Open Door Yoga offers a calm retreat in the busy heart of Coconut Grove.
The sun may be blazing at 11 a.m. in Miami but it’s cool and dark inside Open Door Yoga on Florida Avenue. Sherrie Giusto walks into the cozy-but-airy studio that’s illuminated only by candles – a calm retreat in the busy heart of Coconut Grove.
“Our tagline is open heart, open mind, open door,” says Giusto, 63, who opened the studio in April 2023. “We unlock the door to awareness in your yoga home.”
Over the last year, Giusto has built Open Door Yoga into a growing business with 14 instructors, including Giusto herself, and as many as five classes a day.
That wasn’t always the plan, though. As a young woman, Giusto was making waves in the world of competitive tennis.
The daughter of Olympic sprinter (and silver medalist) David Sime, Giusto grew up on Key Biscayne. She attended the University of Virginia on a tennis scholarship and, at one time, was nationally ranked as an amateur tennis player.
She briefly turned pro, but a series of injuries and two ankle surgeries forced Giusto to shift her focus and direction. In the years that followed, she raised three children in Broward County with husband Richard Giusto, and taught many forms of fitness, including yoga, Pilates, kick boxing and spinning.
“I’ve always taught fitness,” Giusto said. But yoga is what won her heart.
“I like the creativity of yoga,” she said. And the spirituality, she added.
In late 2020, Giusto moved back to Miami-Dade County. After looking for a job teaching yoga in an existing studio, Giusto became discouraged with the local scene. None of the spaces she explored aligned with her vision.
“All the studios down here were about the body and Instagram – lots of hot yoga and fitness-driven practices,” Giusto said. “That’s not what yoga is really about.”
Open Door Yoga has now been operating for a year with a mix of classes that emphasize strength, flexibility, restoration, relaxation, and mindfulness. The price for a single class is $25 with discounts for new customers and class packages.
Among Giusto’s studio instructors is Rebecca Arroya, who remembers her first class at Open Door in September. “I was as nervous as I was excited,” she recalls. Arroya holds a certification in trauma-informed yoga and works as a mental health counselor.
“I teach a Tuesday night class called ‘Active Restore’ and a Friday night class known as ‘Candlelight Yin’,” she says. The latter, her favorite, is a blend of meditation, breathwork, and sound healing – perfect for unwinding at the end of the week.
Arroyo says she appreciates Giusto’s openness to innovation. “She encourages us to bring our true selves to our teaching, embracing our unique styles.”
Regular events including a summer concert series complement the daily classes, creating opportunities for different experiences.
“I sampled several other Miami yoga studios, looking for a place where I could commit to my goal of finally developing a consistent yoga practice,” said Alexandra Stoerger, who has attended Open Door Yoga since last fall. “Open Door Yoga just resonated with me in a way no other studio had.”
Since finding Open Door, Stoerger has challenged herself.
“I was finally able to get into a headstand on my own because the instructor guided me in a way that made me feel totally secure and built my confidence,” she said.
Giusto hopes to foster a community that is eager to improve well-being.
“In a world where fitness can often feel like just another task, we want our members to leave feeling better, lighter, and more connected – not just with themselves but with each other,” she says.
FIU students Nayeli Membreno and Andrea Rivera wrote this story as part of a cooperative agreement between FIU’s Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media and the Spotlight.
