Leeza Villagomez Travelled The World to Find Yoga
Yoga Den is a fitting name for the family-style hub Leeza Villagomez has created in the Inland Empire, as it has the comfortable vibe of a family room where everyone looks forward to lounging, eating and playing. And, lounge, eat and play they do. Leeza is known for bringing in pitchers of her famous energy tonic for students to sip after a session of Kick Your Asana and, with a ready smile she demonstrates the art of creating a green vegetable drink or pot of Ayurvedic kitcheree to her teacher trainees.
Leeza Villagomez
While Leeza seems like a natural as the owner of a Yoga studio and den mother for a vibrant community, she didn’t necessarily plan on having this be part of her path. Even though she’s a native of Corona who grew up on a three-acre farm with everything from fruit trees, peacocks, horses and chickens, she traveled the world, working as a model in sixteen different countries before returning home to Southern California. Her extended family still lives in the Inland Empire, including her parents and four siblings.
When she was still pursuing her wanderlust, Leeza’s mother said in a prescient moment, “You can gallivant all you want, but the love of your life will be here.” And sure enough, Leeza met her husband Humberto in a yoga class in Corona. Together since 1998 and married since 2000, Leeza describes him both as her soulmate and a stalwart support for the studio. The two share an open-minded Christian faith; an active, joyful and adventurous lifestyle; and two daughters: Ava and Xenia. Ava and Xenia are frequent visitors to Yoga Den, even joining in on classes when Leeza is teaching. Ava is known for her shoulder massages and aromatherapy assistance during savasana.
It was her love of Yoga, commitment to the practice and ability to enjoy the relaxation of savasana that kept Leeza balanced during her twelve years in the often grueling and hectic world of modeling where the opposite dualities of both a health-conscious, as well as party-heavy lifestyle, are available. Leeza’s first inspiration to try Yoga came when she was about to turn eighteen, in the summer of 1983, after watching a television interview where Raquel Welch was talking about her Yoga practice. Inspired, Leeza sent away for Raquel Welch’s video, found any books she could on Yoga at the library and started meeting people who were involved in the practice.
Then when Leeza was twenty, the six-foot-tall blond lived and worked outside the US for the first time in Japan. Homesick and experiencing culture shock, she found a Yoga teacher in Tokyo. All the lifestyle components of the practice, along with meditation and finding happiness and health, continued to be her anchor. Whenever she would travel the world, she would come back to Southern California, where, as she described it, the best Yoga teachers could be found.
Building a Yoga Den
So it made perfect sense to return home. Her love of Yoga led to completing a number of teacher training programs and studying with a variety of teachers, traditions and lineages. The years of continuous study have given her an eclectic fun, flowing style where she plays music and chooses sequences that feel right for the people in the room.
The progression from student to studio owner is a manifestation of the power of persistence. Nine years ago, wanting to settle down, her love of Yoga led her to teach, then rent a small space, then a larger one and then finally buy the building now home to the Yoga Den. A thorough yogini, Leeza models the balance of family, eating by listening to her body, running a studio and maintaining her own practice.
Energy Tonic
Raw apple cider vinegar
Freshly squeezed juice of Lemon or Lime Agave nectar
Nice water (filtered or alkaline)
Serve room temperature or cold
Selfless Service in Community
Part of her practice involves seva, the ethos of selfless service and being involved in the community. One of the activities that is near and dear to her heart is participating in the local Soroptimist club, a nonprofit organization made up of women volunteers helping other women. Their meetings every week are not only a lovely group, as Leeza describes the gatherings, but a supportive network that helps the community as a whole. In addition to her own service, she frequently gives back by helping out at her children’s schools. Off the mat, she makes time for family, dancing, swimming, playing tennis and other sports and cooking. She lives by, models and teaches the philosophical attitude that you are what you eat and you are what you think. Leeza is a model of making it matter.
Yoga Den
For more information about Leeza Villagomez, the Yoga Den and the studio’s teacher training program, visit: yogadenhealthspa.com.
Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.