After nearly 34 years of practicing yoga and nine years of teaching the discipline, Stacy Shepherd decided to bring her instructional yoga studio to Plano.

The Yoga Factory, located at the Shops at Legacy, is a Baptiste studio that Shepherd opened in 2015.

“It is power yoga so you flow pretty fast in parts of the class, but it’s a style that’s developed to empower everyone in the room,” Shepherd said. “And the teacher teaches in a way that we’re looking to continue to develop students. We call it developing your growing edge.”

The studio hosts a variety of workshops and events including a beginner’s workshop. The four-week program consists of two classes a week ($110) that break down a normal class into four sections.

The Yoga Factory offers four memberships: bronze individual ($49 each month for four classes a month), silver individual ($99 each month for unlimited yoga), gold family ($179 per month with unlimited yoga for up to four family members) and platinum ($999 for a full year of unlimited yoga). The studio also offers $5 community classes, which are taught by instructors working their way onto the studio’s schedule.

All levels of classes tend to move quickly with little instruction because that is the studio’s style, Shepherd said.

“Teachers are walking and touching and seeing,” she said.
“They’re not up front demonstrating.”

Each class with more than 10 students has an assistant that acts as the teacher’s hands. Assistants quickly assess what is happening in a body, make sure the student is safe and then adjust a pose or help the student achieve a deeper stretch, Shepherd said. Not all studios have assistants. This is what makes the studio different, Shepherd said.

“You know when you show up [for a class that] you’re going to sweat, you’re going to laugh, you’re going to work harder than you thought you could and you’re going to feel good,” she said.