Four years ago, Dr. Kali Arnold realized that there were not many options in the market for the type of traditional, authentic yoga experience she was looking for. As a trained instructor who views yoga as a lifestyle rather than a workout, she did not want to hop onto the trend of hot yoga that has grown in popularity in recent years, a movement that Arnold views as inaccessible and intimidating to many. So Arnold, a former orthopedic surgeon turned instructor, decided to open her own studio, Sati Yoga & Wellness, in Kirkwood to bring a more traditional experience to Atlanta.
“Our tagline is ‘yoga for every body.’ We try to make yoga as accessible as we can,” Arnold told What Now Atlanta. “That’s why we are nonheated, because when you have a space that’s 90 degrees, you eliminate a whole group of people who can’t practice. I wanted to bring more mindfulness practices back to yoga, so we don’t do power yoga. We focus on Hatha yoga, which is the foundation of all physical yoga. It’s more gentle and about alignment.”
Now, Arnold is on a mission to bring that same mindfulness and accessibility to the Pilates industry. She has been teaching Pilates for more than a decade, and now she will open her own Pilates studio in a 925-square-foot space at 1610 Hosea L. Williams, Suite 1, in Kirkwood. Arnold is in the permitting process and is targeting an early November opening.
At Sati Pilates & Wellness, Arnold will be returning to the foundation of how Pilates was designed to be. While much of modern Pilates culture centers around reformers, Arnold sees Pilates as a process in which participants should master different apparati over time. Beginners start on reformers and master them before moving onto towers, Wunda chairs and ladder barrels.
“It’s all these systems that a lot of people have gotten away from because it takes a long time and is expensive to do a comprehensive Pilates training, and people just want to get trained now and teach reformers,” Arnold said. “As I’ve been in this space and watched this happen, I want to bring back what Pilates is.”
Like the philosophy at her yoga studio, which focuses on breathwork, meditation and reflection, the Pilates studio’s focus will be on accessibility, inclusivity and mindfulness. The mission is reflected in the name Sati, which translates to “mindfulness” in Buddhism.
“We spent so much time nurturing our community and our culture so that people feel safe. They don’t feel like they have to show up a certain way or be a certain way,” Arnold said.
The space will be clean, with a color scheme of white, lavender and green. There will be reformer towers along one wall, a space for Wunda chairs and a wall of props including balls and Pilates rings. Mat classes will take place in the center of the room, with a private space off to the side. Arnold envisions having multiple classes unfolding simultaneously across the studio’s different apparati.
Eventually, Arnold hopes to begin training Pilates instructors at the new studio, just as she trains yoga instructors at the yoga studio. If all goes well, she might expand to another studio in the coming years.
“The trend in Pilates that I’ve already been reading in a Pilates journal is to go back to these models that I’m thinking of. Looking in the future, I feel like there might be an opportunity for me to open another studio in one of those spaces where there’s going to be a void,” Arnold said. “I think people are going to want to move back to a model where they feel like they’re taken care of or they’re seen. They’re not just a number. I feel like there’s going to be more opportunity to open smaller spaces like I have in mind.”
