If you know Jillian Longsworth, you’re likely a fan. She has been teaching yoga in Charlotte since 2010 and has developed a following of clients and students who seek an accessible yoga practice for all bodies.
NoDa Yoga is expanding to a studio built at Oakhurst on Monroe, a new mixed-use development on Monroe Road. “I love this location,” Jillian said, and she especially likes that Common Market is right across the street and is looking forward to being a part of the community.
Her former neighbors and friends from the Plaza Midwood community have been moving to the area. Jillian has discovered that many of her current NoDa Yoga students actually live in the MoRA area – in fact, her decision to expand was prompted by a student mentioning the Oakhurst neighborhood. It seemed like the perfect time to expand and take on a new business partner, Craig Rasmussen, who believed in her vision of a ground floor space that would offer yoga for everyone.
The new space will have two rooms which will allow classes to be offered simultaneously; one classroom will be large enough to hold up to 30 students. Jillian’s current studio in NoDa is upstairs and not accessible for some of her clients, but with this new location, she can move some of her chair, Veteran, adaptive and Love Your Brain (Yoga for traumatic brain injury) classes and yoga teacher trainings to the Oakhurst location in addition to the Vinyasa, yin, gentle, restorative, meditation and bilingual (Spanish) flow classes that will be offered.
When Jillian decided to get her yoga teacher certification, “I heard on NPR about the suicide rate among returning military, and it inspired me to seek out a training specifically for veterans.” She became certified through the Yoga Warriors training program, and began teaching at the Red Cross and for the Army National Guard and is currently teaching at the Charlotte VA Clinic. She learned all she could about trauma-informed yoga. NoDa Yoga is partners with Veterans Yoga Project and offers $5 classes to military as well as discounts for mental health therapists, teachers, police officers, firefighters and EMT’s.
“Our students stay with us for a long time, we become like family.” The studio should open at its new location, 1610-1640 Oakhurst Commons Drive, Building 3, by January/February 2020.
