Rebecca Smiddy is the founder and owner of Sunflower Yoga, an all-inclusive studio located in downtown Springfield. Sunflower Yoga offers a variety of yoga instruction, pilates, Zumba, meditation, and wellness workshops to help strengthen your heart, mind, body, and spirit.
Smiddy has been a fitness instructor for more than 30 years, when she got her start teaching aerobics while in college.
“I believe our bodies were made for movement,” she says. “Exercise helps us in so many ways, but it has to be part of our lifestyle just like eating, working, and sleeping.”
Smiddy says she first starting teaching yoga during the pandemic, and after her previous corporate position was eliminated. In addition to the internal motivation to open a yoga studio, Smiddy was also passionate about the project because there hadn’t been a yoga studio in Springfield since 2019. “It was time to open one again,” she adds.
There are 16 instructors at Sunflower Yoga offering a variety of classes including Hatha, Yin, Vinyasa Flow including gentle and power Vinyasa, Shakti Naam, and chair yoga. Classes are offered for a number of different levels as well including beginner, family, and mommy-and-me.
Additionally, Sunflower Yoga offers pilates, Zumba, and barre classes.
“At Sunflower Yoga, we try to meet each person where they are,” says Smiddy. “Whether they’re a seasoned yogi or totally new to yoga, we will teach them and help them become more comfortable practicing yoga.”
The rates at Sunflower Yoga are lower than other studios, which helps to make it more accessible for anyone who wants to join the community. She says that they’re also focused on the community, and want to extend the studio’s vision outward rather than inward.
“Many yoga studios have a sense of exclusivity that causes people to not want to go there,” she says. “At Sunflower, we want to dispel the myth and prove that yoga is for everyone – especially in this day and age when we really need it.”
Sunflower Yoga is located at 120 S. Center Street, at the corner of Center and High streets in the west corner of the Heritage Center Museum.
As fall comes around, Sunflower Yoga will offer goat yoga for special events at a farm north of the city as well as yoga sessions at a nearby sunflower farm.
Smiddy says to stay tuned for information about workshops beginning in the fall as well as Full Moon Yoga on Saturday, September 10, at the Crabill Homestead at the Clarence J. Brown Reservoir.
To learn more about Sunflower Yoga, visit their website. You can also follow along on Facebook and Instagram.
