What: The Lotus Yoga
Where: 119 E. Court St., Urbana
Hours: 6 to 7 p.m. on Mondays, 6:30 to 7:30 on Tuesdays, 7 to 8:15 p.m. on Thursdays and 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Saturdays.
On the web: www.thelotusyoga.org
A Graham Elementary school teacher started learning yoga because she was looking for a new, more challenging way to exercise.
Just five years later, that hobby became Betsy Moore’s first business when she opened The Lotus Yoga in downtown Urbana this month. The new studio opened at 119 E. Court St. with a packed grand opening, she said. Moore had already been offering classes to some of her co-workers at Graham, but she said it’s a challenge to find many other businesses in Champaign County that offer classes.
“It was always so frustrating because there wasn’t any place around here where I could practice,” Moore said. “There wasn’t a studio around here.
A 2006 graduate of Piqua High School, Moore graduated from Urbana University and moved to the Urbana with her husband in 2012. She was a dancer for several years and was a cheerleader at Piqua High School and then Urbana University, and she said she was looking for a new challenge.
“Yoga seemed like a really tangible avenue for me to take,” Moore said. “I started getting all of these yoga books and started practicing at home, and that was all she wrote.”
Moore has been practicing yoga for five years, and she became a certified teacher after completing a program at Yoga on High in Columbus. Soon after she began teaching, she saw there was interest from her co-workers, as well as other community members.
Moore was walking back to her car from Teabaggers, a coffee and tea store in downtown Urbana, and noticed a space for rent at 119 E. Court St. She called the owner, and that day decided it was the right space to open a studio.
“It has a lot of old-world charm, and it’s very authentic,” Moore said of the 1,500 square-foot studio.
Other yoga studios have opened recently in Springfield as well. Cloud Nine Yoga recently moved from a space in the Bushnell Building in Springfield to a new location at 126 E. Main St. downtown. And Whitney Neal and Laura Jarzab are opening Revival: The Art of Healing on North Fountain Avenue in downtown Springfield.
It’s not clear why yoga appears to be growing more popular in the area, said Rachel Summers, who owns Cloud Nine. But many residents are looking for new ways to exercise, she said.
“I think it’s just starting to sink in that yoga is really good for you,” Summers said.
Once residents take a course, Moore said she hopes most will enjoy it as much as she has.
“I got into it because of the physical aspect of it, but once you really get in gear with it, you start to recognize the mental benefits of it as well,” Moore said.
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