Garden City's Yoga Nanda Offering Free Classes

Garden City's Yoga Nanda is one of 50 studios across New York City, New Jersey and Nassau County offering free class passes during a six-week series now through Aug. 17.

All participating studios can easily be found through Yoga Local NYC, the first “Find-a-Yoga-Class-Anywhere” iPhone App, which is teaming up with LUNA, The Whole Nutrition Bar for Women, to distribute more than 1,000 passes.

Each week Yoga Local NYC posts a list of studios on its website offering the free class passes, which are available on a first-come, first served basis for new students at each of the studios. (Recipients of the passes are listed on the series’ website on a rolling basis.)

Jules Boutelle, Yoga Nanda owner, told Patch it's her pleasure to participate and to hopefully introduce yoga to an entire new community.

When Julian Barnes, co-founder of the Luna free Yoga Series program, approached Boutelle about his mission she "didn't even have to think twice about it."

"As you know I already offer a completely free community class every Sunday at my studio, and the reason I do this is to offer everyone the chance to practice yoga!" Boutelle said. "I can't even express how much I believe in the benefits of yoga and it actually saddens me when I hear people say, 'Oh I'd love to try yoga but its so expensive.' I have heard this time and time again from strangers, close friends and family. Unfortunately there are big costs in running a yoga studio and as much as I wish I could run the studio more like an ashram than a business, I can't. However what I can do is give back to the community for supporting the studio and make yoga accessible to everyone! Hence our free community class."

Ben Fleisher, co-founder of Yoga Local NYC, added, “The series is a great example of the yoga community working together to introduce both children and adults to yoga’s many physical and mental health benefits. Throughout the series, people who have never taken yoga will be able to experience it for the first time; experienced yogis will be able to discover new studios; and participating studios will have a new way to expand their reach into their communities.”

The other participating studios located in Nassau County are: Breathe N Flow Yoga in Freeport, Emerge Yoga & Wellness in Bellmore and Revolution Yoga in Rockville Centre. A complete list of participating studios is available here.

The 2012 LUNA Free Yoga Series also supports three local charities: Bent On Learning, FoodFight and Kula for Karma. Participants may also be eligible to receive one free month of yoga at the participating studio of their choice or other giveaways from supporters.