This review is about my time taking multiple yoga and pilates classes at this studio from 2018 to 2020, and concerns the yoga instructor, Blake Mason, who now happens to be the owner. I was 20-21 years old during this time, and was not new to yoga, rather I wanted to go to a well-known studio to maintain my practice while I was a college student. I got recommend to go to Akasha by several people that I knew at the time, and decided to try it out, and really loved the classes and instructors. I tried out yoga with all of the different instructors, and took many classes with Blake since his class times aligned with my schedule well. Even though the classes were great and always jammed packed with students because of how good they were, I was treated in a very inappropriate way. Whenever we would be stretching on the floor, usually towards the end of class, he would always come over to me and give me massages: on and around my neck, shoulders, my legs, and my feet. I remember one time we were doing the crow pose, and he came over to my mat and gave me a massage on my shoulders and back underneath my sports bra; my friend was taking the class and was sitting next to me and saw this go on. After class, she told me that it wasn't okay for this to be happening. Several factors make this unacceptable: the age difference (he was in his 40s and I was 20 years old), our relationship (he was the instructor and I was the student taking the class and this creates a clear power asymmetry between us and prevented me from informing other instructors in fear of retaliation, among other impacts), and his relationship (he had a girlfriend during this time, and that made me even more uncomfortable to know he was in a romantic relationship yet was giving unconsensual massages to me and other young women at the studio from what I directly experienced and saw happen to others). One day, we all were lying down on our backs with our legs in butterfly pose and taking a moment to decompress after a hard yoga class. Blake comes over to where I was laying down, and directly stands over me, then squats down near my head and moves my hands and begins giving me a shoulder and arm massage. He then goes down my torso and touches my hip bones for no reason other than to touch them, while my legs were spread open in butterfly pose. This was inappropriate and made me very uncomfortable to have him touch me on my hips while I was in a vulnerable, open position like that. On another day, I was doing the wheel pose and was upside down. Blake comes over to where I was doing this pose, and touches my sides near my armpits and directly over my sports bra, and without stopping, moves his hands down to my waist and stops there for a moment and then releases his touch. This was uncomfortable and there was no reason to touch me in that area of my body while I was in a vulnerable position and while I couldn't see all what was going on. Now that I'm older, I've realized how he touched me and gave me massages was absolutely not okay and was a direct abuse of his power and authority over the people/customers taking his classes. However, this concerns me and other young, college-aged women because I never saw him give men or older women massages, and whenever I took his classes, he would always touch me and give me massages without my consent. I paid hundreds of dollars on memberships to take classes with the hopes to be comfortable and strengthen my yoga practice, but experienced inappropriate touching and massages by a much older man who now owns the studio. read more