Hello Sunshine Yoga has been years in the making for Hollie J. Nesbitt, who’s taught various fitness classes since 1997. She started with aerobics training at TriHealth Fitness & Health Pavilion and, in 2009, completed yoga training at yoga ah! in Northside.
Throughout her career, she’s taught a little bit of everything to a lot of Cincinnatians, including prenatal and kids’ yoga, barre, and aerial yoga — using hammocks suspended from the ceiling — all which will be offered at her studio.
“[Aerial yoga] looks a little scary and can feel a little scary, but then, once you do it, you can feel how supported you are,” says Nesbitt. “And, of course, I keep everyone safe.”
“It’s really accessible for all levels,” she continues. “You could make it accessible by making the fabric higher or lower, and there’s so many different things that you can do.”
Seven instructors with different specialties will also teach at the studio.
“I think it’s very valuable to learn from different teachers … I think it’s really valuable for students to come to different classes with different teachers … it could effect them in a really different way,” she says. “I don’t want it to all be about me, I want it to be about community.”
Community is precisely what drew her to Pleasant Ridge in the first place. Although Nesbitt first looked at the space in the A-One Dry Cleaners’ building on Montgomery Road about a year and a half ago, she continued searching to ensure that she found both the right place and the right neighborhood.
“I have a vision for creating a community that is really inclusive and kind where people really feel welcome, so I kind of just felt called to create that myself,” she says.
“I was getting to the point where I was creating a lot of content (for classes) and I love to be creative but I needed my own space to be able to do that,” she continues. “I wanted to be in charge of what I was offering.”
She searched all over the east and west sides, going as far out as Tri County, but couldn’t find a spot that offered the right space combined with an engaged neighborhood.
“I just really looked everywhere and I just couldn’t find a space that had that community feel, and I think that’s what kept drawing me back here,” she says.
The studio’s grand opening is Nov. 23 and the regular class schedule will begin on Nov. 24. For the first week, all classes are $5 and there will be sales on passes. Nesbitt hopes people will try them out and find a fit and a pass that works for their schedule and exercise needs.
Nesbitt, who has been called Hollie Sunshine since high school, wanted to incorporate light into the studio name. “Sunshine’s just always been part of who I am and my name. And I like the idea of Hello Sunshine — everyone goes through dark times in their life,” she says. “I myself have gone through several dark times in my life, but the sun always rises. The sun always comes up. So for me, that’s like a ray of hope. And you can kind of tap into that hope a little bit when you come to a class where you use your body, you breathe, you meet other people. “You just tap into that hope and that joy.”
For a list of classes and prices, visit the website.
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