Studio Celebrates Students' New Year's Resolutions

Yoga Sol Amore: A Pizza Party Celebrating Students' Committment to their New Year's Resolutions

Everyone makes New Year's resolutions. At Yoga Sol, there are 33 students who have kept them.

On February 15, the studio will host Amore: A Pizza Party to celebrate the completion of The Yoga Sol Challenge, a commitment made by students to attend 13 classes in January, 2013. The event is open to the public and will consist of an hour of complimentary yoga, followed by a pizza party provided by Pizza Luce. The event will also feature a drawing of one lucky Challenge participant,who will receive a free one-hour massage at the Aveda Institute, compliments of Aveda. The event also celebrates one of the tenants of yoga: love, and is a perfect Valentine's Day weekend activity for couples/partners.

Yoga Sol is an innovative yoga studio committed to making the health benefits of yoga accessible to all by offering classes on a pay-what-you-can basis. The studio is a passionate community of yogis, consisting of 29 teachers who lead 31 weekly classes, serving more than 1000 practitioners per month. Yoga Sol is funded entirely though student donations and provides an alternative to corporate studios where cost can be a significant barrier. Yoga is a $27 billion industry and in Minneapolis, rates often run as high as $20 per class. The studio opened its doors on May 1, 2012 and is connected to a larger movement of donation-based studios across the country.

The studio provides the opportunity for both teachers and students to get back to what yoga is all about: the collective spirit. Teachers at Yoga Sol are committed to building a more vibrantcommunity and are encouraged to be creative, think outside the box, and experiment with new teaching methods to attract students to their classes. So far, the rapidly growing list of experiments includes a David Bowie-themed class on the rocker's recent birthday, regular yoga to live music, monthly happy hours, open-house tea tastings, and a pizza party.

Founders Flor and Peter Frey, a husband and wife team, provide the strategic direction for the social enterprise, applying the same level of intention and consciousness to their business as yoga requires of its practitioners. So far, the experiment is working.