Yoga Loft Tampa — Local services in Tampa

Yoga Loft is awesome! I went to my first class at Yoga Loft tonight. It was a beginner flow class with Rose. I practiced yoga a few years ago for about 6 months to a year, so I have a little exposure to the poses which I did find helpful. Yoga is not typically a painful experience, but one pose that is a bit painful for me is savassana or corpse pose. (For those of your that are completely new, this is when you literally lay flat on your back with legs and arms outstretched at the end of class.) For some reason it hurts my lower back when I lay flat on a hard surface and I usually have to bend my knees for relief. Towards the end of class, Rose had us do a back opener with a bolster. This felt a bit awkward at first as I have never used a bolster (I took yoga in a boardroom at work). When we went into savassana, I could lay flat with no pain! This was so incredible since it has always felt painful to me. The entire time in the pose I could not stop thinking about the fact that it did not hurt.

Beyond that, Rose had a great personality and the studio had a great vibe. Even before I walked in I met a really nice student who is in the teacher training program there. I felt very comfortable for my first time in a public yoga studio. There was chanting and essential oil and I left feeling amazing. I am already...

Laurel is one of my favorite yoga instructors in the area. She's all things for all people, really: beginner-friendly yet experienced enough to make it challenging for intermediate-to-advanced practitioners.

One way she does this is by focusing on cueing. Ideally, you should never need to even look at your yoga insturctor; their verbal cues give you all you need to know while you maintain drishti. In practice, most yoga instructors are not structured in their cueing from pose to pose. Laurel isn't flawless about this but is far more consistent than most.

It's also worth noting that Laurel's music selection is not distracting; in fact I don't even remember if she plays any music, which to me is a great sign. I strongly prefer zero music, but that's not the vibe here.

This studio is much more of a beginner studio, which would be my biggest critique. For me, an hour of yoga is a nice warm-up, but I need 75 to 90 minutes to get anywhere beyond "maintenance." Unfortunately Yoga Loft doesn't offer any classes like that, but if they did, I'd come a lot more often.

I've been going here occasionally for a few months now. It's extremely close to my location, but I unfortunately haven't found any other yoga teachers here I vibe with like I do...

When I returned to Tampa a few years back, I attended several yoga studios to find one that offered the type of classes I like to attend. My first class was a Thursday lunch time class that happened to be taught by the owner. I immediately felt welcomed. The studio was clean and comfortable and most importantly, I enjoyed the class. After one or two more classes, I signed up for the intro offer they had going at the time, (a very reasonable three months for $100!). I spent those three months taking classes with the rest of the instructors and found that whether I wanted a class that was very dynamic and strenuous or calming, Yoga Loft offered it and still does. I also found a community of fellow yogis and now call many of them, and the teachers, friends. As my knowledge of yoga grew and my practice deepened, I felt ready to begin the 200 hour certification, which I also did at Yoga Loft, and highly recommend to anyone interested. I have found Yoga Loft to be a clean, comfortable studio with skilled instructors who offer classes that meet students wherever they are on their yoga journey. I would suggest it to anyone looking for a new studio, no matter for what level they...