops, and informal outdoor gatherings.
We offer regular acroyoga and partner acrobatics classes for different levels, including beginner-friendly training, intermediate practice, standing acro foundations, and community jams.
STRETCH Yoga also hosts Acroyoga classes, including offerings connected with FlowState Acroyoga, Devon, Millissa, and other local teachers.
Community jams are still one of the best ways to meet people and practice. Depending on the season, you may find jams at places like Trout Lake, Kits Beach, the Stanley Park Inukshuk, circus training spaces, or informal indoor sessions organized through the Vancouver Acro community.
Want to know what’s happening in the Vancouver Acro community? Contact us to join our community WhatsApp group, where members share current jam locations, class schedules, workshops, special events, and updates on who is teaching what each week. It’s often the fastest way to find training partners, discover new classes, and stay connected with what’s happening across the city.