Opal Yoga

I drop in here when I’m in town visiting. It’s a great place.
Very calm space with great balance easy to let go and yoke.
When you engage in the studio practice of yoga you never know what opportunities you will be offered.
I bring this up after reading reviews of over crowding and flying sweat! None of which I have experienced
Flying sweat or opportunity to realize your fine and breathing?
Crowding or opportunity to realize your connected and apart of something?
A yoga practice is never what you want but always what you need. The universe so abundant in lessons and gives them for free. How generous!
Let go of flying sweat and crowding and immerse your self in the breath you will only come out more in union with self and others
Everything is perfect and as it should be…
As far as people falling on others they need to be more honest with there own practice and where they are that day. I would be willing to say after falling on a fellow yogi you may think about your inversions and where they are in the future and when it’s a time to invert or work more in dolphin pose.
Dolphin is lost in most yoga practices as it requires discipline and honesty over time.
Perfection is myth followed closely by madness tread lightly.
I have had plenty of space when practicing and never felt in danger or worst of all splashed by sweat :)

I would give this studio 3.5 stars if I could. This is not a bad studio at all, but I just don’t love it. There are plenty of things to like: nice, clean studio; course offerings at various times during the day/​week; a team of young, hip yogi instructors.
But in the end I feel kind of lukewarm about this place. I have been to several different classes with different instructors and noticed throughout all of them that they rarely correct you during poses or suggest moderations. In fact, I have noticed that they sometimes don’t even describe the pose at all and just expect you to enter it which makes me feel like I am possibly/​most likely doing the pose incorrectly. I have practiced yoga for several years so I can recognize the Sanskrit names for some poses, but I have no idea how a beginner would fare in these «all levels» classes.
My biggest frustration with this studio is the class size. The studio is small and they will pack the room extremely tight during busy times (weekends) which is incredibly uncomfortable and interferes with the practice. Maybe I’m too uptight and American (the instructor kept saying things like «the world isn’t going to end if you touch your neighbor») but I found it next to impossible to engage with my practice in these conditions. For example, every time we were asked to go through chattaranga, the person in front of me insisted on flowing through to down dog from a handstand and in the process nearly kicked me in the head. Every time. Or in the same class, I noticed that my neighbor — a very sweaty shirtless man — dripped his sweat all over my mat which I only noticed when I put my hand it in. The memory makes me shudder.
Though I will never return on a weekend, I would go back for a weeknight class as though aren’t as full and generally more enjoyable. I especially like Mia’s classes but Karen is good too.

Lovely studio, great class, lovely teacher. Two new amazing stretches were introduced and I’m adding them to my everyday routine.

This is a beautiful space to practice in — sea-​colored walls, windows thrown open, and a small altar with burning incense at the front. The classes are strenuous enough that I can work up a sweat and trick myself that this is actually some heavy-​duty cardio and I can most definitely treat myself to Phish food ice cream after. The focus is on vinyasa and vinyasa only.
My only problem is with the class sizes. Sometimes it gets way too crammed inside that room, which makes asking people to do some poses, like wild thing, a little disturbing. Once, in trying to complete the flip over, the girl next to me landed her foot on my toe, which caused me to lose my balance and crash into the person on the other side. It was like playing sweaty dominos. Or that other time, we were attempting sideways crow and I almost got poked in the eye with someone’s toe. Please no. If the cap at 33 needs to be maintained for $$, fine, then consider weeding out some of the poses that require ample amounts of space to do.
On the whole, most classes are geared towards people at some moderate level of yoga. There were some heavyweights killing it in the front row each time: super intimidating but motivates everyone else to try harder. I also loved the little add-​ons, like free towels, and always did a jig on the inside when the bolsters were brought out. Some teachers are better at reading a room than others and adjusting the poses to reflect the different levels present — it’s a pet peeve when the teacher asks for a string of advanced stuff with no breaks in the middle, and there’s only one person who can do it and everyone else is gasping and dreaming of an ice cold beer. Or a $ 7 ice cold kale smoothie from Whole Foods.

Lydia from Opal Yoga led a private yoga class for a big group of us in the Charlottesville area. It was a FANTASTIC class and she struck the perfect balance between encouraging us and pushing us further into our yoga practices, while also maintaining a very fun and open environment. All of us absolutely loved the class and Lydia (she was a joy!) and if I lived in the Charlottesville area, this would be my studio. Would highly recommend!

There are a lot of different teachers and the same class can have varying degrees of difficulty depending upon the instructors. My friends at school and I started to make a list of the good instructors so we would only attend those classes. When it’s good, it’s great, but I have attended the worst yoga class in my 3 years of doing yoga as well. In my opinion, classes at Ashtanga Yoga in Cville are more challenging and fun. The atmosphere at Opal, however, is better in my opinion.

This is a great studio. The teachers are challenging but accommodating. The studio is beautiful. Love it!

I dig the music and the flow. Come upstair and check it out.

I love this studio. Karen is great — I had trouble accessing the online discount during their opening weekend and ended up getting charged full price, but she quickly resolved the issue over email and applied the discount to my order, which I really appreciated.
The classes are fantastic, and I am so glad that Charlottesville finally has a vinyasa studio. The studio itself is gorgeous and I instantly feel relaxed whenever I enter. I am a huge fan and will definitely be buying another pass once my current one expires!

So glad I found this place– best yoga studio I’ve been to in Charlottesville or elsewhere.