When Pat Turner saw a warehouse building on Booneslick Road in Jonesburg 10 years ago, she came up with an idea of turning it into a business.

So Balasana Yoga Studio was born. The first class was held in the winter of 2014 just months after Turner bought the building.

After 10 years, the yoga studio is still a popular place where area residents can meditate, relax and build strength.

“Yoga is a practice,” Turner said. “It’s not a sport and it’s not a religion. I would say that you have difficulty with Christianity and people will be thinking you will become a Hindu if you do yoga. That is not true. We’re not in conversion mode. We’re in movement mode. Movement is medicine. We move and people can move at their own pace.”

Yoga has been a practice for over 3,000 years. Benefits include better sleep, more energy, less anxiety and improved health.

“PT (Physical therapy) is one of the fastest growing industries because after you go get surgery or have an injury, the doctor prescribes PT,” Turner said. “Yoga is not a prescription, but it’s way cheaper than PT. After you finish doing PT, you can come to yoga for a lot less money. I’m not a doctor. I would say, ‘If you can raise your arms, you can do yoga.’ That’s what my teacher said to me. If you can raise your arms up and take them out and turn them down, you can stand and do yoga. It’s not complicated.”

Pam Martin has been a very active patron at the studio. She has been going there since August 2017, just six months after retiring from her job.

“I sat around and did absolutely nothing for six months and I loved it,” Martin said. “Then, we saw the sign (of Balasana Yoga Studio). One day, my husband and I were coming back from lunch. Her car was there. So I pulled in and I came in there. I absolutely hate exercising. But I need to move and yoga seems like it would be very calm. So I’ve been coming here ever since.”

Martin was in attendance during a 45-minute class on April 25. She said she enjoys coming out to the studio twice a week.

“Coming here gives me a reason to get up and out every day,” Martin said.
Classes are held every Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 9:30 a.m. and Wednesday evenings at 5:30 p.m. at the studio, located at 709 West Booneslick Road, next to Tengco.

The studio is named after a yoga posture that means child pose.

“That was the first Sanskrit word I had to learn,” Turner said. “I thought it was a good name. It might not be a good name because it means child pose and people can’t say it.”

Turner said one of her missions is to get more people to come to the class. According to the studio’s Facebook page, there are 124 likes and 132 followers.

“It’s not growing as well as you might think,” Turner said. “But at the same time, it has grown. I’ve gotten new people. The pandemic probably helped because more people are coming out to the rural area because they wanted to homeschool their kids. We had a massive shift in where people wanted to live.”

Turner said her studio had big turnouts during the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago.

“It was really hard for somebody to cope with the pandemic,” Turner said. “I tried to do some videos. I shut down for only two weeks. But we have plenty of space here. They would still come and everybody loved coming then because it was a place to go for people who needed to get out.”

Turner has lived in different places before she and her husband moved to Montgomery County in 2006. Both of them are entrepreneurs.

“I started yoga for my personal wellness when I was much younger than I looked in Wildwood,” Turner said. “We bought a farm and moved out here. My husband is in the ag business. We bought this warehouse and I said I’m going to build a studio. Then, I have been doing it ever since. I’ve been here in this building teaching yoga. It has evolved and has ebbed and flowed because either people don’t continue or they move away.”

Turner taught yoga classes at the Montgomery City Public Library, Innsbrook and Knockout Fitness in Warrenton. She also plays pickleball, paints pictures and works on stained glass for leisure.

“I’m an athlete,” Turner said. “I swim competitively. So I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none. I like to do many things.”