Prasada Yoga, Plain And Simple
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Prasada Yoga’s Mel Salvador has been teaching yoga for 11 years. She prides herself on creating an inclusive, non-intimidating atmosphere.
Walk into Prasada Yoga Studio and you might think you’re in a rustic, unfurnished home. Only the orange mats lined up on the floor will tell you that it is, in fact, a yoga studio. There are no mirrors. There is no merchandise. There is only yoga.
“It’s for every body, for every age, for every ailment, for every injury, and that’s the beauty of the practice—it doesn’t discriminate,” Studio Director Mel Salvador said.
Salvador and partner Roseanne Kochnower opened the Vinyasa studio in Cold Spring Harbor just three months ago. Salvadore had moved to Huntington less than a year earlier after coming for a visit and staying for good.
Salvador has been teaching yoga for 11 years and trained in the United States Thailand, and India. She and Kochnower met as student and teacher. Kochnower had been urging her to open up a studio for some time when the space at 75 Main Street in Cold Spring Harbor opened up. It was then that the pair decided to make the idea become a reality.
Salvador now heads up a team of five additional teachers who lead yoga sessions all week in the traditional, bare essentials studio, which holds about 20 students. She said the space and the teachers are what gave the studio its down-to-earth, inclusive vibe.
“Yoga practice is both on your mat and off your mat and the way you teach should be the way you live; everyone here lives the way that they teach,” she said.
Classes range from beginner to advanced and Salvador said teachers are responsive to both experience and limitations, such as age or injuries. All poses are explained in English and Sanskrit, by instructors who undergo continuous training and education.
“I took a class with each teacher before approaching them, so I essentially auditioned them without them knowing,” Salvador said.
Prasada offers 28 classes each week. The first two classes are free, with no obligation to continue. Salvador said the idea was to give potential students an opportunity to try one or two different teachers.
Single classes are $20 each; various multiple class packages are available. In addition to courses in the space, Prasada offers yoga in Cold Spring Harbor Park every Saturday from 10:30 to 11:30 am, which is free and open to the public.
Visit www.prasadayogany.com for more information.
