Constance Lambdin has been practicing yoga for more than 20 years. Throughout that time—from age 17 to 40—she’s studied in India and taught at studios across the country and St. Louis; she’s been on a physical journey and a spiritual one. And now, she’s weaving all of those experiences together to create Central West End Yoga (393 N Euclid)–a first-of-its-kind wellness venue in the neighborhood.
Noting a lack of dedicated yoga studios in the CWE, Lambdin set out to build the type of space, nestled just above Left Bank Books, that she has always craved for her own practice. “[I want it to be] a real resource for people who want to really dive into a practice and have yoga as a daily or regular part of their lives,” she says.
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Perhaps most important to Lambdin when designing the “neighborhood yoga home” that welcomes students at all levels, was to also make it a “teacher’s studio” in which passionate instructors can make a living doing what they love, rather than pursuing it as a side gig. “I can’t tell you how many times a yoga teacher has unknowingly held space for me in a moment in my life where I just really needed that,” she adds. “There’s a real beauty in teaching yoga, and I’m so honored to be to have a space where yoga teachers can share their love of teaching yoga in a way that feels mutually beneficial and supportive.”
Lambdin pays the instructors on a per-student basis in an essentially 50/50 revenue share and offers them blocks of time so they can actively grow a student base. “They don’t have to have run all over town to make ends meet, teaching a class here and a class there at several different studios throughout the week,” she says. “I’ll offer them two or three classes in a row, so they can dedicate their energy to growing those classes. Also, these nice pockets of time are easier to follow [as a student].”
To aid in fostering those relationships, Lambdin also caps each class size to 10. “I was really excited to bring a more personalized yoga experience to the St. Louis yoga studio scene,” she says. “Before I started Central West End Yoga, I specialized in private lessons. As a teacher, it’s really nice to be able to offer finer details around alignment and different variations of poses for different people. There’s that really nice reciprocal relationship between the teacher feeling the small class size, empowering the teacher to offer a more personalized experience, and then the student receiving that and feeling more welcomed in that environment as a result.”
Lambdin explains that it was also essential to her to bring in resources that help practitioners connect with yoga on a deeper level, beyond the physical. The studio offers yoga sculpt, for example, as well as a class called Yoga Insights, which connects guests to “the history, culture, roots, and lifestyle that can be a yoga practice.”
The desire to go deeper with one’s practice is one that Lambdin knows well. “When I walked into my first yoga class at 17 years old, I was feeling pretty disconnected from myself in a lot of ways,” she says. “You don’t realize that you’re just kind of going through the motions in your life until you aren’t anymore. Yoga put me back into myself… It’s transformed the way I show up in the world. I’m not saying I’m no longer anxious about the future or worried about the past, but there’s definitely been a softening of that.”
Part of that journey was a spiritual and philosophical one that led Lambdin to live in India for a year, in 2011, and develop her practice and examine her beliefs. Afterward, she sought balance between the “esoteric” elements of yoga and the physical, scientifically proven health benefits—values that would eventually align with Central West End Yoga’s mission.
With a core belief that yoga is about service and community, the studio will donate 5 percent of profits to local charities, in addition to hosting a regular slate of free or donation-based membership parties. Central West End Yoga will also host pop-up events across the metro area at such venues as World Chess Hall of Fame and Centro Modern Furnishings, as well as in-house movie nights and listening parties.
“It’s a great way to bring people into a lot of the cool spaces in the Central West End,” Lambdin says. “The Central West End business district has really taken a hit since 2020, but it’s slowly but surely bouncing back to life. I see these pop-ups as a way to help in that process of giving people a reason to come to the Central West End, not just to our studio but to check out all these amazing spaces throughout the neighborhood.”
