students and faculty as well as local business employees plans to open Sunday, Sept. 1 on North University Avenue.

aUM Yoga is opening in the 900-square-foot space at 715 N. University underneath Silvio's Organic Pizza. The building is owned by SRK Investments.

What is now a cozy, one room studio with freshly painted lavender walls was originally used as storage space until a pilates studio moved in and completely converted the location about a year ago. According Chris LaBelle of SRK Investments, the space was vacant for six months before aUM owner Jessie Lipkowitz, a U-M graduate, signed the lease.

Im very excited to have aUM Yoga move in , LaBelle said. I think that Jessie is a go-getter and she is making wonderful changes in the building already. Down the hall is Nola's Underground Salon and the combination of the two in the building is wonderful. The energy level is so high.

Lipkowitz began working on the space immediately upon signing the lease, and she said there are still a few things that need to be done before the studio opens.

Weve done a lot to the space to make it our own, she said. It used to have a drop ceiling, which we tore out and weve installed new lighting, painted and decorated since moving in.

aUM Yoga is a one-room studio offering about 30 classes per week.

Photo by Jessie Lipkowitz

The studio will offer about 30 classes a week, and will be open seven days a week. Classes start on Michigan Time or 10 minutes after the hour, so students can come directly from class. The aUM Yoga website has class descriptions, which includes power vinyasa, slow flow and intro to flowing yoga, among others.

We have a variety of classes - heated and non-heated - as well as a range of classes from easy to hard, Lipkowitz said. But what is really going to excite people is the price.

Read more from the original source:
'Fun and collaborative' yoga studio to open near U-M campus this weekend

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney did a lot of Bikram yoga, met astronauts and drank while preparing for "Gravity."

Sandra Bullock. UPI/John Angelillo

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney opened up about training for their upcoming movie "Gravity" during a press conference to promote the film, which opened the Venice Film Festival, on Wednesday.

The movie is about a medical engineer (Bullock) and an astronaut (Clooney) who are stranded in space after debris from a satellite crashes into their space shuttle.

Asked about how they trained for the role, Clooney said, "Sandy and I did a lot of Bikram yoga together."

"We're good that way. Very flexible," Bullock added.

Bullock, who called her role in the film the "most challenging" she's had thus far, told reporters she also trained with real astronauts.

"They were incredibly helpful, and they gave me an inside visual as to why they do what they do, she said. It was the craziest, most bizarre, and most challenging shoot Ive ever done.

Regarding how she stays in such good shape at 49, the "Heat" star explained she thoroughly enjoys dancing.

"I love to dance, I have a background, I was a gymnast, I was a dancer, I just don't like gyms I'm very bored so I'm just cardio, music, just blast the music for an hour and don't stop moving your body. Lightweights," she said. "I have a 40 pound 3-year-old who still is a baby and insists on being carried so I must stay strong. So just that."

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Sandra Bullock, George Clooney did yoga for 'Gravity'

A man who spent nearly half of his life in prison for murder is opening a yoga studio in one of Chicagos more violent West Side neighborhoods.

Marshawn Feltus hopes his new yoga studio will bring peace to the troubled streets of Austin.

On a summer day, Feltus walked past boarded-up buildings and groups of people clustered on front stoops and street corners.

He and two staff members wore matching t-shirts and carried yoga mats.

They regularly recruit people this way for their yoga studio -- the first in Austin.

The first group he approached just blankly stared at him from the front porch they were sitting on, but he pulled a teenage boy aside and started talking to him.

Feltus told his story to everyone he ran into along Chicago Avenue that day. Within a few minutes of recruiting, he had a six-foot-tall former inmate reaching high into the air and breathing deeply.

He says he knows what young people on the streets are going through because he was a gang member 20 years ago -- in the same neighborhood.

Feltus was in a gang, and what started out as an argument and fistfight over territory, ended with him seeking retaliation.

He shot a guy twice and killed him.

The rest is here:
Former inmate brings yoga to Chicago’s West Side

By Adam Ghassemi

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. Yoga can simply be an escape. Every pose and moment that passes can strengthen the body and mind.

But what you're trying to forget can turn it into a lot more than a workout.

"You're literally in the present moment and you're not really thinking about anything else," said Felicia Mason, owner of the new Agni Yoga Studio in Clarksville.

Mason grew up doing gymnastics, and eventually yoga. She opened the studio quietly in July to continue a balance she's done her entire life, trying not to over think if a loved one will come home.

"Always, pretty much, he's going to come home," she said tearing up Thursday.

Mason's husband, Henry, is stationed at Fort Campbell, and goes on regular deployments. She watched her father do it, and now her husband. Yoga is how she hopes others will learn how to cope.

"We have to be the head of the households and we have to keep things together and for yoga, I would say, it's almost like our outing," Mason said.

One of her instructors, Sara Hayes, is in the same boat. She's a military spouse trying to help others live in the present.

"I think it offers a way to let go of whatever happened," Hayes said.

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Yoga Studio Caters To Military Families