About Not Your Average Yogi — A Montréal Nonprofit
Not Your Average Yogi / Yogi pas comme les autres is a nonprofit organization registered in Québec and based in Montréal.
Our mission
We bring trauma-informed yoga, breathwork, and real conversation to people who usually get left out of wellness: men, people affected by incarceration and reentry, at-risk youth, and Black men and communities.
We focus on practical tools for handling stress, anger, and grief, and on spaces where people can be honest without being judged.
What we do
- Free monthly yoga class for men in the West Island
- Black Man. Breathe.™, a 10-week program for Black men
- Programs for corrections, reentry, and youth
- Workshops and talks for community organizations, schools, and workplaces
Where it started
Not Your Average Yogi started in a cell. Our founder, James Lesly, was sentenced to eight and a half years. Inside, breathing and reading were the only things nobody could take from him.
He came home, rebuilt his life, became the father his son needed, and trained to teach the tools that got him through. That story is told in the memoir Not Your Average Yogi: From Violence to Service (2026), by James Lesly and Liam Hartery.
The book is the story. The work is the mission.
Our founder
James Lesly Christophe, founder and director. Author, speaker, trauma-informed yoga teacher, and personal trainer.
- 200-hour Yoga, Social Justice & Leadership (Prison Yoga Project) and Prison Yoga Project Ambassador
- 200-hour Hatha/Vinyasa Yoga (Yoga Alliance)
- Certified Personal Trainer, Functional Training for Seniors, Aqua Fitness Instructor
- Adaptive fitness for older adults, including Parkinson’s and post-stroke programs
- Volunteer, YMCA Québec Integrated Recreation program, with residents living with visual impairments (2024)
- Helped recruit French-speaking teachers to bring meditation into a Québec prison with Freeing the Human Spirit
Organization details
- Legal name: Not Your Average Yogi / Yogi pas comme les autres
- Status: Nonprofit organization registered in Québec
- Québec enterprise number (NEQ): 1181592297
- Founder and director: James Lesly Christophe
- Based in: Montréal, Québec
- Email: jameslesly@notyouraverageyogi.org
- Phone: (438) 221-1474
Get involved
Want to host a program, partner with us, or sponsor a free class? Reach out. We’re building this one room at a time.
The story behind the work
Before any of this, there was a cell. Not Your Average Yogi: From Violence to Service is the memoir behind the mission. How a kid built a shell, how prison broke it open, and how books, Bibles, and breath built something back.