When many people are digging into leftovers or starting microwaves, five people are setting up yoga mats at Bridge Chiropractic in Salmon Creek.
Soft music plays in the background as yoga instructor Mandy DeBord welcomes students to the lunchtime yoga class offered every Friday in the gym area at the chiropractic office.
“Find a comfortable position,” DeBord says. “Enjoy the calm and quiet.”
The class cycles through classic yoga poses — downward dog and cat cow — and ends on Shavasana, a pose often used for relaxation to finish a session.
“Do we have to go back to the real world?” one person says, once it ends.
The noon sessions at Bridge on Fridays are low-intensity yoga workouts, but they’re offered at unique time — in the middle of a workday. That placement allows people to scoop up some mindfulness and escape the stress of a job for about 50 minutes.
“What you were worried about before class probably won’t matter as much after. That’s my goal,” DeBord says.
After the yoga session ends, two students scurry off to return to work. DeBord runs the Clark County yoga company MKelevate with Kristi Herron, and she says they have structured the lunchtime class in a way that allows people to “easily throw your work clothes back on and head out.” Each session is $15.
“I think, especially now, people are busier more than ever,” DeBord says. “If they can sneak out, especially in the middle of a busy workday … they can get something done.”
Debby Pirtle, a 54-year-old Hazel Dell resident, tries to make the Friday classes if she isn’t substitute teaching. On a Friday earlier this month, Pirtle joined the class after running some errands and making a nail appointment.
“I can be productive in my morning, get this done and then afternoons when I’m not working are usually a little lazier anyway, so it just kind of leads me right into that,” Pirtle says.
Pirtle added that after the yoga class, she planned to catch up on laundry that piled up after a recent trip.
“It’s a lazier afternoon today,” she said.
Nancy Herron, who’s the 69-year-old mother-in-law of MKelevate’s Kristi Herron, doesn’t fit the class between work hours, but is taking it as she trains for the Blooms to Brews Marathon later this month in hopes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon next year. Herron said the tempo and structure of the class is great for her.
“I don’t stretch or do much working out after I run so this beginning yoga is perfect for me. It’s a nice, gentle stretch,” Herron said. “It’s not overwhelming, and as an older person I need more smoothness and slow, than fast and hard.”
