The Heart of Shree

Have you read the article in The Atlantic, "What Happened to Yoga?" When I did, I'll admit — I felt a little disheartened. If you haven't, here's the recap: writer Rheana Murray describes running into her old yoga teacher at a Pilates class — infrared heat panels, mats packed inches apart. She mentions she hasn't seen a full yoga class in a while. Her teacher shrugs: "Yoga is dead."

She was exaggerating. But the data backs up what she felt in that room — studios are replacing yoga classes slots with Pilates, sculpt, and strength. Yoga isn't disappearing. It's being nudged off its own schedule, in its own studios, by workouts that promise a faster route to how a body looks rather than how a person feels. This isn't a moment to eulogize yoga. It's a moment to remember why we started doing it in the first place. Yoga was never selling transformation of appearance. It offers presence, a way to move through the surface-level transience of being human instead of getting swept up in it. And a way to be at peace with whatever your appearance might be, not shift it to match the current trend. And it seems almost unfortunate that this is the moment Shree changed hands, with more shifting than it’s seen in years, but that has more to do with me than with fitness trends. However, I know it might look, from the outside, like we're trying to fit into this new paradigm. So I want to meet that head-on. We've had Pilates at Shree for ten years. Our recent focus on mobility? Yoga always did this — we're just getting better at calling it what it is. The heart of Shree hasn't moved. Almost 22 years in, our focus has always been a holistic practice — one that addresses the whole being, not just the physical, not just the mental or spiritual, but all of it. Classes here are a journey through all those realms, and we will always stay true to that transformative model. So why evolve, and why now? A little history: when yoga came west in the '60s and really took hold in the late '80s and early '90s, it was counterculture. It was a portal to seeing the world differently — for anyone raised inside capitalism and rigid religion, it was magical. It still is. We just have so much more available to us now that it doesn't always feel that way anymore. We’ve evolved, yoga should too. At its core, yoga was always about slowing down, turning inward, making space in the body and the heart to touch into what's steady in a world that's constantly moving. As someone who is also a runner, a rock climber, a hiker, a skier, a snowshoer, my yoga isn't separate from any of that. It just allows me do all of it with more awareness. To me, it's all yoga. It didn't stop being yoga when we added a sticky mat, a block, a strap, a blanket — none of those existed at yoga's start either. So why would it stop being yoga when we add weights or bands, now that we understand what we understand about strength training? What makes it yoga is the way we are practicing it, not necessarily the practices themselves.

Will it look different than it did 22 years ago? Ten years ago? Absolutely. We can stay rooted in yoga's core while still evolving as we learn more about how the body and brain actually work, and to meet ourselves where we are as we evolve. So yes — I'm adding strength and mobility classes, and we'll keep going with Pilates. We know all these complement the practice. What won't change is our grounding in asana, breathwork, meditation, introspection, and community. I want to continue to bring these tools to the community that's already here, in a way that stays true to our values, and yet widen the scope of our offerings so it becomes available to a wider population. New classes mean more entry points – this is invitation, not dilution. That's where membership comes in, too. Punch cards, like calorie apps and fitness trackers, make practice transactional — something to tally, to use up. Membership reflects belonging, rhythm, return — the actual shape of a practice and a community. When I look around — at friends, at the news — I see disconnection. People shouting into echo chambers, wondering why they feel adrift. In the West, yoga has always stood for universality over division — shared ground in a world that's endlessly connected and somehow still lonely. People are looking for a reason to come together. We need what yoga offers us now more than ever. The Atlantic article ends by noting that even wellness culture's own tastemakers are predicting a swing back toward restoration. Shree has always been that. It always will be. The outward shape shifts, the way our bodies and minds do as we grow, but the core doesn't move. If you want deep connection and grounded community, a place to come as you are, Shree is for you. We've been here the whole time.