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April 29, 2004
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April 29, 2004 |
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New business
profile—
On Dayton Street on any given day, shoppers bustle in and out of stores as cars and trucks drive by. But up above the hubbub, a mood of calm prevails in a large, light-filled room with shiny hardwood floors and high ceilings. As meditative music plays softly in the background, men and women sit calmly and silently, breathing deeply, or slowly stretching into a variety of postures. It’s Yoga Springs Studio, Yellow Springs’ new yoga studio, located on the second floor at 108 Dayton Street. In business since March, the studio will celebrate its opening with an open house Saturday, May 1, from 4 to 8 p.m. Refreshments will be served and a henna artist will be available. From 8 to 9, Susan Bradford will perform a blessing dance, followed by chanting and meditation led by Dorothy Crieder. The event is co-sponsored by Epic Book Shop, which also will be open during those hours. While you might find any one of several local yoga teachers leading a class at the studio, the person you’re most likely to see as you step through the door is the studio’s co-owner, Monica Hasek. To Hasek, 30, who owns the business with her husband, Robert Hasek, running a yoga studio in Yellow Springs is a dream come true, a chance to put her considerable energy into her passion for yoga. “I’m here passing along the knowledge given to me, encouraging people to find yoga and to find themselves,” Hasek said in a recent interview. Hasek, a certified hatha yoga teacher, leads classes for both beginners and advanced practitioners every Tuesday and Thursday, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 to 7 p.m., and a class for teenage girls on Tuesdays, at 4 p.m. Robert Hasek, who also works at the Yellow Springs News, offers a class for teen boys on Thursday, at 4 p.m., and Susan Bradford teaches yoga to children on Fridays, at 4 p.m. Other Yoga Springs classes include Lifting for Yoga, Mondays at 7 p.m., and Yoga is Meditation, Mondays at 7:30, taught by Joyce Appell; yoga for less flexible bodies, Tuesdays at 1 p.m., and midday yoga, Thursdays at 1 p.m., taught by Laurel Finch; and a Saturday 10:15 a.m. yoga class taught by Beth Lackey. As Monica Hasek led a recent class it seemed she couldn’t stop smiling as she moved slowly and gently from one posture, or asana, to the next. Yoga has made her life better, Hasek believes, and she’s eager to pass on its benefits to others. When she discovered yoga almost five years ago, Hasek was already experiencing back pain and “feeling old,” and her yoga practice changed her life. “I loved the calming effect, the peace of mind,” she said. “It’s what I needed.” Begun thousands of years ago in India, the practice of yoga has both spiritual and physical aspects, Hasek said. Yoga practitioners can grow spiritually since the calming of the mind helps people experience a greater awareness than that of just their own bodies, she said. The asanas also help the body by strengthening and toning muscles and exercising all nerves and glands. Yoga’s physical benefits include stress relief, improved posture and body alignment, enhanced concentration and memory, stengthened immune system, reduced fatigue and increased energy, according to Hasek. Raised in the Dayton area, Hasek received a degree in interior design from Ohio University before she moved to Portland, Ore., several years ago. It was there, while working at a high-pressure design job, that she discovered yoga. From Portland Hasek moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where she met Lynn Minton, who became her yoga teacher and mentor. Minton had studied with the well-known yoga teacher BKS Iyengar of India, who brought yoga to the west in the 1960s, according to Hasek. “When people ask me what I miss most about Alaska, I always say, ‘my teacher,’” Hasek said. While in Alaska, Hasek completed a 200-hour teacher training program with Minton, studying anatomy, postures and the philosophy of yoga. When the Haseks moved to Yellow Springs in December, Monica Hasek was still working in the design field. But that all changed in January when Hasek, poking around downtown Yellow Springs one afternoon, discovered the space that is now her studio. At the time, the space was used by bubble-wand makers and smelled of epoxy and was “full of stuff,” Hasek said, but she immediately envisioned it as a perfect spot for yoga. “All the natural light and the hardwood floors — it had a great energy,” said Hasek, who later discovered the space had been a yoga studio in the 1980s, owned by yoga teachers Andrew Junker and Patricia Schneider. The space was available, and when her husband encouraged her to pursue her dream, Hasek quit her job and plunged into opening Yoga Springs. She was also encouraged by responses from other local yoga teachers, who agreed there was a need for a studio and that the Yoga Springs location was “the best space in town,” Hasek said. To prepare to open the studio, the Haseks “lightened up the space” by refinishing the floors, cleaning, painting and creating a changing room. They also ordered the studio’s purple and green yoga props, including bolsters, belts and blocks, along with mats, eye pillows and blankets. Props are an integral part of Iyengar yoga, according to Monica Hasek, saying that when Iyengar introduced yoga to Westerners, he also introduced the use of the props to “help ease tight western bodies into yoga postures.” The response to Yoga Springs from local yoga teachers has been encouraging, Hasek said. While two teachers besides herself taught classes in March, the studio’s first month of operation, six signed on for April and eight for May. New May classes will include a meditation class with Joyce Appell at 5:45 p.m. Wednesdays, Sunday morning yoga with Mary Beth Harnett at 10, and authentic movement classes for women, Fridays from 4 to 6 p.m., with Theresa Sapunar. While some of her friends have worried that Hasek’s own classes will have fewer people due to the number of teachers working at the studio, Hasek is eager to offer as many opportunities as possible for local yoga teachers and students. “It’s important to be able to offer many class times, many yoga traditions and styles and many teachers with different personalities,” said Hasek, who recommends that people new to yoga study with several teachers “until you find the one you connect with.”
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