Louisville Yoga Tour

It's a little known fact that some of the most well-established yoga studios in the United States are in Louisville.

By Catherine Guthrie

While it's true that Louisville, Kentucky, is awash in horse racing, bourbon, and tobacco, there's plenty more to the city than these hallmarks might suggest. The city also has one of the country's top regional theater companies, an opera, symphony, and ballet. Nicknamed the River City for the meandering Ohio which nuzzles against its northern edge, Louisville has 13,000 acres of parks and open space. It also has an insatiable appetite for yoga.

Yoga has been on the radar since the early 1970s in Louisville, when students learned asanas in suburban basements, primarily from books. You can get a taste of Louisville's yoga history by dropping in for a class at Yoga East. Founded in 1974 in a yogi's living room, the studio went through several incarnations before settling down in The Highlands, adjacent to downtown. From the outside, Yoga East's Highlands location is nondescript-a brick cube squatting alongside a concrete ravine. On the inside, however, sunlight streams through high windows, and soothing lavender walls give the intimate space an air of transcendence. "Originally, locals feared yoga would clash with their religion," says Laura Spaulding, teacher and president of Yoga East's board. "Now people understand it's not a cult." Spalding recently opened a second location in Louisville's East End. Between the two studios, 20 different teachers offer 50 classes a week in styles that include hatha, Ashtanga, and Iyengar, as well as Pilates, Feldenkrais, and meditation.

Another place where you can plug into the vibe of Louisville's yoga history is Orbis Studio in Crescent Hill, one of Louisville's oldest neighborhoods. Established 28 years ago, Orbis has a reputation for mellow, relaxing classes with a deeper focus on inner awareness and meditation. Co-owner Helen McMahan, whose style combines the precision of Iyengar with the gentle flow of Kripalu, sets the tone. Practicing in this cozy studio on the renovated second floor of a cottage makes you feel right at home. Just over the past two years, Orbis has expanded its teaching staff and doubled class offerings due to what McMahan calls a "deepening of consciousness throughout the community."

Of course, no one person gets credit for bringing yoga to Louisville. But if the city held a contest for "Ms. Yoga," Judi Rice would be a shoe-in. Rice first brought Iyengar Yoga to Louisville 21 years ago as a continuing education course at the local university. Thanks to her depth of knowledge, serene attitude, and university exposure, she is the best-known yogi in town. She also happens to be the only certified Iyengar instructor in the state. Rice teaches classes and private sessions in a wood-paneled studio tacked onto her home in Peewee Valley.

When Betsy Jones first contemplated starting a Bikram studio in Louisville, she was dubious about the community's interest-temperatures in the steamy summer months hover around 87 degrees, with 71 percent humidity. As it turns out, every town has its heat gluttons. Five years later, Jones's Bikram's Yoga College of India has thousands of students on the roster-two of whom have gone on to open Bikram studios in nearby Crescent Hill and Crestwood.

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