WILTON, Conn. Wilton resident Annie Clark comes from a family of yoga enthusiasts, which is why she wanted nothing to do with it for most of her life.
But that was until she moved to London 15 years ago at the height of a dark and rainy autumn. A yoga studio down the street brought a little clarity and joy into her life. "I went in and a light bulb went off," said Clark. "This is my ticket to sanity."
Clark practices Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, which focuses on an individual's breathing through a repeated series of movements. "It's very regimented," she said. "You do the same thing every time. You know what's going to happen."
Although she may not have realized what would happen after that first trip into the English yoga studio, Clark continued to practice yoga. When a move back to the U.S. found her without a teacher, she became a certified yoga instructor.
Last week, she opened Wilton's first yoga studio, Hello Yoga, on Old Ridgefield Road in the center. For Clark, teaching yoga has proven to be an uplifting experience as she has seen students transform not only physically but emotionally as well.
"People start to change the way they live," said Clark. "If you're at all shut down yoga opens you up. You may start yoga for the physical changes but little by little the emotional steps in and you start to pay attention to how you feel." On the most simply level, yoga makes people pay attention to everything their body is doing, she said.
"We take breathing for granted," she said. "But it is the first thing we ever do and the last thing we ever do. But we don't pay attention to it." And when you focus on the most basic life function of breathing, said Clark, you can't help but dig deeper into everything else. Students may come to Clark to develop killer abs, she said, but in the process they may gain a little perspective on themselves.
From little kids to teenagers to a weekly 45-minute express lunch class for business owners to Heated Yoga, with the room's temperature cranked up, Clark believes she and her 10 instructors offer something to fit everyone's ability and needs.
"I think people like to be challenged," she said. "Yoga teaches you to pay attention to what you're doing and you learn a lot about yourself. And they're really uplifting classes. You shouldn't leave a yoga class and feel bad."
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