The motto refers to more than one thing, owner Paula Countryman said. The most literal meaning is that Soul Yoga offers many yoga classes, but none of them are “hot yoga,” meaning the room is intentionally kept warm. The lack of non-hot yoga in the area was something Countryman discovered for the first time on the Plum Creek neighborhood Facebook page.
“Somebody got on there and asked, ‘Is there any yoga in the area that’s not hot’?” Countryman said.
The closest not-hot yoga was in San Marcos, Countryman realized. Though she had a previous career in social services, at the time, Countryman had already trained as a yoga instructor—in part to help fill in for the owner of a local studio she frequented.
She never expected to be opening her own studio, Countryman said, but circumstances aligned.
“I never intended to do this—ever,” she said. But she saw a real need in Kyle for an alternative type of yoga practice.
Soul Yoga PC first opened on Jan. 1, 2019, offering classes such as Gentle Flow, Slow Flow, Vinyasa Flow, Yin and Restorative yoga.
While the Vinyasa class offers a faster pace, Countryman said that aerobic workout is not the primary goal of her classes.
“This studio is about community,” she said. “It’s about self-improvement from the inside-out, not the outside-in. Because if you're not better on the inside, your outside’s going to reflect that.”
That is another piece of what Countryman means when she says the studio is “not hot.”
“In so many different ways, we’re not hot,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons for that motto: It's for everybody—for everybody's body.”
