Though she took her first yoga class when she was a teenager in 1992, it wasn't until Piera Chodorow Meil discovered Baron Baptiste's style of power Vinyasa yoga in 2006 that she began to seriously pursue her practice. After training under notable yogis such as Bill Raup and Bikram Choudhury—the founder of Bikram yoga—Piera opened her own studio, Yogi Power Yoga, to share her passion with students of all experience levels. Performed in a heated space to foster detoxification and help muscles to sink into deep stretches, the dynamic style of power yoga challenges practitioners to link a series of flowing postures with deep, mindful breaths. This idea of mindfulness extends to Yogi Power Yoga's physical practice space—environmentally friendly practices are used whenever possible, and much of the interior, including flooring, furnishings, and paint, consists of reclaimed or sustainable materials. Committed to helping its community, the studio offers donation-based classes and often partners with charity organizations, with initiatives that have included raising funds for the Farm Sanctuary, a rescue and refuge network for North American farm animals
