Cleveland Yoga Tour

Cleveland was once renowned as the city whose river caught on fire, but what's on fire now is yoga.

By Laura Shin

Two distinctly Western cultural institutions—the Cleveland Indians baseball team and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—call Cleveland home. However, few people know that this Midwestern city also hosts two distinctly Eastern cultural imports: The Cleveland Museum of Art displays an amazing collection of Asian art, and in yoga studios all across the city, Clevelanders are aligning themselves in Downward Dog and Corpse Pose.

Starting in the east, Lights of Yoga in quaint Chagrin Falls is a new center opened by Reiki master Grace Sanson that offers hatha yoga and specialty classes like Yoga for Fitness and Aroma Yoga, in which the teacher, a certified aromatherapist, promotes centering and relaxation with essential oils. Most teachers at Lights of Yoga are Reiki practitioners, lending a calming energy overall to the studio.

Slightly farther to the west is the peaceful Ursuline Sophia Center, which offers spiritual programs, holistic healing services, and also classes in tai chi, qi gong, and yoga. Here, Reiki master Jan Hauenstein, who has been certified by the Himalayan Institute, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, and Integrative Yoga Therapy, teaches a relaxing class that incorporates light-hearted elements such as "laugh-asana." With more than 25 years of teaching under her mat, Hauenstein's sequencing is creative and her instruction easy to follow.

Dympna Ferrante, who has been teaching for 21 years and has a following to show for it, offers several classes a week at Fairmount Temple. Her "flow yoga" style is full of gentle stretching, movement coordinated with breath, and a long relaxation. Classes are held in a large room in which one wall of windows looks onto a garden.

Several centers are also thriving in Cleveland Heights, the heart of Cleveland. The oldest of these is the five-year-old, two-room studio and store, Atma Center, headed by Atmarupa, also known as Beverly Singh, a joyful and unpretentious woman. Atmarupa says the focus at her school is "a classical integrated form of yoga that encompasses raja, jnana, bhakti, and karma yoga." The center's comprehensive emphasis can be traced to Paramahamsa Satyananda Saraswati and the Bihar School of Yoga in India.

Minutes away is the minimalist, one-room Iyengar studio, Green Tara. Owner Karen Allgire was a dance instructor for 16 years, so clear communication and attention to detail come naturally to the certified Iyengar teacher. She is spot-on when she describes classes at her studio in one word: "upbeat."

In nearby Little Italy, you'll find Eight Limbs Yoga, a light-filled, one-year-old Ashtanga studio decorated with Tibetan prayer flags—and a blackboard, as the studio was previously a school. Owner Rowan Silverberg, was trained by Richard Freeman and has a friendly manner that makes this vigorous form of yoga welcoming for the uninitiated. The studio also offers classes and workshops in yoga fundamentals and Iyengar Yoga.

On Cleveland's west side, Bhumi Yoga Center holds hatha classes that incorporate alignment and flow elements at the Rocky River Presbyterian Church. Bhumi, also known as Harriet Russell, encourages her students with maxims like, "Where the mind goes, the energy flows." Bhumi has been teaching yoga in Cleveland for 11 years. She offers the only 500-hour teacher training in Ohio registered with the Yoga Alliance and actively invites yoga luminaries to the area to teach workshops.

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