A NEW yoga studio celebrated the journey so far and the adventures to come when it opened in St Albans earlier this month.

Feel Hot Yoga, first featured in the Herts Advertiser last year, opened its first studio in Hertfordshire on Verulam Business Park in the summer.

The specially built, state-of-the-art studio (pictured right), with a sprung floor, has room for up to 40 people, and includes changing and showering facilities.

The design allows for the optimum hot yoga workout, with temperatures reaching 70, 80 or 90 degrees. Heating the studio in this manner allows the body to be stretched further and deeper than other yoga workouts.

For founder Nina Sebastiane, the opening of Feel Hot Yoga’s studio is the culmination of a 12-year journey. What began as a simple desire to practise yoga eventually led her to America, where she studied and qualified with The Bikram Yoga College of India.

“I really wanted to do some hot yoga but there was nowhere in Hertfordshire that offered anything like it, so I realised the only way I could change this was to do something about it. So I went and got qualified.”

But opening the studio is not the end of Nina’s journey, rather the beginning of something she hopes will grow and grow. Next year, the studio will become a centre for teacher training.

Nina said: “I’m very excited about everything that’s happening and that we’ve got planned. We’ve got a tough economic climate to battle with, but if we, a new business, can get this far when everything is like it is, I’m positive we can do it.”

Friends, family, and converted yogis filled the studio at its launch night, keen to share the impact the practise had made on their well-being.

Nina’s daughters, Olivia, seven, and Anastasia, five, were at the launch party and full of beans about what their mum had achieved. Olivia said: “I’m very proud of mummy and this studio, it’s great!”

To find out more about Feel Hot Yoga, visit www.feelhotyoga.co.uk