ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
Shanel Anderson, the owner of Soul City Yoga, works with one of her students, Courtney Maribito, in her studio in the Lydia Pinkham Building.
By BILL BROTHERTON
LYNN —There’s no place like om for Shanel Anderson.
The Lynn native recently opened the city’s first yoga studio in the sun-drenched Suite 212 of the Lydia Pinkham Building on Western Avenue. Soul City Yoga is off to a blissful start, as word spreads about the classes and workshops Anderson and her seven instructors lead seven days a week.
“Other than classes outdoors at Red Rock and a few other places, everyone in Lynn doing yoga was doing it outside of Lynn,” said Anderson, a 2002 English High graduate. “It blows my mind mine is the first yoga studio in Lynn. There was never a question if Lynn was ready for this. We’ve had a very organic start.”
The name “Soul City” is a play on “Sin City,” the unflattering epithet of which Anderson does not approve.
“I love this city,” said Anderson, who grew up on Bessom Street and Daigle Road. “One day I said ‘OK. It’s time to start a yoga studio in Lynn.’ Until someone said ‘No. You can’t do it’ I moved forward. No one ever said ‘You can’t do it.’ … so here we are. The city was great to work with.”
Anderson, who also owns Poseidon’s pizza shop in Gloucester with her husband, Dennis, said she received plenty of business help and guidance from Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) and MassDevelopment’s Transformative Development Initiative team.
Anderson said her first pregnancy — with Solomon, 5 — was difficult. “We found out I was pregnant 10 days after we opened the pizza shop. I was delivering pizzas in Gloucester … there was not a lot of me time.” When the couple learned they were having a second child, Shanel decided to return to yoga. “It was extremely helpful and I enjoyed it,” she said. After her son, Kingston, 2, was born, she got her certificate to be a yoga instructor.
On the Soul City website she sums up her “relationship with yoga”: “In 2011 I began, strictly in my living room from time to time and never at a studio. I was worried about my extreme beginner status and felt intimidated, so I just stuck to random YouTube sessions and DVDs whenever the mood struck. In 2013 during my second pregnancy, I decided to give it another shot. Desperate for relief from the physical aches and pains and determined to have an easier birth, I began attending prenatal yoga religiously and I was hooked. The change in the way my body felt was amazing and I had a renewed sense of calm and focus. Just like that, the spark was ignited.
“Soul City Yoga was born out of my love of yoga and the city of Lynn. As a Lynn native, I wanted to create a community space where people could center and achieve personal growth as well as feel connected to their neighbors. My goal is to dissolve the Westernized image of yoga by creating an all-inclusive environment that welcomes and sees the value in all people.”
Anderson said yoga and its exercises for mental and physical health is for “everybody and every body. Inclusion is my thing. All and everyone should feel comfortable to come. Yoga should not be intimidating or scary and (participants should not be) worried that their down dog (pose) doesn’t look like others’ down dog.”
Classes include $5 community sessions, “Yoga en Espanol” with instructor Victoria Garcia Drago on Nov. 19 and an upcoming session for plus-size women. A class schedule and membership information can be found at www.soulcityom.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss.
Bill Brotherton can be reached at bbrotherton@itemlive.com.