Day One at Cleveland Yoga

Anna LaPlaca-

So my first day at Cleveland Yoga was a whirlwind of new people and excitement.  I arrived at 8am and met two other seniors-Joni and Jordan, both from Orange High School- who are also doing their senior project with CY.  When we first got there we hung out for a little in one of the empty studios and just talked about why we do yoga and what it means to each of us.  The desk manager, Tonimarie, showed us what they do to clean the studios in between classes to keep everything sanitary for the students.  Then we took an 8:30am 60 minute Hot Power Vinyasa class with Christie.  I usually do yoga up to three times a week, so I went into the class not expecting it to be very challenging.  However, i hadn't done practiced in at least a month because i've been so busy with finishing school and visiting colleges.  So halfway through the class I was dripping in sweat and sliding all over my mat.    There's really nothing like that post-yoga zen feeling, though.  Hopefully by the end of the month i'll be in much better yoga shape!

What my sponsor expects from us doing our senior projects is to take a different class every day, journal about the teaching style, the poses and the music, clean the studios between classes and read a book by Baron Baptiste because Cleveland Yoga is a Baron Baptiste-style studio, which basically means all their classes are taught through his specific style of yoga.  After our class the three of us cleaned the floors of the larger studio where our class was held.  Cleaning the floors is one of the most important sanitary procedures because 90% of the classes there are heated to upwards of 80 degrees which means people get SWEATY.  Basically when we're not doing what I listed above, we're hanging out behind the desk with Tonimarie or whoever is managing the desk that day and watching how they check people in for classes and how they manage the cash drawer, talking about yoga or practicing crazy poses in the empty studios (see picture below!!).  So far it's a lot of fun and everyone i've met couldn't be friendlier!

The woman on the bottom is Tonimarie, one of the desk managers and the other woman is training for a desk position.