Spotlight Series
Topic: YogaSix Ashburn
Guest Name: Amanda Maher, General Manager and Anne Meiser, Assistant Lead Teacher at YogaSix Ashburn
Guests’ Credentials: Amanda Maher, General Manager and Anne Meiser, Assistant Lead Teacher at YogaSix Ashburn
Discussion Details: At YogaSix Ashburn, you’ll find:
Six unique class styles – from supportive, guided classes ideal after physical therapy to high-energy power and sculpt classes.
Mental and physical benefits, including stress reduction, improved mobility, strength, and pain relief.
A fast, simple enrollment process that includes individualized intake to determine which class is best suited for your needs.
Benefits of Watching:
In this Spotlight Series, you’ll find:
*How YogaSix supports both recovery and long-term wellness
*Real success storiesof clients regaining strength, mobility, and confidence.
*Why community events and workshops play a vital role in sustainable, healthy living.
Whether you’re transitioning from physical therapy or looking to elevate your fitness routine, this episode shows how yoga can help you move better and live better.
Address of Guests’ Business: 44185 Ashbrook Marketplace
Plaza Suite 110
Ashburn, VA 20147
Hi, I’m Viraj from Accelerate Physical Therapy, and I have here with me today Anne Meiser and Amanda Maher from Ashburn Yoga 6. Welcome, ladies. Thank you so much. So I’m so happy that you’re here today as part of my professional spotlight series. We’re going to talk about all things Yoga 6 related in the Ashburn community.
But first, I wanted to do a little bit of an intro. Anne Meiser is the assistant lead teacher at Yoga 6. And she’s been practicing yoga for 20 years. That’s amazing. And she’s worked with children, seniors, everyone in between, recreational sport athletes, professional athletes, people recovering from surgeries. people working or people with any kind of mental health issues or an anxiety and helping them with manage some of that.
So that sounds fabulous. Some of your hobbies, I have to highlight some of your hobbies because they’re really unique. You enjoy fishing, crabbing and oyster gardening. I do. So excited to talk to you today.
And then we have here Amanda. She’s the general manager of Yoga 6 Ashburn. And she oversees the studio operations and community partnerships and just the overall member experience. And something kind of unique about you is that you’ve been really consistent in your yoga work. practice over the past year, and you really felt some deep benefits from yoga, from the breath work, from the mobility work and more calming, kind of consistent focused basis, right? And so I just, I can’t wait to talk to you about how yoga’s kind of made you stronger in those different ways as you’ve been a little bit more consistent in it. Amanda, within her business, she’s really passionate about creating an inclusive, welcoming space where people feel supported the moment they walk in through the doors. And so that’s such a great feeling.
Thanks so much for being here today. Of course. Thank you for this opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. So I know that you guys have different backgrounds, you come from different backgrounds. And I just wanted you to talk a little bit about how you came to yoga in general as, you know, instructing and teaching or maybe taking classes of yoga. And then also maybe how you came to yoga six specifically and started working together. So can you talk to me a little bit about that?
Sure. Yeah. I worked in business out of college for quite some time and got interested in fitness. And once I had my kids, I decided that I still wanted to be working, but I loved everything about fitness. So I kind of got certified in all kinds of group classes. And one of my colleagues was, I taught at a gym and one of my colleagues was a yoga teacher and taught in addition to what she was teaching, So I took one of her classes and at that point, it really was just that one class. And I had thought, well, this is great. This is like nothing I’ve ever done before. And I ended up getting a certification and started to teach more classes and then eventually continued to get certified in different kinds of yoga and then sort of dropped the other fitness classes that I was teaching at the time. I was teaching all yoga. So I have been doing that for about 20 years, been in the business of yoga for about 20 years.
OK. And then how did you come to Yoga 6? One of the studios that I taught at, actually, excuse me, one of the studios that I managed for a little bit, the lead teacher that is here at Yoga 6 now, we were colleagues at that studio. So she reached out to me when Yoga 6 was opening up about five years ago and asked if I would be interested in this opportunity. And of course, I jumped on it. Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s probably it is, I will have to say, the best studio that I have been involved with in my yoga career, my fitness career. I’ll say that. Yeah, that’s saying a lot. Because yeah, it sure is. 20 years. Yeah.
Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much. Of course, Amanda, what kind of brought you to yoga sticks, and then also starting your yoga practice? So I actually used to be a nanny for like 12, 13 years. And then I had a little bit of work doing like event planning and marketing for a couple of golf courses. And then during COVID, obviously everything kind of was at a halt in the wedding world. And so I went back to nannying and that’s where I met actually the owners of the studio and I worked with them and their family during like 2020 when the studio was in the middle of opening. And when the kids and everyone went back to school, it just kind of, snowballed into me working for them at the studio.
I absolutely adore their family, and this has been my best and favorite job. And I didn’t know much about yoga. I had never done yoga. I had no background in fitness. Even the first few years working here, I am someone that is like, always like five steps ahead, a super big planner. I always just felt like I, you know, never had time to set aside for myself to take a class. And then through the last couple of years, Anne’s classes that she teaches are in the daytime and I started, she actually was like my first class that I took and it just, over time has just kind of changed my whole perspective on a lot of things. And I feel like my brain is one that like never shuts off and yoga and being in like the room here has really helped. And I sometimes use like my journey with yoga to help clients that come through the door.
So I’m grateful for the family that owns the studio, just my job and I absolutely love coming to work every day. That’s really important. And I love the passion that both of you guys have for yoga. I think everyone should be doing some kind of breath work and mobility like on literally a daily basis. And so I love that. I love that you share the same passion there and you guys are so passionate about it. I’ve noticed that you, you create all these events in the community. Like I, let me just go through some of the things that I’ve seen. Um, There’s some free outdoor pop-up classes through the spring and summer through Yoga 6.
There’s Gabby’s Community Walks, which Gabby is probably one of the instructors there, which is amazing. Walking and doing yoga, that’s 100% right there. You have some workshops that you’re hosting, like a couple couples partner workshop, a sculpt safety SOS workshop, which one, what is that SOS workshop? So we host, in addition to all the yoga classes that we provide, we also buy provide more fitness based classes where we’re actually using weights and we’re doing some core exercises. Oh, what a mood we have. I like that.
Okay. We’re good. Okay. So for those fitness-based classes, we like to make sure that all of the members who are taking the classes have proper alignment when they’re using the weights or even just using their own body. So we have gotten a, a big request for a workshop that includes safety and alignment. And that’s taking place in January because usually January business kind of ticks up and we have maybe a lot of beginners.
So we wanted to make sure we offered that workshop for people that are just starting and who like to take those sculpt classes, just to make sure we’re keeping everybody safe. I love that. That’s so important. And with injury prevention as well. So helpful. And so, and you also have a registered yoga teacher training, teacher training that’s going to be starting this winter. And I’m thinking that’s going to be through the year. Yep. It’s not quite, it’s about, it’s a three month program.
Yeah. And it’s, it’s eight weekends. We go from January to March and yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s an intensive program, but yeah, this is probably maybe the fourth year that we’ve done it. And the graduates of that program sometimes come and they teach, many of them do come and teach here at the studio. Some go to other places, like someone to teach yoga at their church or their community center. But either way, this training will give them a certified, a certificate to teach yoga from Yoga Alliance.
Okay all right that sounds good and then with all these events that you have within the community and you trying to spread um awareness of yoga and specifically um classes at yoga6 what does building this community mean to you and how does that play out with with your business like is that an important thing it seems like it’s an important thing at yoga6 what does that mean to you as far as building a community yeah well raj i will tell you that Uh, you know, as, as the same with your business, what we do is very human resources heavy. So we, we rely. a lot on our teachers to create those or establish those connections with our members. And we rely a lot on Amanda and her team to continually offer things like workshops and things like community events where we can either have opportunities to get together outside of class, or even if it’s in class, we create these Sometimes we’ll have theme classes.
We’ll just create a lot of opportunities to build those connections with our members, because to us, that is the most important thing that the members trust us as teachers and not only trust us, but think of us as friends. And what that does is. creates that engagement where people feel like they belong. So that’s really important to us. We like to think of this as a family and we refer to it as a family often. Yeah. And to add on to that, so like one thing that was huge when I worked in like the golf court, like a couple of different golf course industries, knowing your clients and members by name, it just, I think is so important. And just remembering like little details, whether like they’re going out of town to go visit, you know, a family member, and then you seeing them Monday morning and being like, Hey, how was your weekend? How so-and-so, you know, I feel like it, it, when people remember things that I tell them, like, it just makes me feel special and seen.
And so one thing I really like instill in all the wellness advisors that work at the desk is making sure that you get to know all the members by name. And then we have something it’s called the Warrior Program. And so it is celebrating milestones. So when you become a member, it unlocks an app that has 60, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000 and then so forth. And each When you hit one of those numbers, you get to you get to sign the warrior board. We get your picture.
We do a warrior Wednesday. So we have all the warrior milestones for the week. Once you start hitting some of the bigger numbers, you get to pick an item from the warrior bin, like a hat or a shirt. So it’s just something like I mean, I have. members that are like counting in the app ahead to telling me like, I’m going to have it. They get so excited. Yeah. And as I started taking classes, like I now I’m like, you know, I’m going to have this one by this year. Yeah. So I, um, I see how important like recognizing their milestones are. And then as well as just making sure that everyone in our studio, like they all have, a lot of people have different ideas.
There was a group of ladies that come to a class that really wanted to do a members mixer. So we were able to intertwine that with our, we do the first Sunday of every month of bubbles and flow. And so we’re gonna expand it out for 45 minutes and let the members kind of have like a, whether they want to hang out and chat in the studio about stuff or practice poses together. So they get to do kind of just mix together one another as a community. So they have been super excited for that.
We have the next one coming up. I believe it’s December 7th. I think that’s the first Sunday of the month. Yeah. I love that. And, you know, it probably gives a little bit of accountability. You know, if their friends are going to these workshops and their friends are they want to meet up with their friends and take the classes together, that’s going to keep them more accountable, keep them going back and keep them motivated to keep keep going in their practice.
Right. So quite a few couples that come. Yeah. yeah and and uh you know family members mothers daughters sisters they come together which is which is really nice to see i mean it’s it’s an amazing thing yeah i think that i love that it’s a community thing um and i think that um it’s great how you’re bringing so much awareness on the different types of yoga classes within the community.
I guess let’s talk a little bit about what’s offered in your studio as well. Um, let’s talk about some of the classes you offer. I know there’s a few, a few class. I think there’s like six that you mentioned here. Um, you said that you have six signature class types and then three specialty classes.
And I know that you have different environments too, right? You have a hot, a hotter, some of the classes that run a little bit hotter, and then some that are a little cooler and that are warm. You have different flows that are some are a little bit more powerful flows, sculpting flows, and then others are a little bit more slower mobility and more breath work and more mindful movements. And you have some beginner classes as well for people who are just starting some of the classes. And so, oh, and that restore class, which is the deep stretching, the breath work and the mobility work, that’s really good for recovery that I’m really interested in for a lot of my students. who are being discharged from physical therapy.
But I guess I wanted to ask specifically about the yoga six methodology. And that is, I guess, in every one of those classes. And I think that’s kind of unique. Can you tell me a little bit about that and how that plays out in supporting the different types of clients that that would be taking some of the classes? Sure, yeah. Well, let me just back up a little bit and I’ll sort of, Raj, I’ll walk you through what it looks like when we have a new person coming to the studio. Oh, perfect. either they’re walk-in or they’ve emailed or they just somehow they’re inquiring about what Yoga 6 is and what we have to offer.
Amanda and her staff do an incredible job of meeting with that person one-on-one, having a a lengthy discussion about their history with yoga or without yoga, their history in fitness. It’s not a breakdown of their medical status, but it’s just to get to know them, to see why are they coming into the studio? Are they working to recover from an injury? Are they looking to supplement what else they do in their athletic life? Are they needing to become more present? Are they working on meditation? So once they determine that, then they make a recommendation as to the best class to to start them with.
And then once they start with that class, we find that very quickly they they become interested in trying different types of yoga because we do. It is a variety, but the the threads through all of our classes is inclusive of everyone, meaning that you you it might not be the best situation if you if you’re a beginner yoga but you really want to take a power yoga amanda and her staff walk them through exactly what that is but somebody who’s never taken yoga can take a power because the way we teach it we always start from very simple and then open up to complex and we offer props and we offer um you know uh in more in-depth instruction for whatever class that they’re going to take so that is the main thread that we weave through even our sculpt classes and even you know in the restore classes it’s it’s a it’s a basic methodology for yoga six And I typically say, so all of our classes, like, especially here with yoga six, like they are accessible to all levels.
With that being said, I’ve learned through the years that if someone is, you know, recovering from, let’s say, even they broke their arm, like something that is, you know, we need to be mindful of, like, I wouldn’t go put them in a school class with hand weights and stuff, you know, but so the most important thing is like when I’m connecting with the first timer is finding out like, what is their goal, because I want to make sure that I can help achieve that goal and make sure I direct them in the like, right way for which classes would be best to start off with. And then from there, Obviously, we can do other formats, but I want to make sure that someone that might not be super comfortable with heat, we are a heated studio, but the base temperature is like 80 to 84. But then our added classes like can be up to like 105, 110.
So someone that maybe doesn’t want to go from that 80 to 105, you know, I want to make sure that we work up to it and they’re comfortable. And then kind of going with what Anne was saying with accessible to all levels, like someone in the sculpt could, our props, like our weights go from three pounds to I think like 20. depending on the workout, we have a board when you come into the room and it tells you what exact props you’ll need. And we’ll just say one light set, one heavy set, her heavy set might be 15 pounds, but my heavy set might be eight pounds. So you’re still doing and getting the same workout, but it’s accessible to all levels kind of based on like where you are in your practice and what you, which props and stuff you choose to use.
It’s really important to us that the clients succeed. I mean, that’s the main thing. We want to set them up for success because to expose them to something, especially if it’s brand new to them, we want to make sure they’re in the right class to start with. Yeah. I love that. And so what would you say to, so a lot of my clients, when they’re discharged, they, they are kind of nervous because especially if it’s something group, because that’s, that’s like, Oh, am I going to get lost in the mix? Am I going to injure myself? You know, type of feeling. And then yoga, sometimes they’re like, Oh, well, am I going to know how to do the different positions? And am I going to really know what a the Vinyasa flow or the salutations are. And so I guess what would you say, and you kind of answered it, but what would you say to the person who’s a little bit timid, you know, they’re discharged, they got to get moving, they got to continue moving.
I love how you’re supporting them with getting the medical history and setting them up properly. But what would you kind of say to the person who’s kind of like, oh, I’m not sure about yoga. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if it’s going to be beneficial to me. Anything that you would say to that person and kind of getting them into the studio and working with you?
Well, again, it comes back to identifying their goals. What are they coming to the studio for? Is it recovering from an injury? Then that’s probably somebody who would benefit from a restore class. Is it that they want to supplement their play recreational sports, but they need more stretching. They might benefit from a slow flow class. But for your clients that are getting discharged, it’s the conversation with us prior to that, to find out what their goals are.
And, you know, we are, especially these guys they’re very skilled at being able to determine what class i’m pretty like honest because i know that we might have five different instructors teaching restore but i can i know that like some of the restores are like level 10 and some are like level two so i always um want to make like i get i get obviously as much information as possible and kind of see like with that with what you gave as the example i would be obviously wanting to them to myself or nicole who’s our assistant manager i would make sure that one of us is there for their first class from the second they walk through the door we greet them i walk them through from start to finish so they’re not alone.
Because i know how intimidating like coming into a room that you you know has a bunch of people you have no idea what you’re doing you don’t know where the mat goes you know where where’s the proper you know so we always make sure that we connect with the teacher ahead of time i go over like the notes on their accounts so they kind of have a little bit of background information um from the second they come in i show them where they put their things i show them how to do our check-in um i make sure they’re comfortable they have a water a yoga mat um and then i you know let them get their stuff situated and then i’ll take them into the room and i’ll show them obviously like first second third row where they want to get set up.
I’ll help them walk them to the proper and I’ve learned by doing that that so many people like it really I feel like it just makes them so much more comfortable and just like relax like I’ll help put their stuff down I’ll you know ask them if they if I can grab them anything I tell them it’s gotta move the light keeps hitting me I need that effect. I know. I tell them that even if they just want to lay on their mat, just lay on your mat. Just be in the room. That is literally so fine just to lay in the room.
If you don’t feel like… just want to be there for the mindfulness part of it and just kind of relax like do it it doesn’t matter like we just want them to feel comfortable and then after the class um myself and my team like we follow up with them um kind of just ask like what did they think of the class how did they feel sometimes i don’t like them to be bombarded right there on the spot so if they’re open to talking after the class and kind of you know giving us their feelings sometimes it takes them a day just to go home see how they feel when they go to bed and then the next day we give them a call and follow up with them and just kind of go from there.
Yeah. That’s very nice. And what do you, when you touch base with them, like, I don’t know, say like three months from now, can you give me some examples of how people have benefited? Like say somebody who’s taken the restore class or a specific for a specific reason or whatever their goals were.
Can you tell me some benefits that they felt in like a three month time with yoga and doing the mobility work? Oh, yeah, there’s many. One that stands out in my mind is a very recent one. A gentleman came in, he had heard about, he is a veteran, and he had some very, very significant injuries from I’m not sure where he was injured, but very significant to the point where they had told him that he was not going to be, he would lose the ability to walk and that he might be in a wheelchair. And he tried his own physical therapy. I mean, he had help with physical therapists, and then he decided to try acupuncture, which seemed to help a little bit. and um i don’t know for what reason a lot of times i think this is just design divine intervention he ended up on our doorstep and um i think he was at his wit’s end and didn’t know you know where to go and thought i’m just going to come into this class and if i have to just lie down here i’m just going to do it and i think that you remember when jesse came it was maybe two months ago a month ago I know exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. This was about two months ago, the end of the beginning of fall into summer. And he is taking multiple classes now. He is his mobility has I wouldn’t say it’s it’s He’s probably, he’s 50% better. He had told me after one of my classes, he said that I could not walk prior to this week. I was struggling to get out of bed. And now he’s, I mean, he takes multiple classes. He takes, I saw him in a power class the other day. So he’s, his mobility, I mean, the combination of what he’s doing to help himself is incredible, but he’s, Also, there’s no judgment here, which is a nice thing. We try to create a very, very safe space for people like that that have had some trauma or just that are trying to work through something, we create a very, very safe space and there’s absolutely no judgment. And it’s also the members we find are also extremely supportive. Like we’ll always ask, you know, do you care if we say this is your first pass or, you know, would you prefer not to? And the members are always just like, yay, you know, you got this. So it’s a very healing atmosphere. Yeah, that’s a good word.
It’s very healing. It sounds very healing. Yeah, great. Thanks for explaining that. And then I guess what is the best way to get started? I know that I had a really good experience. I tried to jump in and get into one of your restore classes. And I got a text message right away. And I got a phone call right away from Nicole. And that was really encouraging and trying to get me set up to get onto the schedule as soon as possible. But I guess what’s the best way for a new client to come in and get booked?
So we take walk-ins. We take people that obviously, I would say majority of people go on our website or see us on Instagram. We have been trying to have a bigger presence on social media recently, but right when you go on the Yoga Sticks Ashburn website, the first thing in the top right corner is first class for 10. So that is our intro offer. So you can take any of our formats, any class for $10. And then we obviously have monthly memberships and class packages, but most people come in on that $10 intro to kind of get a feel and see the studio. And then from there, we go over pricing and different options.
All of our memberships are month to month. And we typically run some sort of different special quarterly. Okay, great. So sounds easy enough then. Yeah. Okay. That’s very easy. Perfect. This was really helpful. Um, I think that you guys are doing such great things in the community and bringing awareness to yoga in general and how it plays a role in your longterm fitness and in health. And there’s some powerful changes that are going on at your studio. So keep going with that. Um, and this is going to be helpful for other people to understand exactly what the experience is going to be at yoga six. So thank you so much for spending the time with me today.
Well, thank you for having us. We really thank you for this opportunity. And also thank you for what you’re doing in the world of physical therapy. It’s amazing benefits for many, many people. So we appreciate that as well.
Oh, I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you.