New Yoga Studio Offers Fitness Option for All

Spend a few minutes with Christy Cheever and you'll be at ease about trying Yoga. Spend a few practices and you'll start to feel better about yourself, and your body.

Cheever is the owner and an instructor at Artisan Yoga which opened earlier this year in the Chesterbrook Shopping Center.

Christy Cheever hasn't always been a Yoga instructor and entrpreneur. She is a hometown women, and a 1992 graduate of Conestoga High School (she went to Valley Forge Middle School before that). After high school, she went to Penn for Science, got a law degree from Villanova and worked locally as a patent attorney for a pharmaceutical company.

Along the way she spent 15 years doing modern dance and ballet.

Add in a family that includes two kids and you've got a scenario that a lot of busy career women/moms can relate to.

Through it all Cheever eventaully felt a calling. Eventually the calling led to an intense training program in New York which turned her passion into a new calling and career.

Now she and six other instructors lead Yoga classes (practices) for people ranging from age 14 to 70 and beyond at Artisan Yoga.

Cheever says Yoga is growing in popularity as tastes in exercise and fitness change. "Baby boomers are realizing they need to do something (to take care of their bodies)," she tells Patch. "It's a strength workout that helps develop flexibility and balance."

She says it's also good for your looks and longevity. "Your body doesn't age at the same rate as when you don't move," she says. And yoga is a good alternative for people who may be nursing injuries. Yoga movements and "poses" can be adopted to compensate for injuries and modified as your body recovers and heals.

Want to try yoga?

You don't have to be able to turn yourself in to a human pretzel. Cheever says Artisan's beginner "gentle yoga classes are slowed down and very friendly with a lot of explanation."

Classes at Artisan are normally offered Monday-Saturday. Specific hours and descriptions are available on the Artisan Yoga website.

Try it this Sunday and Help Feed The Hungry

On Sundays in October Artisan Yoga has been offering a general class for all experience levels in return for a donation to Philabundance. Read full details on the Artisan Yoga Website.