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Sandpoint Hot Yoga looks forward to reconnecting with clients, instructors

by RACHEL SUN
Staff Writer | April 3, 2021 1:00 AM

After a tumultuous year, Kerri Kuntz, owner of Sandpoint Hot Yoga, said she’s excited to see more of her “yoga family” again.

Over the past year, Kuntz said, the studio cut its class offerings in half as instructors moved, or didn’t want to teach in-person, and some clients stopped coming. The studio also reduced its class sizes — a practice it’s continued into 2021.

As this year has progressed, though, the studio is starting to see more people return, and is slowly regaining customers as more clients and instructors feel comfortable coming back.

Some of that business is driven by new community members, Kuntz said.

“We've really created a little family there, and [the past year was] like us not being able to see our family members for so long,” she said. “That's kind of how it feels. So I'm really looking forward to having our family back, and meeting all the new people moving in.”

Kuntz and her instructors teach a variety of yoga classes, including classes geared toward the young and the old alike. The two most popular are the “hot 26” classes, (formerly known as Bikram but changed for copyright purposes) and vinyasa yoga.

The “hot 26” are the same movements done by yoga groups around the world, Kuntz said, while the vinyasa is more freeform and a bit quicker.

Another style gaining in popularity is called yin, which is done in a warm room instead of a hot one and features slow, gentle movements and meditation.

Most of the classes are hot yoga, she said, which provides many of the same benefits as a sauna.

Some of those benefits, she said, include increasing one’s circulation and heart rate, promoting detoxification through sweating and allowing the body to warm up faster, thus theoretically reducing the risk of injury.

Many women experiencing menopause also report benefiting from hot yoga, Kuntz said.

“It's amazing how you get yourself into a hot room and your body just starts to become really efficient at regulating its internal temperature,” she said.

Kuntz, who has been instructing for 15 years and first opened Sandpoint Hot Yoga in 2008, said she first got into yoga years ago when she was a long-distance runner.

“By the time I was in my late 20s, I just was already really feeling the wear on my body. And just had gotten pretty sick,” she said. “Yoga was just gaining in popularity then, and especially hot yoga. I found my first hot yoga studio and just never looked back.”

Beyond the physical benefits to yoga, said instructor Mark Shearer, are immense benefits to mental and spiritual well-being.

Shearer began yoga after injuring his back roughly 10 years ago.

“At that time I was into it more for exercise and that kind of stuff,” he said. “Then I went to yoga school in India, and it’s more about breathing and meditation.”

Meditation, in its simplest terms, Shearer said, comes down to “not thinking about the past or future.”

Although that may not sound complicated, breathing and meditation is an important part of the practice, Shearer said.

Yoga is often used as just a workout, Shearer said, but he believes exercise is only part of the benefit of yoga.

“Yoga is breathing and meditation, and that can only do good,” he said. “I do Pranayama, some breathwork, some mindful meditation. [Because of that], it seems the world skips along a lot easier for me.”

Moreover, both Kuntz and Shearer said, anyone can do yoga regardless of physical strength or flexibility.

“Our country has done such a disservice to the practice of yoga, that it's made it look so impossible. That it's for kind of the young, groovy flexible women,” she said. “We're offering yoga for, you know, first-timers and yoga for veterans who have PTSD, and really trying to target folks that don't think that they belong in a yoga class. Just the benefits of coming in and being able to be still and breathe for a chunk of time is really what yoga is all about.”

Not only is yoga for people who lack flexibility, Shearer said, it’s for anyone regardless of their limitations.

“I’ll hear ‘I can’t stand on one leg,’ but you don’t have to stand on one leg. I’ll hear ‘I have bad knees.’ Just be careful around your knees,” Shearer said. “There are movements you can do sitting in a chair.”

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Courtesy of KERRI KUNTZ

Julie Pitre, a hot yoga instructor with Sandpoint Hot Yoga for 5 years, taught and practiced with a mask during COVID, and still is.

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Courtesy of KERRI KUNTZ

Mark Shearer, A hot yoga and gentle yoga instructor for the past two years practices at Sandpoint Hot Yoga in his hot practice.