Editorial
Front Page - Friday, December 4, 2009
North Shore Yoga becoming lifestyle center for its many students
Samara Litvack
When Sara Mingus moved to Chattanooga from Buffalo, N.Y., five years ago, she began teaching yoga right away. Athletic from an early age, Mingus had always “been into sports and health and nutrition,” and after dabbling in yoga during college, she really fell in love with it while living in Charlotte, N.C.
From that point on, she knew she would eventually open a studio of her own and, after becoming involved in the Chattanooga yoga circuit, the pieces began falling into place.
She met local instructor Jessica Jollie, a Cleveland, Tenn., native, through a mutual friend and the two hit if off almost instantly. They began brainstorming the “what ifs” of opening a studio one day, and the next thing they knew, they were signing a lease at 2 North Shore six months later.
North Shore Yoga officially opened for business Sept. 20, 2008. Now, barely past its one-year mark, the studio has already doubled in size.
“Six months after we opened, we were selling out classes and having to turn students away,” says Mingus. “So we thought, ‘OK, we’ve only been open for six months. We need to do something.”
After one year in business, Mingus and Jollie were doing more business than they could have predicted in their wildest dreams. They had already doubled their five-year financial projections and they had prospective students just waiting for slots to open in their classes. This was the perfect opportunity to grow their business, thus creating opportunities to serve even more people in the area.
Since 2 North Shore was still a fairly new development, the business didn’t yet have a next-door neighbor. After considering their options, Mingus and Jollie expanded their space from 2,600 square feet to 5,200 square feet, adding four new practitioners – an acupuncturist, a rolfer, a nutritionist and a holistic counselor/astrologer.
“Originally we looked at adding a studio just specific for Pilates and it just didn’t work out,” she says. “These people just started coming to us saying, ‘Oh, well I heard you were expanding and we’d love to be a part.’ And so it just, like, kind of fell into our lap.”
With the expansion, North Shore Yoga has begun promoting itself as more of a “lifestyle center and boutique,” says Mingus. Now offering new services, as well as childcare, private lessons and even kids yoga, people can come to one place for a variety of their personal needs. And while Mingus says the lifestyle center hasn’t always been her vision for the studio, she now knows it couldn’t have turned out better any other way.
“We’ve really strived to become a community here and it’s been amazing to see the friendships that people have made,” she says. “People are starting to hang out after class and socializing.”
The center recently had a party to celebrate its grand re-opening and more than 400 people turned out for the event.
And so far, so good for the ladies of North Shore Yoga. The expansion has proved an immediate success and, thanks to the addition of a third yoga studio (equipped specifically for hot yoga, performed at 105 degrees and 40 percent humidity), their new classes are quickly gaining popularity.
“The great thing about power yoga and hot yoga is, for the type A personalities that need to constantly feel like they’re doing something, they come in and they’re challenged physically,” Mingus says. “They’re focusing on that. They’re able to shut off their minds. Then, after an hour and a half of practice, you’re sweaty and your tired and you lay down in Shavasana, which is the final resting pose … and people are finally able to meditate then because they’ve kind of gone through this physical transformation where they’re peeling away layers of stress and tension.”
New students can begin in power or hot yoga, says Mingus, as long as they don’t have health problems and aren’t pregnant. If someone doesn’t exercise at all, though, she recommends them starting in a slightly slower paced course, like yin yoga.
North Shore Yoga also offers specialized workshops, such as its 40 Days to Personal Revolution program, in which participants commit to practicing six days a week, following a special diet, journaling and doing meditation throughout the entire program. The most recent such program attracted nearly a hundred people, and another is coming up in January.
“It’s amazing because you stay with this group the whole time and you have meetings once a week,” Mingus says. “You get together and you talk about different things. It’s really cool. People seem to really enjoy going through that process.”
Mingus adds that a large part of North Shore Yoga’s success comes when special programs like this that take the studio’s practice to the next level.
As far as plans for the future, Mingus and Jollie plan to keep focusing their energies on everything they have going right now. They aren’t ruling out possible additions in the future, but as of late, they’re enjoying their recent expansion.
“For now, this is going to be it, just trying to make this location here really strong and just build this community,” Mingus says. “We really want the caliber of our teachers to be really strong and what we’re offering to be really strong. Now that we’ve got (the expansion) done, we’re kind of shifting our focus on really strengthening our teachers and really making them to be the best teachers they can be. Just really forming a tighter-knit community here.”
In an effort to accomplish this goal, North Shore Yoga is looking into taking its instructors on yoga retreats overseas to Mexico, where many instructors get their training on sandy beaches by the ocean. Mingus, for example, studied with famed power yoga mentor Baron Baptiste, who teaches classes in Mexico, Hawaii and the Catskill Mountains.
To learn more about North Shore Yoga, visit www.northshoreyoga.net.
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