SPOTLIGHT
STUDIO SPOTLIGHT:
SHANTI YOGA STUDIO Jessie Sandoval
J
essie Sandoval opened Shanti Yoga Studio in St. Cloud in 2019 — right before Covid-19 showed up. While the studio offered virtual classes throughout the pandemic, Sandoval is happy to finally have students in the studio, getting to use the space she so carefully created. Shanti (peace in Sanskrit) was born out of Sandoval’s deep passion for yoga and a desire to create a space going beyond “gym yoga.” “I wanted a studio for connecting with each other, learning,
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growing, being mentored, being supported,” she explains. “There wasn’t a place where community members could learn more about the limbs of the practice beyond the physical — the things I found value in myself.” Sandoval found yoga in college when her body ran down from a hectic schedule. “I was in anything that kept me moving and grooving,” she says. She accidently landed in a yoga class, struck with how good her body felt afterwards. After graduate school at Bowling
BY REEVE KLATT (SHE/HER)
Green State University, Sandoval found yoga, along with counseling, helped her manage her mental health — and she told everyone in her life about the wonders of yoga. But she didn’t begin training to be a yoga teacher until she worked in higher education at a university in Texas. “My job was extremely stressful, and I’d been burying myself in work,” says Sandoval. “I didn’t love my career, so I decided to take time off — not great financially, but probably really good personally — and I
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