Many specialized styles of yoga such as chair, restorative, yin, prenatal and adaptive were developed to meet the special needs of individuals, demonstrating just how malleable hatha yoga is. Adapting to today’s COVID-19 social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines, Renee Heil, founder of the Saba Movement Center at AHA! A Holistic Approach Center for Health & Wellness, in Fort Myers, has proven once again the adaptability of yoga. Heil’s version of adaptive yoga is for yogis that due to COVID restrictions, still yearn for their live group classes with a teacher. “I had to find a way to adapt small group, face-to-face classes with simultaneous livestreaming. Many people miss their group classes and don’t enjoy doing solitary yoga at home in front of a computer screen or TV streaming a prerecorded class,” says Heil, founder of the Fort Myers Yoga Project, which she discontinued due to the virus.

Heil has noticed a local phenomenon. “People are social distancing in a cluster. Some individuals that are neighbors living on the same street off of Estero Island don’t leave their street without a mask. However, when they are on their street, they act like a family unit and don’t wear masks. They come to classes in their cluster,” says Heil, who notes that the 900 square feet of the center is shaped like a giant plus sign with four corners.

“Two people can comfortably inhabit each corner nook and easily be six to eight feet apart. Classes are small, with a maximum of eight people. In a four-person class, each person has their own corner nook. Our yoga 101 classes are also small and very interactive. People wear a mask to the center, set up their mat, enjoy their practice and leave wearing a mask. In-between classes there is rigorous cleaning protocol,” explains Heil, whose perspective on adaptive yoga is more about how yogis and their teachers are flexibly functioning and adapting to the current environment in this new world. “Yoga is definitely changing to meet the new normal,” she says.

Saba Movement Center is located at 15971 McGregor Blvd., in Fort Myers. For more information, call 239-433-5995.