Wilmington Magazine Jan-Feb 2023

at the same time” when he was first starting out.
“It was hard and I sweat a lot,” Lew says, describing his first foray
into yoga. “But it was different than what I’d done before. It was
quiet. I was also boxing at the time and the fact that I could get a
workout in and not leave with a bloody nose? It was a sustainable
practice.”
The fact that the studio offers such a wide breadth of styles,
approaches, and accessibility options is a point of pride for Abbate,
who also hosts several different workshops at terra sol. Several of the
workshops allow for those who are not as interested in the physical
practice of yoga to still engage with the mental benefits.
Abbate herself shares that she first got into yoga while seeking
a way to handle her own depression, anxiety and life stressors. “I
played sports growing up, so I always moved my body, but I did
not understand the mind-body connection,” she says. “I was in
talk therapy, too, but I was just coping.” Her aunt took her to her
first yoga class and she had an inkling there was something to the
practice. “I wanted to learn, just, what is this? Why do I feel so good?
Why do I feel like I can handle this existence with more ease when
this practice is part of my life?”
Savas describes the sensation as, “that yoga buzz”. Elms refers to,
“a kind of space warp”. Lew shares a story about a student crying
throughout the entirety of a class and the ability to facilitate mental
healing through the physical practice.
“It’s all connected,” Abbate says. “We are whole and when there
is emphasis on one more than the other, it can bring us a little bit
out of balance. So literally when we remember that we are in union
— and that’s yoga, union, connection — when our mind and body are
in sync, things just seem a little bit easier.” W
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