Marilyn Mercado brings free yoga and breathwork workshops to Nipomo

Marilyn Mercado opened her new Nipomo series with something simple enough to carry home: clover breathing, a pattern of inhaling, holding, exhaling and pausing. That debut class framed the free monthly workshop as more than a standard yoga session. It looked like a practical reset for people who want movement, breathwork and self-care without the pressure of a studio membership or a packed class schedule.

Mercado is billed as both a yoga instructor and a self-care author, and her background helps explain the shape of the program. WonHeart says she graduated from the University of Hawaii, spent more than 15 years teaching Ballroom and Latin dancing, and moved to the Central Coast about 20 years ago, where she taught dance, Hula, yoga and fitness to adults and children. She earned her 200-hour yoga teacher training certificate in April 2016 and later became certified in PIYO Live. Wellness by Marilyn says she has been teaching yoga, meditation and breath-work and facilitating wellness events and trainings for a decade.

That mix of movement and mind-body tools shows up in her other work as well. Amazon lists her book The Intuitive Path: How To Quickly Gain Clarity with a publication date of April 20, 2022, and a 2025 podcast listing describes her as a published author who is working on a second self-love-focused book. A Unity Five Cities workshop listing at The Victorian in Arroyo Grande showed Mercado teaching a yoga workshop based on Chakra Tools of Transformation, built around chair yoga, breathing techniques, sacred hand gestures, affirmations and guided meditation. Her approach has clearly leaned toward accessible, adaptable practices rather than high-intensity flow.

That matters in a place like Nipomo, where the wellness landscape is small enough that a free monthly workshop can feel like a real point of entry. Yoga Journal notes that free yoga classes are widely available across U.S. cities and towns, and Mercado’s series fits squarely into that broader push to lower the barrier to practice. Locally, Yoga Shine already serves Nipomo, Santa Maria and the Five Cities area with memberships and workshops, but Mercado’s no-cost format gives the Central Coast another public-facing option.

The opening class made the case in one small breathing pattern. Inhale, hold, exhale, pause: Mercado turned a first lesson into something portable, and that may be the clearest sign that the Nipomo series is built to function as a community safety net as much as a yoga class.