Yogasoul

Creating community at the new studio yogasoul.

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It was Cindy Lunsford’s father who first introduced her to hot yoga.

While she loved the challenging physicality of it, she was about to leave for law school in another city. She would take yoga classes on breaks at home, but her connection to her practice was minimal at best. Then, after law school, Lunsford moved to a town in upstate New York where there were no yoga studios. But she would soon change that.

“I was so miserable as a lawyer,” says Lunsford, owner of yogasoul, one of Nashville’s newest yoga studios. “I remember waking up one day and called my then-husband and said, ‘I’m going to quit practicing [law] and I’m going to go to this [yoga] training for nine weeks.’”

A year later, Lunsford opened her own studio, quit law for good, and then got busy opening several more studios. Three years ago, she moved to Nashville and immediately started building a following around town teaching at several studios. Last summer, she opened yogasoul in the heart of the 8thAvenue Melrose neighborhood.

Yogasoul offers both heated and unheated classes, including Bikram, Vinyasa, Ashtanga, and Yin yoga.

“I’m very big on creating a space for community that extends beyond just that practice on the mat,” Lunsford says. “I try to create a space with less teachers teaching more often instead of lots of teachers teaching one or two classes so that everyone is familiar with their students. It’s more like a family.”

Lunsford’s community approach means she’s always looking for ways to bring yoga to a larger audience. Whether that’s the Friday night classes with live, local musicians, the $5 community drop-in classes, free guided meditation on Sundays, or a host of featured events with guest teachers from outside the Nashville area, Lunsford says,

“anything that gets people to the mat.”

811 Wedgewood Ave., 615-298-9642; yogasoulnashville.com