Local opens Aspire Yoga Center in Highland

Highland got a little more Zen last week when Aspire Yoga held its first class.

The brand new yoga studio, located inside Brewer Physical Therapy at 663 Jordan St., is the culmination of a 13-year dream for owner/instructor Heather Delia.

“It’s something I’ve dreamed about since I started practicing yoga almost 13 years ago,” she said. “I always said if I could do anything in life, and money wasn’t an object, then I would open up a yoga studio tomorrow. I realized last year that I don’t need to be a millionaire to own a yoga studio, I could do it right now, which is why I’m working full time while I’m opening the studio as well.”

Delia moved to the Shreveport area in 2008 and said she noticed the lack of yoga offerings for residents of the area.

“I’ve been practicing yoga for about 12- 1/2 years now. I moved to Shreveport in 2008 after having lived several places, but most recently the Scottsdale, Ariz., area, where there was a yoga studio on every corner,” she said.

Delia decided to get her yoga certification last year. “I went through teacher training to become a certified yoga instructor, and there really wasn’t a place for me that I felt was the right fit for me to go teach, so I figured why not open my own studio,” she said.

Delia completed the 200-hour Ally Ford Yoga Teacher Training program in 2013, and is a certified yoga teacher through the Yoga Alliance, the industry standard in yoga certification.

Not only did taking that certification course allow her to teach classes, it also created a connection that would lead to the opening of Aspire Yoga Center.

“Amanda Brewer (owner of Brewer Physical Therapy with her husband Adam) and I did our yoga teacher training together,” Delia said.

It was during a tour of Brewer Physical Therapy and discovering that they already had a yoga studio in their office (it was being used for storage) that hit Delia with the idea of opening a studio.

“I kept thinking about that for a few weeks and felt like I should approach her to see if they would rent that space out to me, and it worked out. That was November of last year.”

Delia has clear goals for Aspire Yoga Studio, and for those who come experience the benefits of yoga with her team.

“I am wanting yoga to be accessible to the masses – I want it to be a welcoming environment, especially to people who are brand new to yoga. I want it to be a place where people aren’t going to be intimidated or scared because I think people have in their mind ‘I’ve got to be super flexible and bendy and be able to put my ankle around my head’ and that’s just not the case,” she said. “I believe that yoga really is for everybody out there. I want to have a place where people can come for the first time and feel really comfortable.”

Aspire Yoga Center offers several different styles of yoga, from Power Yoga, Energetic Vinyasa Flow classes, and gentle Hatha classes and Restorative classes as well.

There are also two Yin classes on the schedule, and also a class specifically for beginners on Thursday evenings.

The studio is intimate; class size is limited to 15 and 12 for the beginning class on Thursday nights.

Students can download the MindBody Connect app from the App Store or Google Play, which has a class schedule, who is teaching, class descriptions, as well as the ability to register and pay for classes on the go from your mobile device.

“I’m excited about connecting with other people who are excited to learn about yoga,” Delia said.

“The whole mission of the studio is to expand and enhance the yoga community here in Northwest Louisiana and doing it one person at a time. It is that personal, one on one relationship that I’m looking forward to having with each of the students that come into the studio,” she said.

“[Yoga is] helping millions of people all over the world do great things. It’s cultivating calmer minds and helping bodies, and just have an open heart basically,” she said. “I honestly believe that the world would be a better place if more people did yoga.”

For more information on pricing and schedules, visit www.aspireyogacenter. com.

– Mandy Byrd