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A bright, warm classroom on the third floor of The Jersey Shore Arts Center  will Friday be home to a new yoga studio, ‘Ohana Rising.

Lisa Brodrick, a certified yoga instructor and teacher trainer who has spent over a decade as a schoolteacher at Asbury Park’s Little Tots Pre-K, has leased the space for a year with options to renew.

Two large windows that take in a southern exposure brighten the teal and grey room Brodrick and her cohort of instructors will soon fill with calming chants, peaceful meditation and grounding asanas — commonly known as poses.

‘Ohana is the Hawaiian word for “community” or “family” and that is the intention of the space, to bring people of all ages and abilities together to feel welcome and practice together, said Brodrick.

The official class schedule starts Sunday, but opening weekend festivities get underway Friday, Jan. 9 at 6:30 p.m. with Serena Soffer’s Laughing Lotus practice which is currently full and has moved to a waiting list. A Saturday pre-dawn Kundalini Yoga Sadhana starts at 4:30 a.m., and later the same day a 4 p.m. juice theory and yoga class with Yogi Varuna, son of Sri Dharma Mittra, takes place.

Other classes scheduled throughout the week will teach a multitude of practices, including active release and recovery “trigger” therapy for athletes and people that hold tension, and pilates. ‘Ohana Rising will soon offer programming for all ages and “differently abled” people, including workshops and classes for people with autism and their families, she said.

She’ll offer opportunities for drop-in classes, single memberships, couples membership, and family memberships that are affordable so families can practice together, she said.

The Arts Center, which opened in 1897 as a school, has a total 14 tenants at the moment, including ‘Ohana Rising, an art studio, dance studios, and an LGBT center. The building will soon open a new culinary center for the visually impaired on the third floor and Brodrick will be able to rent the kitchen space out to host cooking seminars and classes.

Oiginally  from Boston, Brodrick was born in Boston, Mass., but grew up in Sea Bright and other surrounding shore towns as well as with family in Argentina, she said.

She first practiced yoga as a child, mimicing poses Raquel Welch was photographed doing in a beauty book her mother bought, she said. While working as a naturalist in California, she saw an ad for a scholarship to learn how to teach yoga, won it and split it with a friend so the two could learn together. Back east in 2004, she went to New York to study with Sri Dharma Mittra and has remained actively involved the practice and teaching of yoga ever since.

After she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, she kept at her practice and taught herself to play guitar to help battle the numbness in the left side of her body. Yearly visits to her doctor underscore the healing affects yoga and music have had — she no longer feels the numbness and the illness has not progressed.

“I know how powerful we can be to heal ourselves, and a big part of the intention of the community is to give people a chance to find their wholeness. We are already whole,” she said.

The experience propelled her to travel to South Africa to teach at Global Camps Africa’s Camp Sizanani where she gave Radiant Child Yoga teacher training to the camp counselors. Global Camps provides South African children HIV and AIDS prevention education and training through residential and day camps, according to their website. Some of the counselors she taught have visited her in the states and have expanded their influence in Africa to teaching in orphanages and in women’s workshops. She will head back to Africa later this year.

“It doesn’t take much to change a life in Africa. People understand the importance of taking a deep breath and appreciating it,” she said.

It also gave her the courage to open her own practice.

“It’s what made me think, let me just do this,” she said. “I’m in the flow and I feel the calling to do it, so here it is, and I hope people show up.

For more information, visit ohanarisingyoga.com or check out their Facebook page.

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