Ann Steinemann

RYT-200

I walked into my first yoga class 40 years ago in Encinitas, CA. The teacher, Billie, studied yoga in India with the Iyengar family in India before returning to Encinitas as a Senior Iyengar instructor. Learning Hatha yoga in the Iyengar tradition, with emphasis on precise alignment and detailed instruction, built a solid foundation for my yoga practice and helped settle and ground me for the first time in years.

Over the next 14 years, I broadened my practice sampling different styles including Ashtanga, Hatha, Hot, Kundalini, Restorative and Yin. During these years, I became a licensed Real Estate agent and later, a certified massage therapist, studying T'ai Chi, shiatsu and medicinal herbs as part of my training at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego. My heart continued to lead me on paths of working with the body to maintain optimal balance and to heal holistically when out of balance.

I moved back to Huron, Ohio in 1999 and at the time, there were no yoga studios or teachers in the area. I practiced at home incorporating the books "Yoga, the Iyengar Way" by the Mehta family and "Yoga for Healing" by Gary Kraftsow. These books taught me how yoga postures and proper sequencing of those postures could be used for healing imbalances in the body. Longing for a spiritual community and to deepen my yoga practice, I enrolled in a year-long 200-hour yoga teaching training in Columbia Station. It was a return and deep immersion into practicing with a community of like-minded women of all ages. Together, we learned asana sequencing, became part of a large kirtan community in Cleveland, learned mindful meditation, breathwork, and the importance of macrobiotic nutrition. After the training ended, I taught yoga classes at Ernsthausen Rec Center in Norwalk and The Gym in Huron. A few years later, I taught at House of Yin, Huron's first yoga studio. House of Yin later became Open Way Yoga Studio under the ownership of Shannon Thomas.

In 2016, now living in Avon Lake, I again felt called to additional training with yoga as a path to healing and enrolled in an 800-hour yoga therapy training at Soul of Yoga in Encinitas, CA. It took nearly 3 years and lots of flights back and forth to CA to complete the in-person training, including Ayurveda, Yoga for Mood Management, Yoga of Recovery, Prenatal Yoga, Healing with the Chakras, Foundations of Meditation, Restorative, iRest Training, Yin, and Chair Yoga. In 2018 and 2019, I taught chair yoga at an assisted living facility and also volunteered my services working with people with Alzheimers/Dementia leading a yoga/singing class.

The pandemic struck a few months later. The week before everything shut down in Ohio, Covid-19 caught me. My symptoms were mild but the mild case went into months of Long Covid symptoms. My daily runs, something I'd done regularly since my twenties, was no longer an option to manage the Long Covid symptoms of anxiety, aching joints, and fatigue. Thankfully, all the years of yoga practice and yoga therapy training, along with Ayurvedic practices, meditation, and breathing techniques, gave me the tools to help my body heal gently and naturally.

In 2023, back living in Huron and looking to return to practicing yoga with a group of like minded people, I walked into Open Way Yoga Studio. Finding many students, old friends and several teachers I'd practiced with years before at House of Yin, along with the familiar, uplifting studio space filled with lush greenery, lots of natural light, original wood floors and artwork decorating chakra-colored walls, felt like coming home.

I'm excited to return to teaching at Open Way. My gentle, therapeutic yoga classes are accessible to each individual and every body. Come as you are, whether as a brand new or seasoned yoga enthusiast or someone seeking gentle movement and a calming space to heal. You'll find detailed guidance within each pose, along with meditative movement and breathing techniques to balance the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energies that help us show up as our best selves. My intention is that each student leaves class feeling relaxed, refreshed and restored, open to whatever awaits.