“[The doctors said,] ‘If you do surgery, it’s not guaranteed it’s going to be better, or you could do something like yoga,’ they suggested, to make sure my core was really strong to support my spine,” Sim said. “So I started doing [yoga] off of a DVD in my living room, and I started really enjoying it.”
Soon after experiencing the physical and mental benefits of yoga, Sim said she left the corporate world to become an instructor at a local yoga studio. However, when that studio closed, Sim and her husband, Michael Ngo, decided it was time to bring a family-owned yoga studio to the Gleannloch Farms community. The couple opened Roll Out Yoga on Spring Cypress Road in June 2019.
With six instructors, the two-room studio offers three types of heated and nonheated classes that cater to all levels of yoga experience.
While the studio does not have contracts, Sims said yogis can pay a drop-in price or purchase class packs or an unlimited monthly membership.
In its first year in business, Sim said the studio was steadily building up its own community of yogis, but then came the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March and with it a two-month shutdown.
“That time hurt quite a bit because we don’t do contracts,” Ngo said. “Anybody that was on an unlimited membership, we froze their accounts so they could have those days back, and we didn’t take any payments during that whole time.”
To stay connected with their students in the interim, Sim said Roll Out Yoga launched a YouTube channel with free instructional yoga videos and began hosting free virtual classes via Zoom.
“We missed our members, and we knew that they missed yoga practice,” Sim said. “So we didn’t want to charge for it; we just wanted to find a way to be together when we couldn’t actually be together.”
Since reopening in early June, classes are now limited to 14 students to allow for social distancing. While the studio had to cut several amenities due to COVID-19, the couple said there has been an uptick in requests for private and small-group instruction. When public health conditions improve and allow for more in-person gatherings, the couple hopes to begin offering more specialty workshops.
“We’re hoping that we can be a part of building a healthier lifestyle for this community,” Ngo said.
Roll Out Yoga
9702 Spring Cypress Road, Ste. 122, Spring
346-336-6157
www.rolloutyogatx.com
Hours: Class times are listed on the website and are subject to change. The studio opens 15 minutes prior to each class and classes are offered on a daily basis.
