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Photo by Grant Henry Photo by Marco Giannavola
Photos by Bob Din and Erica Chen
to start making really big trips, like Thailand,
maybe, in 2019 — really exploring the globe
and bringing people together,” Cerini said.
“Big travel yoga plans.”
Om Tribe retreats are available to “all levels
of yogi,” and Cerini said that on their first
retreat to Guatemala, most students were
“somewhere in the beginner to intermediate
level.” The bulk of students come from Yoga
Agora, where Cerini teaches, and Yoga Vita in
Manhattan, where Chen teaches.
Cerini and Chen, who met four years ago
when they were training to become yoga
teachers, had both moved to New York to
pursue dance. After dealing with tendonitis in
her feet, which made dancing difficult, Cerini
got back into movement through yoga — and
realized that yoga was helping her tendonitis.
“I kind of made a rash decision and was
like, I think I could teach this and be really
happy doing it, helping other people with
whatever they’re going through: physical,
mental, emotional issues,” Cerini said, “and
that I’ll be having this physical, movementbased
lifestyle that I was hoping for — just not
exactly in the way I had pictured.”
Cerini has lived in Astoria for six and a half
years and has been teaching at Yoga Agora
for two and a half years.
“The Astoria yoga community changed my
life,” she said. “Yoga Agora is the warmest
community I’ve ever entered into. It’s just this
place where people come when they’re having
a hard time. People come when they’re
having a good time, but they always feel like,
‘Oh my gosh, my life is horrible right now. I
have to get to Yoga Agora.’ And then they
leave and they tell me, ‘Thank you so much
for being here. My life instantly feels better.’
No joke, I probably hear that every other day.”
She said that going to Yoga Agora lifts her
mood, too:
“Even as a teacher, I still have bad days,
and as soon as I walk up the stairs and enter
the studio, I immediately feel calm for some
reason, and I’ve never been able to say that
about any other place that I’ve worked in my
life. The students, the teachers, the owner:
everyone who for some reason connects to
this place and wants to keep coming back
has this vibe; people are real.”
Plus, teaching in the neighborhood solidified
her feelings for Astoria: “I was already in
love with Astoria, but now Astoria is my life.”
Visit omtribeyogaretreats.com for more
information.
EXPLORE YOUR BORO
Photos by Derek Shannon