SPOTLIGHT
STUDIO SPOTLIGHT:
MINNEAPOLIS YOGA Melissa Sargent BY REEVE KLATT (SHE/HER)
A
hidden gem located just off the greenway in Uptown on Lyndale Avenue, Minneapolis Yoga specializes in Original Hot Yoga. I caught up with owner Melissa Sargent to hear about her first year of owning the business, how her day job as an occupational therapist informs her yoga teaching philosophy, and what helps her handle the unexpected.
REEVE KLATT: Tell me a bit about your background and how you found yoga. MELISSA SARGENT: My very first exposure to yoga was when I was 19 and in college. A student there offered free classes, and I loved it. I went every single week. A long-distance runner then, it helped a ton with stretching. Eventually, I just practiced on my own — this was in ’95, and there were no yoga studios around. And then when I couldn’t run anymore (my knee didn’t like running), I started getting more into it because it just felt great.
RK: What about yoga spoke to you? MS: Born with just part of my right arm, doing a ton of chaturangas, down dogs, and arm balances started to cause some wear and tear on my shoulder. I walked into what used to be Bikram
12
Yoga Studio in Saint Paul; you use your arms [in original hot yoga], but you’re not weight bearing on your arms. I loved the heat. It just made my body feel so good and it forced me to focus. I never found anything that made me feel the way running did. When I walked out, [my body felt] that total body workout and fatigue like running.
RK: You live in Saint Paul, so how did you discover Minneapolis Yoga? MS: I found my way to Minneapolis Yoga because the owner in Saint Paul said, “You need to do advanced classes!” I went like five days a week and was getting good at it. With just a few people [in the class], I would rearrange my work schedule so I could do it. I met the owner, Martha Williams, who owned it for 20 years. And then I ended up getting a different job after a few years, and I couldn’t go to
Minneapolis anymore. Then right before COVID, the Saint Paul studio closed – I missed it. I was going stir crazy! When things began to open up again, I just thought, gosh, I haven’t been to Minneapolis in forever. I’ll just see if she’s open. And she was. In January of 2021, Martha told me she was doing teacher training and I should be there. I always wanted to teach, but I have kids and a full-time job. But Martha’s training was mostly online, and I thought I could do it — I asked my husband if he would be cool to hold down the fort a little bit and he said, “Yeah, you’ve always wanted to do this!” Then Martha told us she was planning to close or sell the studio; a short time later, she and her husband came to me and said they didn’t want to sell the studio to a chain, to somebody who doesn’t know and love the practice, or someone who didn’t know the
MNYOGALIFE.COM
