LIVERPOOL – Sunlight streams through a window as Amy Wolfe Bowers and April Williams go through their yoga postures. Beside them, laying calmly on the floor is Freddie, a yellow Labrador retriever.
It was perfect timing. Wolfe Bowers was ready to make a change, and that’s when Williams approached her about teaching yoga in a loft above April Williams Salon & Spa in Liverpool.
That was about two months ago, so things didn’t take long to get going. Classes began in the new space began April 4.
“It happened really fast,” said Wolfe Bowers.
Williams, owner of the salon and spa, says for the last two years, she and her husband have been trying to decide what to do with the upstairs space.
“Nothing was really coming to us that really felt right until this,” she said, referring to the new yoga studio.
Through opening the yoga studio, Williams and Wolfe Bowers hope to provide a community in which people feel comfortable and welcome.
The instructor
Wolfe Bowers was in her 20s and living in Toronto working in an office job when she realized working in that environment was not for her.
“So at that time, I got certified personal training in Toronto, and then I moved back home,” she said.
And that career path has continued to grow, she said. She’s been back home for nine years and has continued to get certifications in fitness and yoga.
“Fitness and athletics has always been a huge passion, and it’s just kind of grown from there,” she added.
Williams has been going to Wolfe Bowers’ yoga classes for two years.
After having her first child, Williams says she struggled with post-partum depression. It was difficult, she said.
“When I had my second baby, I said, ‘I have to start doing something right away because I don’t want to go through that period of down,’” she said.
And that something was yoga.
About six months after Williams gave birth to her second child, she sought out Wolfe-Bowers and began to take classes. She was at Wolfe-Bowers’ former downtown studio three times a week. Going to yoga allowed Williams to form a community, much like the one she and Wolfe Bowers hope to create at 709 Main St.
Classes
In addition to a variety of yoga classes, another thing the studio will offer is TRX.
“That’s a suspension training class that we do here,” sad Wolfe Bowers.
The suspension trainers are attached to the multiple beams on the ceiling.
“You use your own body weight against gravity,” explained Wolfe Bowers.
Williams practices TRX twice a week. She took up suspension training because of neck and back problems
Wolfe Bowers says anyone interested in trying any of the classes simply needs comfortable, stretchy clothing.
“We have everything here to make it easy for people,” she said. “We want the fewest obstacles possible for people.”
Wolfe Bowers’ teacher training is based on Vinyasa yoga. She says most of her classes are based on this flow style of yoga.
“In a flow style of yoga, the postures are connected with the flow, and flow is where you go from high plank to low plank, cobra, then downward dog, and that creates a cardiovascular effect,” she explained.
She says it’s a wonderful style because it stretches and lengthens muscles. The only two classes Wolfe Bowers will be teaching that don’t fall under the flow style are Yin and Hatha.
Williams originally opened her salon in her house in 2002. The building behind the house was built in 2007, and a spa extension was added in 2014, she explained.
Wolfe Bowers offers classes five days a week from Monday to Friday.
Visit https://www.facebook.com/AprilWilliamsHairStudioSpa/?hc_ref=ARQ313rQoaacezL3pKyRpc86nWcP8EsKFYSEbTPZHU1N-6AYlwvPhTfqOlnQiGLDKtU to learn about what’s happening in the yoga studio.
