Mixing loves of yoga, music
Lessons paved way for Haleybird
Haley Picotte-Stozek didn't come to yoga for the most profound of reasons.
"I did it because Madonna did it," she joked.
Then, something unexpected happened.
"Something felt different, different than a workout or a walk," said Picotte-Stozek, 33, who grew up in Wauwatosa, but now lives in the Washington Heights neighborhood.
"My yoga teacher would say things like, 'letting go of competition, listening to your body, syncing with your breath' - all these wonderful yogic things. Then, all of a sudden, I started hearing her voice in my head. And I realized these are such good lessons on the mat and off the mat. And good things started to happen in my life."
Those good things led Picotte-Stozek to open Haleybird Studios, a family yoga and wellness center named for a play on her name and an attempt to incorporate her other love: music.
Picotte-Stozek was a full-time orchestra teacher at Jefferson Elementary School when she got the opportunity to work part-time as part of a job share program. The timing was great since Picotte-Stozek had been weighing how to balance teaching orchestra during the day with cello lessons in the evening and kinder music classes on weekends.
Opening the studio allowed her to merge her passions.
Haleybird offers private cello lessons, as well as "Music Together," a musical enrichment class for parents and children, infants through kindergarten.
In addition to music and movement, the class also offers a place for families to spend time together, a core goal for Picotte-Stozek, a foster mom to two boys, ages 2 and 3.
"I wanted the studio to be a place where parents could bring their kids and practice yoga side-by-side or where mommy has her yoga class and the kids have their yoga class," she said.
Classes for kids are offered with and without parents, by grade level, kindergarten through high school.
Picotte-Stozek hopes the lessons learned in yoga, regardless of the age, help children and parents live better lives.
"I really believe that yoga can change lives. And I believe it's a catalyst for wellness and happiness and health and all of these things that were all kind of looking for. It's all within you, really," she said. "I didn't see why you had to wait to be an adult to find that out."
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JUST THE FACTS
BUSINESS: Haleybird Studios
ADDRESS: 9207 W. Center St.
ONLINE: www.haleybirdstudios.com
PHONE: (414) 303-4411
OWNER: Haley Picotte-Stozek
INCORPORATED: 2007
TYPE OF BUSINESS: yoga studio
PEARLS OF WISDOM: "I believe that yoga is for absolutely everybody, regardless of your age, regardless of your flexibility or your weight. There is a class for you, and there is a benefit for everybody. Yoga is for every body."
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