Yoga in Santa Barbara looks a whole lot different since Jasprit and Teresa Singh opened up their Mesa studio last year.
The RussaYog studio, 1905 Cliff Drive, filled with colorful floormats and dozens of ropes, is where the Singhs teach dozens of classes, based on Singh’s technique of yoga that relies on russas, or ropes, that are free-flowing and secured from a beam in the ceiling. Students then use the rope as a center piece and support for stretches.
Singh remembers watching his father do yoga as a child in India and grew up playing with ropes. Over time, he developed his own technique using the ropes as an aid to the various yoga movements.
The technique is good for regular people, Singh said, not just athletic types. Teresa Singh has been working with people with flexibility issues, including several clients with MS. She’s also working on a prenatal program for pregnant moms, when traditional yoga becomes nearly impossible.
People who have been hurt doing yoga before often find respite with the RussaYog technique, Singh said, and those with flexibility issues often find RussaYog more approachable. The program has also been successful helping people cope with addiction, like quitting smoking, according to the Singhs.
“A lot programs fail because they don’t provide alternatives,” Singh said.
Because the feelings a smoker gets from cigarettes aren’t replaced by something else, many would-be quitters fail. But Singh believes the endorphins released by yoga and other exercise can be a direct replacement for detrimental substances.
“People are here for a reason,” he said. “They want to be happy and healthy.”
The Singhs opened their first RussaYog studio in Ann Arbor, Mich., which has been open for five and half years and has about 400 clients enrolled in classes.
“We’d been thinking about the West Coast” as a place to open a second location, Teresa Singh said, and when the building on the Mesa opened up in March, they knew it was the right place. The Singhs own a second home in Santa Barbara, so a new studio in the city made sense.
Since they opened the studio, Teresa Singh said the community has been “very welcoming” and that the studio already has a steady clientele.
Teresa Singh works at the Mesa studio full time, and her husband splits his time between the Ann Arbor studio, teaching electrical engineering classes at the University of Michigan, and working in the Santa Barbara studio.
Singh is working on developing his techniques into a wellness course at Michigan. Much of society’s health-care woes are based on stress levels and obesity, and Michigan’s health-care system for its employees is no different, he said. Singh said that of the $350 million that goes toward health insurance for university employees, “60 percent of that is related to obesity and mental stress.”
“Those are things you can control,” he explained.
There aren’t any other RussaYog studios per se, Teresa Singh said, but yoga teachers from around the world have been taught by the pair and taken the techniques back to their own studios.
Teaching and mobilizing teachers is the Singhs’ big focus now, so they’re able to provide more classes to keep up with demand.
Both of the Singhs’ studios are in smaller communities and the couple said they’d love to branch out to places like Santa Monica or Manhattan.
Singh will also be teaching a nine-week wellness series, beginning Jan. 10, targeted toward students who want to deepen their understanding of yoga’s foundation.
“A lot of people have been doing it but may not know the guiding principles,” he said.
Click here for more information or call 805.448.1320.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com.
