I'm so grateful for this opportunity to thank you all for making 10 years of Steamtown Yoga a reality.
I remember the very first class back on Nov 1, 2007. Four students showed up. My best friend from DC drove up for the weekend and she took every class! I didn’t know if the studio would survive for even one year.
But I firmly believed that first day as much as I do now, that people everywhere can benefit from yoga. And I still hold that you don’t need any background in yoga or any eastern healing art or philosophy, and you certainly don’t need to be flexible or athletic to reap the many benefits a yoga practice provides. As the first Hot Yoga studio in the area, all I asked in those early days was that students be willing to try something new. I believed the practice would speak for itself.
In 10 years, I’ve witnessed people go through tremendous physical transformations, from weight loss to reclaiming poor or lost motor skills. I’ve had many students enter our doors weary with grief and heartbreak, mourning the loss of a loved one and not knowing what else to do or how to cope with the new reality of their lives. And I’ve watched them as class by class, the studio provided a safe place to grieve and to rebuild that next chapter of their lives. I’ve had many students, not unlike myself, who live with autoimmune disease and enter class seeking a noninvasive and self-empowering way to cope and strengthen their bodies and spirits. I know this practice has provided peace for many students working through addiction and recovery. Other students have stumbled through these doors after relocating to NEPA who believed in the power of their local yoga studio to help them feel grounded and make new friends. And just as many people have rolled out a mat here seeking a new workout, stress relief and something fun to try out.
All of these reasons and more plus each individual student makes Steamtown Yoga the place it is today. Over the past decade, Steamtown Yoga has experienced 2 locations and 4 international yoga retreats with the 5th planned for the spring of 2018. Over 11,000 students have walked through these doors. That says to me that people here do believe in yoga. Many of my first students still maintain regular practice because they reap real results.
I do Hot Yoga because it makes my life better. I teach Hot Yoga because I believe everyone who maintains a regular Hot Yoga practice will be better because of it.
And 10 years of Steamtown Hot Yoga tells me I'm not the only one who believes in this practice, or in this studio, or even in me. And for that I am grateful.
Namaste,
Lara Alexiou