Upon my first return home after starting at Carnegie Mellon, I excitedly told my parents that I had been taking advantage of the free exercise classes offered as part of the Group X-ercise program at school. “Those classes aren’t free,” my dad said, “they cost $80,000.”
He was right, but I still felt incredibly lucky to have access to a full schedule of yoga, barre, and other workout classes that were fun and only a five-minute walk from my room. I doubt there will be another time in my life where I have such access.
My favorite classes I’ve taken at Carnegie Mellon Group X-ercise in the past few years have been Power Yoga classes taught by Dee Schlotter, a Color and Design Trends Forecaster, mother, and 200-hour certified yoga instructor. Schlotter has been a Group X-ercise teacher at Carnegie Mellon for three years, and her Saturday yoga and spin classes are typically in high demand, with many students returning week after week. I have found her teaching to be thought-provoking, insightful, and challenging in all the best ways. Computational Biology senior Sarah Fisher says, “Dee’s classes are a great start to a weekend, giving me a chance to slow down, breathe, stay active, and feel refreshed for my next week of classes.”
Schlotter claims she never expected yoga to come into her life. “I’ve always been a runner, [and enjoyed] biking and hiking… I never believed in yoga at first, because I was just like, ‘it’s too slow.’” After joining the Amazing Yoga studio in Shadyside, Schlotter was hooked. Her day job at the time involved lots of travel and work on a laptop. “I could barely turn my neck,” she said, but after practicing yoga three or four times a week, all the pain went away. She also noticed that yoga improved her running routine. Having been an exercise and dance instructor for 10 years, she decided just before the COVID-19 pandemic to become a trained yoga instructor through Amazing Yoga. Since then, she has traveled to Guatemala for a yoga retreat and completed a Yin yoga teacher training. Yin yoga is focused on sustaining individual poses for long periods of time.
After completing her training, Schlotter had the opportunity to interview for a teaching position with Carnegie Mellon Recreation: “I prefer teaching students and faculty and staff way more.” Schlotter explained that she has turned down the opportunity to teach at other studios in order to stay at Carnegie Mellon. “It just feels like everyone here is so respectful and grateful,” she said.
With stress culture being an ever-present issue on our campus, opportunities to relax are sometimes ignored. Schlotter often ends classes by reminding students to honor both the work and the rest in their lives, saying that both things are equally important. “The reason why yoga works so well is that it gets you out of your head for an hour, the breathing slows your heart rate down, lowers your blood pressure, all that cortisol… when you do that, your body is in a much better place,” she said. She advises regular yoga practice for all students who stress their necks and backs doing computer-based work, and recommends that all students spend time in savasana, or corpse pose, after doing hard academic work. “Five minutes laying on the floor and doing absolutely nothing is really good for your brain,” she said, “Creativity comes from good rest.”
Outside of her work in Recreation, Schlotter has led a successful career in marketing. After graduating from Duquesne University with a bachelor’s degree in English and the University of Pittsburgh with a master’s in Environmental Science Management, she joined PPG as a color marketing manager. “When you go to Home Depot to pick your color for your room, all those displays — it was my job to design them,” she shared. In her position, she used her writing skills and color theory to predict trends in paint colors for “dorms to prisons and everything in between.” Now, she works at the University of Pittsburgh doing marketing in their Innovation department, promoting vaccines, therapies, and other discoveries made at the university.
Her experience and insight in work, life, and yoga have made Schlotter a key member of the Carnegie Mellon Recreation community. “Despite the studio being full of students every week, Dee manages to remember almost every student’s name,” said Fisher, “She makes the group class experience feel personal with a practice that suits yogis of every level.” I feel so lucky to have taken classes with her, and hope more students will take advantage of this wonderful resource on campus. Namaste!
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