Northeast Ohio goths are invited/dared to trade their leather pants and Doc Martens for yoga pants and exercise mats at Meta Soul Yoga Studio’s goth yoga. You can still wear all black.  

Trish Sexstella of Meta Soul Yoga Studio runs a monthly goth yoga session at the No Class bar on Cleveland’s West Side. No Class’ owner, Emma Jochum, had the idea in 2017. Sexstella has added aesthetic to the events: Candles, dim red lighting, and haunting organ music welcome participants into the concert hall area of the bar.  

Attendees to this month’s goth yoga session were both excited and curious about what they might experience.

“I get bored in yoga classes with boring music,” said Stasha Powell. “So when I saw there was a goth yoga here, I was super excited!” 

Brian Castillo and his wife, Trish, fans of nu-metal music, recently moved to Cleveland from New York. “[Trish] has been wanting to do yoga since we got here to Cleveland,” he said. ”Any time we find places to do yoga, it’s always overbooked, [unaffordable], and it’s not our scene. Then I found this spot and was like, ‘We gotta go to goth yoga.’ It’s the perfect way to dip our toes in.”

Brandon Gaughan said he came to goth yoga for his physical and mental health and his spirituality. “I’m just looking to better myself, and this seemed like the right venue for that, being into the gothic dark community and having been in a metal band back in the day and loving the vibe.

“And I like to support local places and local people that aspire to elevate others in the community,” he said.   

Melanie Merritt has been practicing yoga for two years and said she came because “I like a little twist on it every now and again.” 

“Vinyasa flow” yoga, the type of yoga practice Sexstella uses at the goth sessions, puts a series of poses together into a sequence, or “flow” – you don’t stand still or hold the pose for a long time — and each move is synchronized to your breath, inhaling in one movement and exhaling in the next. 

For first-timers, the poses themselves are not difficult, it’s mostly stretching to your own body’s limitations rather than to your ability to do the pose, and Sexstella puts the moves together one step, one breath, at a time. No one fell or looked silly.  

Said longtime yoga practitioner Jen Kozono, “No matter how many years you’ve done it, it’s always challenging. You use the gravity in your body to make it more intense.”  

Attendees performed poses and deep breathing exercises to music such as the Sisters of Mercy, KMFDM and Portishead.  

The last 10 minutes of the class, everyone laid still on their backs listening to the classic goth song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” as Sexstella walked through the group giving each participant a short neck and shoulder massage. 

“It was a great all-inclusive, full-body class,” said Merritt. “Don’t feel intimidated.” 

“We’ll be back,” said Trish Castillo. “And we’re bringing people. Absolutely.” 

“It’s gothic yoga, which is [an] alternative to the eat-pray-love that is so mainstream now,” said participant Chris Suazo. “It was a chance to experience something a little different and still practice stretching techniques and a mindset that is unique.” 

Sexstella thinks the goth and yoga mindsets together are a match made in… Heaven? Err… Hell?  

“I think there’s something really special with flowing in a dark setting with the candles going,” she said. “I think the music adds a special element that you can really just melt down into your mat. And it also gives people who don’t like the bright studios and the traditional yoga music, it gives them an opportunity to really tap in and enjoy it and try something new.” 

Trish Sexstella hosts the next goth yoga session at No Class Sunday, April 13. Pre-registration is recommended. 

To hear from more people and more moments from goth yoga, listen to Signal Cleveland’s 3-minute audio story here: