The monthly class is open to anyone, but is currently filled with legal professionals like Derke seeking to unwind after long days in the courtroom.
"Just hearing these excuses, day in and day out," Derke said. "I'll walk out, do [yoga], come back a different person altogether."
Derke has been practicing yoga since she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and began teaching the class at the request of the local bar association.
"About two years ago the president of the Jacksonville Bar Association asked me to head up the health committee, and I thought, 'What better way to stay healthy than to do yoga?' So I started teaching yoga on the lawn every first Friday of every month," she told Good Morning America.
She has also been known to encourage jurors to get up and stretch to alleviate stress during long trials.
"When you have a lengthy trial, those poor guys, they just sit in those chairs for so many hours," Derke said. "I don't make them, but I usually just say, 'Why don't we all just stand up? Inhale the arms overhead. Take a deep breath in and exhale them back down.' That energizes them. No falling asleep on my watch."
Derke said the in-court stretches and monthly classes are "for their own good" and are especially beneficial for the members of the legal community to release stress after dealing with the "adversarial system."
"These attorneys, they're in the courtroom, they're warriors in there, so they come out here and then they're warriors on their mat," she said. "We get them to de-stress, they can refocus, and then they can go back and do their jobs just right."
