Celebrating Yoga Shanti’s 25th anniversary in the back of the studio last week were Colleen Seidman-Yee, second from the left in the back row, Carla Gargano in blue, Gina Anastasio in orange, Stacey Kiratsos in white and Sarah Halweil doing cartwheels in the front row.
Colleen Seidman Yeh, owner of Yoga Shanti in Sag Harbor, who celebrated her 25th anniversary last week with a kind of block party behind her Bridge Street studio, took her first yoga class in 1984. “I walked out onto Broadway and everything felt special. I was filled with awe. Something magical happened, and I’ve been trying to bring that feeling back into my body ever since.”
The reason she was taking boxing classes was because she lost a coin toss: “If I had won, my roommate would have gone to boxing classes with me.” She wisely quit boxing after taking a punch that broke her ribs.
She has pursued that feeling and shared it with countless others. In 1999, on a whim, she opened Yoga Shanti with Jessica Belofatto. “I said, ‘Hey, do you want to open a yoga studio?’ and she said, ‘Sure!’ We went to an ATM, withdrew $500 each, and started the studio. I was an inexperienced teacher. I had no qualifications to open a yoga studio.”
From a two-bedroom apartment above Murph’s Tavern where they taught down the hall (max capacity 60 sq ft, $12 drop-in), to a studio behind Kites of the Harbor (max capacity 100 sq ft, windowless, pitch-black savasana — “people would be outside, snoring”), and finally to their first storefront on Washington Street (max capacity 45 people, but tiny) until they split up around 2007.
In 2009, Sideman Yee was strolling down the back of Main Street when she saw the building under construction. “The inside was still unfinished. I was able to create my dream studio.” She painted the ceiling gold and the walls orange. The light-spangled molding was carved by Springs artists Bill Stewart and Anne Fristoe. It could accommodate 72 students, “mat to mat.”
Sideman Yee’s husband, Rodney Yee (who she jokes married in 2006 “after an affair and some rough sex”), joined the teaching staff in 2009. “Sag Harbor is strangely contagious, but mostly because of Colleen. I’d be somewhere else if it weren’t for her,” he said. “Yoga Shanti is close to her soul and I witness that firsthand every day. I’m so happy to be a part of her dream and to bring the yoga knowledge that I have to be a part of this community.”
The studio’s altar was created by Saidman Yi’s son-in-law, Evan Yee. Its corners are adorned with photos of gurus, religious leaders and even Bob Dylan. “It’s a collection of people who have influenced my practice,” she says. “It’s a path to deeper self-study.” Hidden high up and out of sight is a funeral card for Saidman Yi’s mother. “She’s always with me.”
There were good times. Classes were always full in the building that had become a de facto community center for many. But there were also bad times. “COVID was bad. On March 17, 2020, our income stopped. We started struggling to make ends meet.” There were classes on Zoom, Facebook, on the church lawn and finally in Mashasimyet Park. “We had loads to do every morning. There was goose poop and everyone wore masks, even outdoors. We didn’t mind because we were so happy to be able to practice in person again.”
“COVID has changed people’s perceptions. I don’t even know if I want to cram 72 people into a room again. But we’re going to bounce back this summer and open as full as we can.”
Though a lot has changed in 25 years, the yoga community and many of the studio’s instructors have remained remarkably stable. “I’m 82 and I can still walk, and that’s part of what yoga means to me,” says Esther Newberg, an early student of Saidman Yi’s. “Colleen has a way of reading the audience. I’ve never felt like yoga was trash.”
“When I start a class, everyone is talking so loudly that I can’t even start. I’m so happy. There were times when I wasn’t sure if the studio would be able to stay open, but I saw people in town saying the studio saved them during dark times. That’s why we’re hanging in there,” Saidman Yee said.
“We just graduated 28 instructors,” according to the program, of which thousands have graduated since it began in 2003. “Twenty of them are under 30. It’s inspiring to see these young people want to do more than just get fit. It means a lot that the students want to learn from these two old men. I was so innocent and naive when I opened the studio. I never knew how much it would fill my soul.”
