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Jules Vasquez Reporting
Welcome to the world of Ashanti Garcia. The 23 year old San Ignacio resident who now calls Belize City home is a Yoga trainer and she whipped her body into some poses that made me wince.

This one is called the Scorpion pose, what looks like a literally backbreaking position, and one that requires great strength in the arms.

Ashanti Garcia - Yoga Trainer
"It is scorpion it takes a lot of strength. In fact it takes the three main components of fitness. Firstly, it takes strength, secondly it takes lap pose because you are just on your arms, flexibility to get the back curvature properly to form the pose. Thirdly, it also takes balance because you know, you are not on your feet, you are just on your arms and we are not used to being on our arms so physiologically the body is going through a lot. Hence the reason why yoga is a discipline that should be done very slowly because you are really asking all of your bones and muscles to do a lot more work. All of your muscles are activated and your breathing has to go in flow with what you are doing."

And that flow is just what she teaches in daily classes - which she says teaches fitness, and also wellness:

Ashanti Garcia
"I believe yoga contributes to a feeling of well-being because it is a holistic discipline. It is so much more than just a physical exercise. When people leave a class they feel happy, they feel joyful and they feel satisfied. Yoga uses all the muscles in the body maybe not an intense way like maybe Insanity, which uses a lot of power moves, but people who are especially new to yoga and if they come to my classes they will see that its actually a fitness challenge for them as well because we're using the body we are going into constant movement; we are doing power poses like plank poses on both arms and on the side of the arms so it really works peoples' bodies. It gets them sweating and once you are burning energy that means you are burning calories and you're losing fat."

While she's only three years into her personal yoga quest and admits she has a long way to go - this budding yogi is also an astute businesswoman.

Ashanti Garcia
"I am someone that when I have a belief in my dream, which is to be a full-time yoga instructor, there isn't anybody that can tell me I cannot do it. I will come up with extremely creative ways to ensure that my dream and my plan works. I work everyday for many hours advertising for my classes via text, Facebook, text messages and I call people. When you do have a good product like I believe that I do have then people refer your classes. There is this thing called 'darma' in yoga and darma just translates to 'finding your life's' purpose' and so after thinking of how good I felt when I taught yoga and how good I feel when people tell me how yoga has transformed their lives - I said I believe that this is my 'calling'. I came into this world to teach yoga to others in Belize."

And so now, this young woman is on a personal and professional quest, to whittle down her learning to yoga's finest perfection - which means training the mind.

Ashanti Garcia "At first I was attracted to yoga because of how it made me feel and now it's like yes I love the way it makes me feel but I also love giving my body a challenge so if your advancement in yoga is not dependent upon the poses you can achieve; yoga is an internal practice so it is more about how long you can keep your mind completely free from thoughts. If you really think about it that is the hardest thing ever. Sure, you can always work your body and reach a level but training the mind to me is the most difficult part of yoga."

Ashanti's Fitness, Health & Wellness Studio is located in the Coney Drive area. You can find out more about her classes on Facebook.