A Life Lived Through Yoga

UC San Diego yoga legend Arturo Galvez leaves a lasting impact, set to guide another generation of instructors

By Shawn Cyr
Assistant Marketing Director

Looking around the familiar Activity Room 3 at RIMAC, Arturo Galvez notices a few changes. The pads on the walls have been replaced. They used to be purple; now they’re Triton blue. The wooden floors have been refinished and buffed, reflecting the mid-afternoon light peering through the row of windows along the opposite wall.

So much has changed since Galvez came to UC San Diego to teach yoga 45 years ago. The building he’s standing in wasn’t even built when he arrived.

“Parking used to be $1,” he says with a laugh.

Galvez could be considered the father (or even grandfather) of yoga at UC San Diego and likely on college campuses nationwide. A native of Mexico who came to America to pursue education — he owns degrees from the University of Arizona and San Diego State University — he had a career in radio news in San Diego, where he earned acclaim as being part of the first bilingual broadcast, and as a social worker for another 15 years. 

And then he found yoga, which would become his lifeblood for the next five decades.

'I was like a pilgrim looking for lodging.'

“Arturo Galvez is a legend at UCSD Recreation,” says Alexia Cervantes, Recreation’s Associate Director of Fitness and Wellness. “He started teaching yoga at UC San Diego in 1980 before most people were aware of the practice. He has taught tens of thousands of students, faculty, staff, and community members.” But it’s not the total number of people, it’s also the fact that his students stay with him over time.

Starting in the fall of 2025, Galvez will be returning as faculty of a new University of California Yoga Teacher Training program in collaboration with UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara.

“The plan is for me to be teaching the history and philosophy, as well as the business aspects of teaching yoga,” Galvez says. 

There are few more qualified.

Galvez’s teachings have come a long way since the 1970s when yoga was still new and foreign and mysterious. Having been inspired by several trips to India to study with Indra Devi (also known as the First Lady of Yoga) and master teacher DKS Iyengar, Galvez wanted to start teaching yoga at UC San Diego, but couldn’t find a department willing to support him. He remembers inquiring with departments such as philosophy — “No, we don’t do exercises,” he remembers — and history and physical education.

“I was like a pilgrim looking for lodging,” he says.

Eventually, he found a home in Recreation, with one caveat from the then-director.

“Just don’t go religious on me,” he says with another laugh. “Don’t go indoctrinating people. Don’t go mentioning any Indian deities or doing any kind of mantras or anything.

“Which is a funny thing to say now, if you’re like, ‘Hey, I want to do a yoga class.’”

Like one of the many geraniums that Galvez grows in his backyard garden — more on that later — the UCSD yoga practice started slowly, needing love and time before it would bloom. Originally housed at Main Gym, Galvez says that his first class consisted of only 10 people. 

But Galvez’ passion for yoga and working with young people nurtured the fledgling UCSD yoga program. At that point, Galvez says, Michigan State was the only other college to offer a yoga class. And then in the 1990s and 2000s, when pop stars such as Sting and Madonna made yoga popular and mainstream, things took off. Needing another instructor to satiate the sudden demand, Galvez teamed up with his friend, martial artist and UC San Diego alum Neville Billimoria, and the rest is history.

“I was teaching classes that used to drive the old coordinator crazy because she’d always be telling me, ‘Don’t let more than 25 people in.’ I’d have classes with 50 people-plus sometimes,” he says. “And that went on for many years, and at some point we had a dozen teachers to keep up with the demand.”

Galvez has led countless classes, trained scores of teachers, and organized majestic retreats to locations such as Hawaii, Baja, and Tuscany. Places with no radio, no TV, and certainly no WiFi, but plenty of fresh food and relaxation. “I used to tell the students that the yoga was just a distraction,” he says with a wide smile. “It was the food and the sleep that worked the magic.”

Cervantes still looks back fondly on the Mind-Body Workshop that he and Billimoria offered in the 90s, which included asana, pranayama, chanting, meditation, and reflection.

“The reason for Arturo’s longevity as a teacher and mentor is his excellence and dedication to the practice,” she says. “Yoga is a way of life and a philosophy, and Arturo is a living embodiment of the practice. His classes and workshops are par none. Each one is a complete experience of physical movement and inner reflection.” 

'I'm not looking at the time, and I'm not looking at the years.'

Decades later, Galvez is still teaching. Not as much as he used to, certainly; he teaches 18 hours a week, a mix of in-person and virtual. Along the way, he’s had students who’ve turned into mothers and fathers, who’ve turned into grandmothers and grandfathers. And they all come to class.

“Right now there’s a group I teach online, and most of them are over 50,” he says. “And some of them have been students of mine for more than 30 years.”

While clearly remarkable, Galvez says he tries not to focus on that. He intends, instead, to focus on the daily work.

“You know how we say that, you get distracted and you get focused on your work, and then you wake up one day and it's five years later?” he says. “Or seven years later. A little bit of that quality. It's a quality where, in my mind, it almost doesn't seem like there's such a thing as, you know, 20 years or 30 years. 

“But here I am seeing the grandchildren of these students. So it’s surreal.”

Even his perception of age is fungible, Galvez says. He’d rather not disclose his exact age, only admitting that he’s “in the 70s.” But that’s not because he’s afraid to acknowledge it, but rather because he chooses to embrace it.

“People have asked me through the years, ‘How long have you been doing this?’ ” he says. “And I go, ‘20 years, 30 years.’ Sometimes I forget, right? I kept saying 25 years, and then all of a sudden I realized it was 30, you know?

“I'm not looking at the time, and I'm not looking at the years. I'm looking at today is Tuesday, and I have to be with some students, and I have to teach something, and I have to focus on what they're bringing to the class and what I can offer. And that's what I'm focusing on.”

He’s also focusing on writing his first book, which he has given the title “Yoga on the Edge.” He’s yet to find a publisher, but hopes to have it on bookstore shelves soon. 

“It's about my life,” he says. “My life, the kinds of challenges and traumas and everything that most of us face at some point in life, and the unusual things that happen to you, and how yoga gave me a way to make sense out of it.”

He’s also tending to those geraniums. What started as a pandemic side project has evolved into much more. He started with cacti, but now specializes in geraniums. He grows and crossbreeds them out of his backyard garden and currently has about 50 different varieties that he trades with other local growers.

Planting a seed and letting it grow, nurturing it along its path from nothing to something inherently unique. And then spreading it to share with others. 

Sounds about right.

“The common element is life,” he says. “Life is such a special thing if you really think about it. It shouldn’t even be happening, but it’s somehow happening. And it’s limited, which makes it more special.

“It’s special in all ways. And if there’s any common thread in there, it’s that appreciation for life.”