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Business & Tech

Business of the Week: Yoga Mountain Studio

Studio provides holistic approach to healing body and mind.

85 Bolinas Road, Fairfax

YogaMountainStudio.com; 459-9642

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What do they offer? 

Yoga Mountain Studio offers classes in many different types of yoga including: Hatha, Vinyasa, Power, Anusara-Inspired, Restorative, Gentle, Mama and Baby. “One size does not fit all,” said owner and teacher Sienna Smith. 

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There are also workshops, trainings, retreats and world music concerts throughout the year, such as a Feb. 6 afternoon workshop for tense neck and shoulders, live music and yoga on Thursday, Feb. 10, and a spring yoga immersion series on either five Saturday afternoons or five Friday evenings in March, April, May and June. 

The website has the schedule of class types, times and teachers, as well as  information on the workshops and events. Yoga Mountain Studio teachers are all local, highly-skilled, and  have at least five years experience in teaching yoga. Some of the classes also have live music.  

Who are they?

Yoga Mountain Studio owner and yoga teacher Sienna Smith says, “No matter what your background or life experience, it’s never too late to find the freedom in your body and your mind.” It's fine if you have never taken a class. “Yoga is accessible to all levels from complete beginners to experienced yogis.” 

Smith grew up in Southern California, got a degree in biology and was pre-med at San Diego State. She worked five years as an environmental biologist and came up to the Bay Area to get a master's degree at San Francisco State, but found that she was constantly in the holistic health department. 

She decided that her calling was helping people heal, so she spent a year in a California Pacific Medical Center program, in the Integrative Medicine Department, where she had an internship to work with breast cancer patients on how holistic health methods can help alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy. 

With her degree as an environmental biologist, she also worked for the National Park Service as a wetland researcher in Pt. Reyes for a year studying endangered species. 

She had done yoga since college and realized that it had helped her through emotionally stressful experiences. She went into yoga teaching training with several different instructors, including Georg Feuerstein -- who is the foremost Western scholar of yoga philosophy, having written over thirty books on the subject -- and eight years of study with Gary Kraftsow, founder of American Viniyoga Institute. She has 200 hours with Feuerstein and 500 advanced hours with Kraftsow, who is the leader in the West for yoga therapy.

Smith took a two-year therapy immersion training, assisted him at Yoga Journal conferences, and also appears in his DVC “Yoga for the Low Back, Sacrum and Hips.” 

From all the hiking she had done with “heavy equipment and a huge backpack” during her years as an environmental biologist, she says, “I had bad knees, bad feet, and my back and neck were always hurting. One by one, I healed these through Gary’s work.” 

In 2006, Smith had a car accident and suffered severe whiplash. It was a turning point, she realized, and it took her to the next level. “Pain is the greatest teacher,” she says. “We should be grateful for it. It calls us to the present moment. Anything that can do that is a gift.”

After the accident she couldn’t move and, for a year, explored various methods to heal her neck, but nothing seemed to work until she found Anusara Yoga and John Friend, who is known throughout the world. 

Through Maritza, a well-known woman in Marin, she started learning Friend's methods, the Anusara alignment principles, and through those she finally healed her neck, with which she had issues even before the accident since she was twenty-five and carried that heavy backpack.

Since 2007, she has been studying that method and has accumulated more than 300 hours, over 100 with Friend himself. 

Smith is into the science of healing. She works on many levels, which is why it can be so transformative. "The deep health patterns in the body are related to every other layer: emotional, spiritual, energetic, and physical," she says. 

How long have they been here? 

Yoga Mountain Studio has been in the Fairfax location for three years, since 2008. Before that time, another yoga studio was at the same address. 

Smith jokes that the “co-owners” are her kids Kyra, 9, and Ryan, 7. Ryan has a museum of lego art at home; Atlantis is his favorite. Kyra likes to draw animals and has just finished a sea creature. “Kyra can hold a headstand as long as I can, which takes a lot of strength,” she said. Obviously, it’s in the genes. 

Last year, Smith got the highest yoga alliance certification, an E 500. This is the main governing regulatory body for yoga. Any day now, she will get Anusara- Inspired status and she is also a certified Viniyoga teacher. 

Why are they business of the week? 

A local who lives on the San Anselmo-Fairfax border, only a mile from the studio, Smith is green-certified through the Green Yoga Association.  

The studio offers scholarships to people who can’t afford yoga; currently there are at least a dozen in her classes. 

Yoga Mountain Studio puts on several community charitable events every year. In the fall, Smith presents their biggest festival, Yoga Rocks the Mountain. Last year, the proceeds went to The Art of Yoga Project, which benefits girls in detention. 

In wanting the studio to have a small town feel, Smith choose bamboo flooring and eco-friendly paint, yoga clothing and yoga mats. Even her attitude is community oriented: “You learn so much teaching people,” Smith says.   

There is an intellectual approach to yoga here, appropriate to a highly-educated woman who has studied yoga with top instructors in the field. Smith says, “Yoga is about self discovery. Self awareness, self reflection and connection to that which is highest.” 

Smith, who never stops learning, uses herself as an experiment. “Every injury I ever had has been healed through yoga.”  

 

 

 

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