Coolidge Corner Yoga Opening This Weekend

Yoga image courtesy of Coolidge Corner Yoga

Coolidge Corner Yoga in Brookline will open its doors on Sunday, Sept. 29th and unlike other yoga studios, Coolidge Corner Yoga will offer classes for all ages — ages 3 to 12, teens, prenatal, and adult — and plans to donate half of its annual profits every year to various charities.

Tatyana Souza and her husband, David, co-own the spot and she says that after six years working as a senior research scientist at Pfizer, she decided it was time for a change. And yoga was there for her.

“I started doing yoga when I was pregnant with my first baby,” Souza says. “And it really helped me regain my identity after having a baby. I stuck with it from there. ”

After training as a yoga instructor, Souza discovered that she liked seeing her students benefit from yoga the way she had.

“I could see a tangible change in my students from the beginning of class to the end,” she says. “It’s all about understanding how stress impacts our immune systems. I could see they were more relaxed after an hour of yoga.” Souza’s job at Pfizer mostly consisted, she says, of making Powerpoint presentations for new drugs that were not guaranteed to make it to production. “I decided that one hour teaching yoga was a better use of my time.”

Coolidge Corner Yoga’s mantra, “feel good, do good,” comes from Souza’s strong belief in the power of yoga to release stress and better your life. “Yoga changes you,” Souza says. “And you can go home to your family afterward as a happier person. Maybe take your dog on an extra long walk that night. It’s easier to do good for those around you if you feel good.”

Souza and her husband, in the interest of using yoga to do good in the world, will be donating half the studio’s profits to charity. The studio’s community will vote to choose three causes per year to receive the money. Souza says the studio hasn’t chosen any causes for their first year, but she and her husband would be interested in donating to animal shelters, local projects, and maybe even a political cause. “We’re interested in making a bigger impact,” Souza says.

As parents themselves, the Souzas also understand that finding time to attend yoga classes can be difficult with children. “You shouldn’t have to feel guilty leaving your kids at home to work out, to do something good for you,” she says.  As a solution, Coolidge Corner Yoga will be offering simultaneous adult Vinyasa and children’s yoga classes on late weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings. “This way the kids can release their energy and the parents can de-stress at the same time and then they can all go off and have a nice dinner together,” Souza says.

The studio will be offering special packages and rates through October 5th to celebrate their opening week.

Coolidge Corner Yoga, 1297 Beacon Street, Brookline; 617-699-1638