It’s an ‘inner state of mind’

Two local men find peace in yoga.

Inner State Yoga is one of the newest small businesses to find it’s place in the heart of downtown St. Petersburg. Nestled on the corner on Fourth and Eighth Avenue South, Inner State Yoga welcomes the community to experience the mental, physical and spiritual benefits of practicing yoga.

For co-founders Mike Fecht, 41, and Jonathan Creamer, 44, yoga is about much more than getting a good workout or even relieving stress. They say it’s about improving their inner state of mind. Both men credit the practice of yoga with bringing a sense of healing to their lives.

“If you talk to anybody on the street and say ‘what’s yoga?’ the first thing they’re going to think about is moving around on a mat. That’s just one element of what yoga actually is,” said Fecht. “The physical side of yoga is only one of eight parts of the yoga practice. The other seven parts of the practice speak to how you live your life and how you treat others. It’s all about a philosophy of living.”

A passion for the practice isn’t the only common ground Fecht and Creamer share. Both experienced hardships and turned to yoga for relief and healing.

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On Tuesday, June 2, 2009, while Fecht was away on business, his wife Shani was murdered by her estranged son from a previous marriage.

Fecht said he turned to yoga to help him process his loss and let go of his anger.

“In dealing with that experience, my yoga practice taught me to let go of what I thought my life was supposed to look like and focus solely on what it felt like,” he explained in a statement on the Inner State Yoga website. “Those early days were dark, but now I’m here. When we let go of the ego and ‘let life happen,’ so to speak, we learn to align ourselves with our true calling. And here, now, I can use what was a tragic loss as a way to help others live better lives through yoga.”

He has gone on to train professional athletes in the practice of yoga, including the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.

“It was never about being the yoga instructor to professional athletes. The idea was that if I could get athletes talking about their practices, it would be easier for the average guy to pick up a yoga mat,” Fecht said. “Then the stigma could go away, that it’s not just for women when they see a defensive lineman weighing 270 pounds practicing yoga.”

And it’s not just football players that can benefit –students can too.

“For a student that’s caught up worrying about what’s going on tomorrow, worrying about the test you just took and if you passed or not, yoga is your opportunity to let go of all of that stress,” Fecht said.

He is now remarried. His wife, Barb, and their son, Nicholas, are enjoying a new chapter of life in St. Petersburg.

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Jonathan Creamer spent much of his childhood in a yoga studio. His mother was an instructor and when she couldn’t find a babysitter, she brought him to class with her. Though Creamer didn’t continue practicing yoga in his adolescence, he picked it up again when hard times came later in life. As his mother battled Alzheimer’s, he pressed in deeper to his practice.

“I picked up where [my mother] left off,” Creamer said. “I’m practicing and teaching yoga now that she isn’t able to anymore. You could say she passed the torch on to me.”

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Fecht and Creamer connected with each other in a Facebook group that Creamer created entitled, Yoga for Men. The page aims to enlighten men about the craft of yoga and to disbar the stereotype that yoga is only for women.

“I saw what he was doing with Yoga for Men and I was intrigued by that. Everything that he was delivering was what men needed as far as developing their yoga practice,” Fecht said.

In retelling the story of how he and Fecht met, Creamer said, “Mike joined in and posted something [in the Facebook group] about teaching professional athletes and I said, ‘That’s cool, I’d love to do that,’ and he said, ‘Why don’t you?’”

That initial conversation led to the two meeting in person in Fort Lauderdale a few weeks later.

“The first time I met Mike he gave me a hug,” Creamer said. “We sat down and had dinner and a beer and within 30 seconds we started talking about yoga, of course, we had the same philosophies, the same outlook. It was pretty obvious to both of us that this connection was meant to be.”

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It has been two months since Fecht and Creamer opened the studio and business has grown steadily. The cozy corner studio is bathed in natural light and complemented by gentle wafts of burning incense, providing the ideal environment to release stress and engage deeply when practicing yoga.

“Leg behind the head? That means nothing. That’s for a magazine cover. We’re not showing off here, there’s no gold stars being handed out for a deeper stretch on any given day,” Creamer said. “If you can –show up, breathe, and do your best in that moment.”