Not many activities sound more relaxing these days than doing some yoga and having a beer with friends.
Amélie Goudreau, a newly-licensed yoga instructor, is currently teaching Yoga and a Pint yoga classes, where event-goers can do one hour of yoga, and then sit and enjoy a pint of beer afterwards.
“I went to school in Thunder Bay and they used to do ‘yoga and a pint’ at one of the restaurants there, so I decided to do my own version where we did yoga outside near the Bushplane Museum and then walked over to Northern Superior Brewing and had a pint there afterwards,” said Goudreau, 24. “It was a great hit after the first class so when the weather started turning, I wanted to see if there was a possibility to do it inside. With COVID-19 I wanted to make sure that everyone felt safe and that we were still socially distancing, so we decided on a maximum of 10 people.”
“This is a really fun way for people to try out yoga if they never have before. It’s an all-levels, everyone welcome kind of yoga and I really try to create a fun and inviting environment for people to feel at ease. It can be intimidating trying something new, like yoga, that you’ve never tried,” Goudreau said. “The idea is that it gets people out with friends to socialize in a socially-distanced manner. Having the pint afterwards definitely adds a little bit more fun and character to the event.”
Yoga and a Pint events are usually two hours long, and the registration fee is $20 per person. The fee includes one hour of yoga and a pint of your choice from Northern Superior.
Goudreau, who has been doing yoga for 10 years now, says that the health benefits of yoga are endless.
“There’s so many benefits of doing yoga. I know a lot of professional trainers will try and integrate yoga into their practice - whether it’s for hockey players, football players, boxers, anyone - you can’t ever avoid the inner benefits that yoga has. It has so many physical benefits too, like treating aches and pains when nothing else has worked. Once you take the time and really start practicing yoga on a regular basis, you really start feeling more inner peace and a sense of calmness. I truly believe that yoga has benefits for both the inner and outer body and that the benefits can range from actual pains that people feel to emotional pains,” Goudreau said.
For Goudreau, teaching yoga is something that she not only loves, but thinks of as a way for her to relax herself and help others find that calm state within themselves. “I love teaching yoga,” she said.
So far there have been two Yoga and a Pint classes, with the next one coming up on Wednesday.
“We’re going to be doing this every second month for two consecutive weeks,” Goudreau said.
For people interested in doing yoga classes, not necessarily Yoga and a Pint, Goudreau teaches at the Klub on Queen Street on Thursdays and at Steel City MMA on Saturdays.
For up to date information on future classes, Amélie Goudreau’s instagram page can be found here.
