Jesse Garza is a co-owner. Courtesy | Jesse Garza
A new tea and yoga studio, Abundant Rock, will open Jan. 1 on Waldron Street in downtown Hillsdale, according to co-owner Jesse Garza.
The studio will hold yoga and meditation classes from beginner to advanced levels.
“We’ll be offering a range of yoga classes including hot yoga,” Garza said. “We’re going to have a wood burning stove inside the yoga room so it will be firewood heat.”
Abundant Rock will also offer an extensive tea bar with teas from around the world, according to Garza. Co-owner Megan Laser said Abundant Rock will sell tea when yoga classes are not in session.
“We plan on sourcing our teas with fair trade businesses, and I like tea from India, so I’ll probably lean more toward that type of tea, which is very spicy, similar to chai,” Garza said. “But we will also have green tea.”
Sophomore Mikayla Manna said she hopes Abundant Rock will become a study spot for students.
“I love tea so I will definitely go for that,” Manna said. “I’m excited to try new types of tea. I drink tea almost every day so I’m excited to try new, exotic kinds.”
Laser said she didn’t enjoy yoga when she first began taking classes but she grew to love it and said it is something everyone should try at least once.
“I took a couple of yoga classes in college and I didn’t really like it. I liked the idea of it but it made me feel kind of frustrated,” Laser said. “I started taking yoga classes around Chicago and that’s when I really started to fall in love with it.”
Garza said Abundant Rock is the product of his and Laser’s travels.
“Megan and I went to yoga school in Peru a couple of years ago so we were always dreaming about a yoga studio,” Garza said. “She started teaching yoga out of her apartment in Jonesville and we just saw the need for a studio.”
Garza said his time in Peru taught him many yoga techniques, as well as mindfulness.
“We did a two week intensive yoga teacher training in Moyobamba with silent breakfasts, eight hours a day or more of yoga, intense meditation training, fire gazing, and more,” Garza said. “It was an awesome experience.”
The studio has been under construction for almost a year and pieces of the interior are from the Keefer House, according to Garza.
“I work at the Keefer House, too, and some of the wood is the wood from the Keefer House,” Garza said. “I was lucky enough that my bosses allowed me to take what was going to get thrown out. My girlfriend and I went to the stone place and we got a quote of about $1,200 for the stone we needed. Then the next week they tore off the stone and I was able to take it.”
Manna said she was curious about Abundant Rock since she noticed the renovations of the building.
“My sister and her husband live right next door so I have been seeing them make progress since school started,” Manna said. “They’ve really fixed it up a lot, and I love the white paint and lights on the outside.”
Garza said starting a business is more difficult than he expected it to be.
“It’s been a very challenging experience,” Garza said. “It’s all rainbows and sunshines when you’re dreaming of it, and then you get to work and you realize it took four days to paint the front of the building, when you thought it would be done in two hours.”
As Abundant Rock nears completion, Garza said he hopes the community will react well to the yoga studio.
“People of other religions might feel that yoga might be something they have to put a wall up against but we’re not pushing any sort of religion on anyone here,” Garza said. “The universe is our country, humanity is our tribe. We are completely open to anyone and everything.”
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