Melanie McCrae opened Bright Heart Yoga on the Luther Seminary campus in late spring. Photo by Kristal Leebrick
Melanie McRae describes her new yoga studio in St. Anthony Park as a “healing and restorative practice.” A grief-support and hospice counselor, McRae’s yoga training includes an emphasis in emotional health and grief. She received her training at the Yoga Center of Minneapolis and had been teaching yoga classes to friends and neighbors at her home in Minneapolis’s Longfellow neighborhood before opening Bright Heart Yoga in the large yellow house at 2235 Luther Place in late April.
Bright Heart will hold an open house on Saturday, Sept. 26, from 2 to 5 p.m., to introduce the studio to the community. Attendees will be able to meet the studio’s four instructors, each of whom offer drop-in classes each week.
McRae teaches two Slow Flow Vinyasa classes each week.
Marnie Sanborn Myhre, a resident of St. Anthony Park, offers a Soma Yoga class on Wednesdays. Myhre is a physical therapist with advanced certification in ergonomics, holistic health, energy healing, Reiki and yoga therapy. She has been practicing yoga for more than 14 years. Soma yoga combines the science of somatics, a neuromuscular retraining of the pathways to the brain, with yoga.
Drake Powe, a life coach and meditation instructor, has been teaching Kripalu yoga for 15 years. He offers a Movement and Meditation class each week.
Emily Ennis enjoys working with students of all ages and abilities and has additional training in prenatal and children’s yoga. She offers a Yin and Restorative class on Saturdays.
McRae and her husband, Scott, also run Sojourners Spiritual Direction Program for people who work in the helping professions and keep an office on the second floor of the Luther Place house. The McRaes both hold masters of divinity degrees from Yale University and are ordained Lutheran pastors.
