On October 28th one year ago, Fishtown resident Brittany Everett took a leap of faith and opened a yoga studio of her own, Grace & Glory Yoga, on the 2200 block of Frankford Avenue.

  “I felt really strongly about having the studio in Fishtown,” Everett recalls. “I lived in Fishtown and believed that in order to be running an effective business in a community like Fishtown, you have to live here. There are a lot of young, passionate entrepreneurs in the community, and I saw a need for a yoga studio.”

  Serendipitously, it just so happened that on the same block that Circle Thrift calls home, new commercial construction was coming to completion. This timing enabled Everett to open for business in under a month’s time from signing her lease.

  Though, Everett’s yoga story starts three years prior with another Grace & Glory Yoga — the original concept founded in Northfield, New Jersey, by Allie Nunzi. Her mother lived around the block from the premier studio, nudging Brittany to attend a class with her.

  “I have [a] running background — that was my go-to fitness for so long,” Everett said. “I ran through high school and college. Yoga was always this thing to me that was like ‘slow down’ and that was totally not who I am.”

  Then she attended a Grace & Glory Yoga class.

  “It was a packed class,” she recalls. “Water dripping down the windows because it was cold outside and hot inside. No one looked at me like I was a stranger or any different because I couldn’t do this pose or that pose. We were all there for the purpose of connection and to do something for ourselves so we could be in service of others.”

  And, the rest was history, “Gradually, I would come back to class — again and again,” Everett explained. “It was like home.”

  Eventually, Everett completed 200 hours of teacher training at the Northfield location and eventually got to the point where opening a Grace & Glory Yoga of her own was her next step. “When I looked at my life in review and thought about what am I going to be doing in 10 years, I wanted to be making an impact,” she said. “I wanted to be creating community. I wanted to be creating a group of people who understood what we’re up to.”

  Grace & Glory Yoga — both the original Northfield location and Everett’s Fishtown studio — specializes in the practice of Baptiste Yoga. “Baptiste is traditionally where the heat comes from,” she explains. “One of the first things that people notice when they walk into the studio is it’s hot and it’s high humidity.”

  The Baptiste Yoga practice starts in a studio that is set to 90 degrees. “The reason that we have the heat is to, in a scientific way, warm up the fascia — fibrous tissue that ‘connects’ every cell — of body, so as the practice goes on, you’re used to it because it actually feels good,” she continued. “It might be a bit intimidating — I’ve had people say ‘I’ve never sweat so much in my life.’ That’s your body purifying itself through heat.”

  Everett bills this specific yoga practice as a workout that pairs power yoga with meditation and active self inquiry — all tools used for transformation. “Yoga meets you where you are,” she explains. “Baptiste Yoga doesn’t ask you to have a certain body or to be able to touch your foot to your head. It doesn’t require anything of you except to show up. You just have to have the courage to say, ‘I am going to start right now,’ and Baptiste Yoga will do the work for you.”

  Grace & Glory Yoga Fishtown offers three to five classes a day that range from 45 to 75-minute all-level, power flow, restorative courses and YOD: Your Own Determination, a variation of power yoga the combines no-equipment, high-intensity interval training, as founded by Minnesota Power Yoga owner Danielle Jokinen.

  What is Everett’s goals for her second  year of business? “When we first opened, a lot of the surrounding apartments with commercial [spaces] downstairs weren’t finished yet,” she continued, in reference to events like First Friday typically taking place more towards Girard Avenue. “Now, it’s started to trickle down here, more and more. Businesses like Vestige have opened and Lululemon is opening soon. I want to create community not just through individuals, but through businesses. We are all here doing this together, being really impactful. We can create Fishtown.”

  For Grace & Glory Yoga specifically? “I want to create a space where people will come and they leave inspired,” Everett said. “They can drop everything that they’ve been carrying around from their day. By your showing up, you’re doing exactly what our mission is—being of service. Breathing, moving, getting empty… you all go through an experience together. You just went through a journey. From child’s post to savasana and corpse pose. Without any words, a connection was created. ‘Going to your edge’— that’s where you transformation happens. You think ‘I can’t do this’ and then you can.”

  Inspired to dip your toes into Grace & Glory Yoga Fishtown and join its community? Start by hitting the $5 Community Class on Saturdays at 9:30AM More info and class schedule available at graceandgloryyoga.com/fishtown. •