Our mission is to make yoga more accessible and inclusive for Black and Brown community members, people in bigger bodies, beginners, and anyone who has ever felt like traditional yoga spaces weren’t created with them in mind.

Community Yoga New London was created around the belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to experience the benefits of yoga in a space where they feel welcomed, supported, and celebrated. Our classes are designed for real people with different bodies, abilities, backgrounds, and levels of experience, with plenty of options to make the practice work for you.

More than anything, we want to create a community where people can explore yoga without judgment, pressure, or the feeling that they need to look a certain way, move a certain way, or already know what they’re doing in order to belong.

Community Yoga New London was founded and is led by Brenda De Los Santos, a Puerto Rican yoga teacher, professional photographer, and lifelong New London resident.

After practicing yoga on and off for 15 years, Brenda completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training in Bali, Indonesia, in February 2026. Throughout her own yoga journey, she often found herself as the only person who looked like her in the spaces where she practiced. While yoga offered her strength, connection, and a way to slow down and reconnect with herself, the spaces where it was practiced didn’t always feel representative of the diverse community she calls home.

Community Yoga New London was created to help change that.

Brenda wanted to create the kind of yoga space she wished she had encountered more often throughout her own practice: welcoming, down-to-earth, community-centered, and open to people who might not otherwise see themselves reflected in yoga.

Classes are designed with different bodies, abilities, and experience levels in mind, with mat and chair-based options and an emphasis on meeting people where they are. There is no expectation that you need to be flexible, experienced, fit a certain image, or practice yoga in any particular way to belong here.

As we honor yoga’s roots and traditions, we also make space for the stories, cultures, and lived experiences that each person brings with them. At its heart, Community Yoga New London is built on a simple belief: yoga is for every body.